to almost certain perdition. No class of men, not even seamen, are so poorly provided with the means of grace. Next to nothing is done for their salvation. There is no pastor, no missionary among them to care for their souls; and, if there were, his labors, generally subject to the dictation of an ungodly commander, would probably be, like those of Baxter himself even in a Puritan camp, well-nigh useless. No Sabbath dawns upon them; no sanctuary opens its doors to them; no Sabbath-schools, no prayer-meeting, no family altar, scarce a Bible or a tract, can be found among the mass of men trained to the work of human butchery for a livelihood. So it must be. Look at the very nature of war; and tell us what can be done for the souls of men cast in its own mould, imbued with its spirit, and steeped in its vices and crimes. Review the history of war; and tell us what has been done or attempted for the salvation of warriors. Among the millions that fought, and the millions that fell, during the late wars of Europe, did one in ten or a hundred enjoy the ordinary means of grace ?-We grant that much more is now done in a few Christian countries for warriors; but how very little, and with results how meagre and miserable! We hear indeed of war chaplains; but what do they do for their spiritual charge? What can they do? The whole business of war-chaplaincies is little else than a piece of solemn mockery.

The war-system, then, makes fearful havoc of souls among its own agents even in peace. It is a school of irreligion, vice and profligacy; nor could you well select a surer way to perdition, than the army or the navy. How few in either give any evidence of being prepared for heaven! Yet are there in Christendom itself some three millions, even in peace, training in this school of error and sin for a

miserable eternity. If these millions all die off on an average in twenty years, there would annually go into the world of spirits 150,000 souls; and how few of them prepared for their last account! With this number, compare the sum total of churchmembers at all the missionary stations among the heathen in 1844, when they amounted to 172,233, or a little more, as the result of half a century's labors, than the annual sacrifice of souls in Christendom itself at the shrine of the war-demon even in peace!!

War, also, stifles the very disposition to use the means of grace. Breathe its spirit of anger, hatred and revenge into any circle of families; and would the Christians in that circle be intent on the salvation of its impenitent members? Were the same war-passions to pervade and convulse a whole congregation, would their pastor be able, or his church inclined, to use the means indispensable to a general revival of religion? War tends to check all efforts for the salvation of men; and, could its malignant, vindictive spirit gangrene the bosom of every Christian on earth, not another missionary, not even another Bible or tract would ever go from Christian shores, to light the lamp of life everlasting amid the six or eight hundred millions of our race, now groping their way to eternity beneath the death-shades of paganism.

But war, likewise, tends in many ways to neutralize the best means of grace when used. It shuts or steels the minds of men against their power. Were two professors of religion embroiled in a well-known disgraceful feud, would their impenitent neighbors be disposed to receive religious instruction from their lips? Should a preacher of the gospel, stained with the blood of an enemy slain in duel or battle, enter the pulpit of your own church, would

you not instantly shut against him every avenue to your heart? Yet such is the attitude in which the church of Christ, belied by the wars of Christendom, has for centuries stood before the whole world.

Few suspect how far the gospel is neutralized by the incidental influences of war. It is well known that the old French war put an end to the glorious revivals in this country under Whitefield; and during the forty years of war-ferment from that war to the treaty of 1783, there was an almost universal and unbroken dearth of revivals. In 1841 I visited a retired town in Massachusetts, and examined the records of its only church for more than a century previous. No battle had been fought there; no army, scarce a recruiting officer, had prowled over or near it; nor had the ordinary means of grace been interrupted more than is common even in a time of peace. Yet mark the result. From 1729 to 1744, fourteen years of peace, 149 were added to the church; an average of nearly eleven a year. From the beginning of the old French war to the close of our revolution in 1783, some forty years of military excitement, there were only 77 additions; less than two a year, or a diminution of more than five hundred per cent. from the previous period of peace. From 1810 to 1815, the time of our last war with two years of antecedent exasperation, only three persons were received into the church; one in a little less than two years! From 1830 to 1839, there were 183 additions; about nineteen a year, or an increase upon the last case of nearly four thousand per cent! Thus we

find the mere excitements of war diminishing the efficacy of essentially the same means, first more than 500 per cent., next some 2000 per cent., and finally almost 4000 per cent.; nor is it any exag

geration to say that war probably neutralizes fourfifths, if not nine-tenths, of the saving power of the gospel!

How fearfully, then, must war tend to prevent the indispensable influences of God's Spirit. Vain, without his blessing, would be the labors of Paul or Gabriel; but will he succeed the instrumentality of those who breathe a war-spirit? Should all the churches in our land catch such a spirit, and cherish hatred instead of love, revenge in place of forgiveness, the entire cluster of war-passions, could they expect, in such a state, seasons of "refreshing from the presence of the Lord?" Yet such passions are inseparable from actual warfare, and, pervading more or less a whole people, must inevitably drive the Spirit of God from his work of reviving grace among them.

Surely, then, war must be a fearful destroyer of immortal souls. It is the devil's master-device for their wholesale destruction. It ripens them fast for perdition, and then sweeps them into the bottomless pit by thousands, and even by millions! Would to God there were more room for doubt on this point! I know, indeed, the belief of some, that none, however wicked and impenitent, will finally be lost; but if, as evangelical Christians believe, we must all repent, or perish, must be born again, or never see the kingdom of heaven; if, in the lan-guage of Paul, 'neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God; how impossible to suppose, that any considerable number of warriors, the mass of whom answer so notoriously to the characters here given, can ever enter the world of glory!

How immense, then, the ruin of souls by war! Think of a battle-field where ten, twenty, fifty, a

hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand fell in a day; of nine or ten millions sacrificed in the late wars of Europe; of thirty-two millions by Jenghiz-Khan alone in forty years! God only knows-we dare not even conjecture-how many souls this custom may in all past time have sent, unrenewed and unforgiven, to their last account!

PART III.

REMEDIES FOR WAR.

CHAPTER I.

THE SUPPORTS OF WAR.

SECTION I.

PLEAS IN FAVOR OF WAR.

We have looked at the evil; and we now inquire for a remedy. This remedy must suit the nature of the malady; and, since war comes from the wrong choice of men, we must correct their modes of reasoning on the subject, and shall consider first the pleas urged in its behalf, and then the influences which still sustain the custom even in Christendom.

Many of the old arguments for war are too absurd or too cold-blooded to deserve a moment's consideration. It used to be gravely asserted, that war is a healthy stimulus to the body-politic; that