LESSON XVI. The Miseries of War. 1. Though the whole race of man is doomed to dissolu tion and we are all hastening to our long home; yet at each successive moment, life and death seem to divide between them the dominion of mankind, and life to have the larger share. It is otherwise in war: death reigns there without a rival, and without control. 2. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here they are the vigorous and the strong. 3. It is remarked by the most ancient of poets, that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely, indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow, which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. 4. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair; the aged parent, the widowed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering; her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. 5. But, to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are so liable. 6. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger, or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment: every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. E 7. In these last extremities we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene then must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance, and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth, amidst the trampling of horses, and the insults of an enraged foe! 8. If they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in illprepared receptacles for the wounded and sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. 9. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife, or mother, or sister, is near to sooth their sorrows, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death! Unhappy man! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust? 10. We must remember, however, that as a very small proportion of military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be ascribed to this source. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword: confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms; their life is a continual scene of hardships and dangers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold, and watchfulness. Crowded into hospitals and prisons, contagion spreads amongst their ranks, till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy. 11. We have hitherto only adverted to the sufferings of those who are engaged in the profession of arms, without taking into our account the situation of the countries which are the scenes of hostilities. How dreadful to hold every thing at the mercy of an enemy, and to receive life itself as a boon dependent on the sword! 12. How boundless the fears which such a situation must inspire, where the issues of life and death are determined by no known laws, principles or custom, and no conjecture can be formed of our destiny, except so far as it is dimly deciphered in characters of blood, in the dictates of revenge, and the caprices of power! 13. Conceive but for a moment the consternation which the approach of an invading army would impress on the peaceful villages in our own neighbourhood. When you have placed yourselves for an instant in that situation, you 'will learn to sympathize with those unhappy countries which have sustained the ravages of arms. But how is it possible to give you an idea of these horrors! 14. Here you behold rich harvests, the bounty of Heaven, and the reward of industry, consumed in a moment, or trampled under foot, while famine and pestilence follow the steps of desolation. There the cottages of peasants given up to the flames, mothers expiring through fear, not for themselves but their infants; the inhabitants flying with their helpless babes in all directions, miserable fugitives on their native soil! 15. In another part you witness opulent cities taken by storm; the streets, where no sounds were heard but those of peaceful industry, filled on a sudden with slaughter and blood, resounding with the cries of the pursuing and the pursued; the palaces of nobles demolished, the houses of the rich pillaged, and every age, sex, and rank, mingled in promiscuous massacre and ruin! ROBERT HALL. LESSON XVII. The Broken-Hearted Woman. 1. How many bright eyes grow dim-how many soft cheeks grow pale-how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness. As the dove will clasp its wings to its side and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals, so it is the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. 2. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her the desire of the heart has failed. The great charm of existence is at an end. 3. She neglects all the cheerful exercises that gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is brokenthe sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams" dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under the least external assailment. 4. Look for her after a little while, and you find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should now be brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some slight indisposition, that laid her low-but no one knows the mental malady that previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler. 5. She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its core. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf; until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay. 6. I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. W. IRVING. LESSON XVIII. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 1. During my residence in the country, I used frequently to attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mouldering monuments, its dark oaken panneling, all reverend with the gloom of departed years, seemed to fit it for the haunt of solemn meditation A Sunday, too, in the country, is so holy in its repose: such a pensive quiet reigns over the face of nature, that every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel all the natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright, 2. I do not pretend to be what is called a devout man, but there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amidst the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience no where else; and if not a more religious, I think I am certainly a better, man on Sunday, than on any other day of the seven. 3. But in this church I felt myself continually thrown back upon the world by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms around me. The only being that seemed thoroughly to feel the humble and prostrate piety of a true christian, was a poor decrepid old woman bending under the weight of years and infirmities. 4. She bore the traces of something better than abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the village poor, but sat alone on the steps of the altar. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society, and to have nothing left her but the hopes of heaven. 5. When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer-habitually conning her prayer book, which her palsied hand and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she evidently knew by heart-I felt persuaded that the faultering voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the responses of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting of the choir. W IRVING. E 2 |