the piteous moans and convulsive breathings of the poor infants. On a bed near these children, lay a beautiful young woman apparently asleep; but she was cold, and had long been dead. One arm clasped her neck, over which a silk scarf was thrown to conceal the gash in her throat which had destroyed life. Near her was the corpse of a woman somewhat older, her features distorted as if she had died by strangulation; not far from her lay a dead child stabbed through the neck; and in a narrow verandah adjoining, were the corpses of two more women suspended by their necks from the rafters. They were both young, one quite a girl; and her features, in spite of their hideous distortion from the mode of her death, still retained traces of their original beauty.'

Let us select two instances from the war of our own revolution. A state of fierce, almost savage exasperation existed between the whigs and tories; and a party of the latter, on capturing a Capt. Huddy from New Jersey, barbarously hung him with an insulting label on his bosom. This excited general indignation, and the people of that state urged Washington to secure justice for the murder, or make retaliation. A grand council of war held on the subject, came to the unanimous conclusion, that there should be retaliation, that the victim should be of equal rank with Capt. Huddy, and be designated by lot. The lot fell on Capt. Asgill, a young man of nineteen, the only son of a British nobleman. When the tidings, which interested many in his fate, reached England, his sister was sick with a delirious fever, and his father so near his end that his family did not venture to inform him of the affair. The mother applied to the king and queen in behalf of her son, and wrote an impassioned letter to the French minister. "The subject,' says she, 'on which I implore your assistance, is too heart-rending to be dwelt on. My son, my only son, dear to me as he is brave, amiable as he is beloved, only nineteen years of age, a prisoner of war, is at present confined in America as an object of reprisal. Figure to yourself, sir, the situation of a family in these circumstances. Surrounded with objects of distress, bowed down with grief, words are wanting to paint the scenes of misery around me. My husband given over by his physicians some hours before the arrival of this news, not in a condition to be informed of it; and my daughter attacked by a delirious fever, and speaking of her brother in tones of wildness without any interval of reason, unless it be to listen to some circumstances which may console her heart. Let your own sensibility conceive my profound, inexpressible misery, and plead in my favor for a son born to abundance, to independence, and the happiest prospects. Permit me once more to entreat your interference; but, whether my request be granted or not, I am confident you will pity the distress by which it is prompted, and your humanity will drop a tear on my fault, and blot it out forever.'

The other case is still more touching. Col. Hayne, of South Carolina, a man of high character, endeared to all that knew his worth, and bound fast to life by six small children, and a wife tenderly beloved, was taken prisoner by the British, and sentenced to

be hung! His wife, falling a victim to disease and grief combined, did not live to plead for her husband; but great and generous efforts were made for his rescue. A large number, both Americans and Englishmen, interceded in his behalf; the ladies of Charleston signed a petition for his release; and his six motherless children were presented on their knees as humble suitors for the life of their father. It was all in vain; for war has no heart but of iron. His eldest son, a lad about thirteen years old, was permitted, as a special favor, to stay with him awhile in prison. On seeing his father loaded with irons, and condemned to die on the gallows, the poor boy was overwhelmed with consternation and grief. The wretched father tried to console him by various considerations, and added, 'to-morrow, my son, I set out for immortality; you will follow me to the place of my execution; and, when I am dead, take my body, and bury it by the side of your dear mother.' Overcome by this appeal, the boy threw his arms around his father's neck, crying, 'O my father, I'll die with you! I will die with you, father!' The wretched father, still loaded down with irons, was unable to return his son's embrace, and merely said in reply, 'no, my son, never! Live to honor God by a good life; live to serve your country, and to take care of your brother and little sisters.'

The next morning, Col. Hayne was led forth to execution. That fond and faithful boy accompanied him; and, when they came in sight of the gallows, the father turned to him, and said, now, my son, show yourself a man. That tree is the boundary of my life, and all its sorrows. Beyond that, the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are forever at rest. Don't, my son, lay our separation too much at heart; it will be short at longest. It was but the other day your dear mother died; to-day I die; and you, my son, though young, must follow us shortly.' 'Yes, my father,' replied the broken-hearted boy, 'I shall follow you shortly; for I feel indeed that I can't, can't live long.' And so it was; for, on seeing his much-loved father first in the hands of the executioner, and then struggling in the halter from the gallows, he stood transfixed with horror. Till then he had all along wept profusely as some relief to his agonized feelings; but that sight!it dried up the fountain of his tears; he never wept again His reason reeled on the spot; he became an incurable maniac; and in his last moments, he called out, and kept calling out for his father in tones that drew tears from the hardest hearts.

Such is the influence of war on domestic happiness. And must its baleful ravages still continue? Shall such a fiend from hell be permitted to prowl in pollution, blood and tears over this only Eden of earth? Husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, sons and brothers, sisters and daughters! will you make no vigorous, determined, persevering efforts to banish from Christendom, if not from the whole world, this deadliest foe to your present and immortal welfare?

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

PLAIN SKETCHES OF WAR.

BY R. P. STEBBINS,

PRES. THEOL. SEM., MEADVILLE, PA.

WAR is acknowledged by most to be one of the greatest evils; but still there is upon this subject a carelessness truly alarming. When the tocsin is sounded, and our fathers and brothers are giving us their last farewell, then we weep; but it is too late for repentance. We must not wait till the day of trial comes, before we prepare to meet it. We must adopt the motto of the warrior, as we do his other principles, by inversion: "in time of peace prepare for PEACE."

But how shall we prepare for peace? Spend the money, now squandered for warlike preparations, in educating the people. Better, if we would keep peace, sell our arsenals and muskets, our war-ships and swords, and buy spelling-books, and turn our generals and commodores into school-masters, than increase our army and navy. To prevent war, be unprepared for it; so when the passions are up, they will have time to subside ere we can act. A war-like spirit and preparation is the most active and deadly foe of peace. Who is the peaceful man, he who carries his dirk and pistols, or he who is unarmed, and careful in the discharge of his duties? In what neighborhood would you prefer to live for safety's sake;-in that where knives and dirks were worn and used,or in that where no such weapons were named or known? The spirit of war, the military spirit, is the one which will plunge us into blood.

The advocates for war dare not impose for its support a direct tax upon the people. They would not bear it; they would rebel; and their rebellion would be as justifiable as the war they are indirectly taxed to pay for. But this draining of our pockets does not come to us in the revolting shape of a tax. It sweetens our tea, smokes in our coffee, pleases in our books, adorns and warms in our vestments. We never think that we are paying more than the real value of the article bought, when we make a purchase. This is the reason why war is thought by so many to be a money-making business. But the cost is none the less real, nor the destruction of property any the less deplorable, for not being directly perceived. Since the commencement of the Revolution we have expended (1836) $450,000,000 for war and warlike preparations, and only $90,000,000 for civil purposes. If a direct tax was imposed upon us for our warlike preparations, our navies and arms would be sunk in the depths of the ocean to-morrow.

The national debt of England is nearly four thousand millions of dollars; a debt produced by war. The interest on that debt, and the parts of it which have been liquidated, amount to more than

P. T. NO. LIII.

ten times as much more, or more than thirty thousand millions of dollars. And what has she obtained in return? Ask the depths of the ocean; and the sunken fleets of Trafalgar and the Nile will answer. She has gained the fame of making her "Lion" roar over the vanquished armada, of "letting slip the dogs of war" upon the palmy shores of Hindostan, of giving Wellington immortality upon the plains of Waterloo. And is this all? No. It has erected monuments in Westminster Abbey to the greatest butchers of our race that ever lived; it has written poverty upon the foreheads of a majority of her laborers; it has crushed the many with burdensome taxes to honor the destroyers of our race with a name,-a name which, if society understood its interests as it ought, would only render its possessor detestable.

Give me the money that has been spent in war, and I will purchase every foot of land upon the globe. I will clothe every man, woman and child in an attire that kings and queens would be proud of; I will build a school house upon every hill side, and in every valley over the whole habitable earth; I will supply that school house with a competent teacher; I will build an academy in every town, and endow it; a college in every State, and fill it, with able professors; I will crown every hill with a church consecrated to the promulgation of the gospel of peace; I will support in its pulpit an able teacher of righteousness, so that on every Sabbath morning the chime on one hill should answer to the chime on another, round the earth's broad circumference; and the voice of prayer, and the song of praise, should ascend like an universal holocaust to heaven. The darkness of ignorance would flee before the bright light of the sun of science; paganism would be crushed by the fall of her temples, shaken to their deep foundations by the voice of truth; war would no more stalk over the earth, trampling under his giant tread all that is beautiful and lovely beneath the sky. This is not fancy; I wish it was; for it reflects upon the character of man. It is the darkest chapter in human depravity thus to squander God's richest blessings upon passion and lust.

Our religion forbids fighting. So the early Christians understood it; and they went to the stake rather than take up arms. It was one of the charges made by the heathen against the Christians, that they would not fight; and they vindicated themselves by saying that their religion forbade it. War tells us to cherish hatred towards those whom Christianity commands us to love. What would be said to you by an army, were you to exhort them, upon the eve of a battle, to love their enemies, to cherish feelings of good-will towards those whom they were about to destroy? Would not many a lip of scorn be curled at you? Would you not be told that such doctrine would do for the church, not for the battle-field? Would not the commander-in-chief order you to be seized for preaching treachery to his troops? Where in the code of war do you find the broad, deep, unbounded love of the New Testament inculcated on soldiers? Are they not commanded to kill, to wreak vengeance on their enemies? Of what nature is that

spirit which burns in the bosoms of those who fight for hire? Is it the spirit of love, of forgiveness? Can there be love in the bosom of that man who returns from the field exulting in the death of his foe? Go to the army, and hear the prayers there offered; and tell me what spirit he is of, who prays that the aim of the musket may secure its victim, and the roar of the cannon be the requiem of thousands, and the sea weeds be the winding-sheet of men? Are these the sentiments of Christianity? How can love consist in doing harm, unmixed harm? "Love," says Paul, "worketh no ill to its neighbor." What! encourage men to mangle and hew each other to pieces, to cherish the spirit of love! Lead out men to fight, teach them to gash and shoot each other, just to make them tender-hearted!

The trade of the warrior is to injure; his sworn duty, to harm; his office, to destroy. It may be said, this evil is done that good may come out of it. Do evil that good may come! Not so thought Paul. This is the rule of Christianity, do good, only good. Does any one say, it is no evil to war? Its sole aim is to harm, to injure, to kill. Follow the track of a victorious army. Why do I call it victorious? Because desolation, misery and death are in its path. See the fertile fields laid waste; the ravaged village smouldering in ruins; birds of prey uttering their cries, hastening to devour; children flying, imploring the protection of their pale and trembling mothers, who are themselves exposed to the brutality of the soldiers, and fear life more than death; sons gnawing the ground in the agony of the death-struggle; fathers lifting up imploring hands for protection, only to be pinned to the earth with the bayonet; husbands begging for a drop of water, or praying to be run through with the sword, to relieve them from their misery, their excruciating torture; groans from the mangled, and wails from the expiring. This is war; these are the deeds of love which are performed on the battle-field; this the mercy which exercises its kind offices in war; this the forgiveness which soldiers offer to their enemies!

Go with me to the field of battle, and tell me if it is not an arena of the worst passions which burn in the human bosom; tell me if Christ's religion teaches men to do this; tell me if he taught the sword to devour, the fire to burn, the bullet to mangle God's image; tell me if loving ever covered a field with slaughter, with the dead and dying; if praying for those who injure us, ever carried pain to the domestic circle, and caused widows and orphans to pour forth tears like water. Go with me to the hospitals, and see the misery which war brings with it, and tell me whether Christianity ever achieved such deeds of darkness, spread such a curtain of sackcloth over human prospects!

Look at that majestic ship on the bosom of the ocean. See the thousand human beings on board, their bosoms swelling high with hope, their hearts beating with pride. In the distance, a flag is seen streaming upon the edge of the waters. It is the enemy's. The running to and fro-the bustle-the confusion-the imprecations upon the foe-the oaths-the curses-tell what deeds of darkness are to be done. One short hour is enveloped in smoke, and