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these, democracies are as liable as monarchies. They flow from that military spirit which leaders foster for their own purposes, till it sometimes becomes too strong for their direction. Defeat tarnishes the glory of a warlike people, and must be wiped off by victory. This was once the principle of private life. If one of a family or clan was murdered, it was necessary to retaliate, and obliterate the stain by another murder: but now the murderer only is disgraced, and imitation but involves in similar disgrace. Is this case too strong for information and Christianity?

4. Wars of religion. The most absurd and impious of all. Men have been in arms for idolatry and theism, the Turkish faith, and the (nominally) Christian faith, the Catholic religion and the Protestant religion, and in the last war, for all sorts of religion against all sorts of infidelity. Now to put down all this imposture, hypocrisy, and blasphemy, it is only necessary that men should go from priests and statesmen to the New Testament to learn Christianity: they will soon find that it may be suffered for, but cannot be fought for. They will read of only one sword drawn in its defence,-and then Christ healed the wounded person, and rebuked Peter with, "they that use the sword shall perish by the sword."

The opinion of the public in all countries must become more enlightened, and with that en

lightenment wars will become more rare and less bloody, till they gradually cease. Armies cannot be raised, or paid, in defiance of opinion. Would it be possible, in this country, to raise a corps of fifty thousand assassins? With all the ignorance and vice that exist, hired assassination has no existence here. It has yet in Italy, and did flourish there. Opinion makes the impossibility. Were the gospel generally understood, opinion would present as insuperable a barrier to raising fifty thousand, or one thousand hired soldiers. Peace then follows in the train of improvement.

"War is a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings could not play at :"

And wisdom is their destined portion.

The Slave-Trade was abolished by the voice of humanity alone. Numbers were interested in its continuance, but nobody had any thing to gain by its cessation. If the evils of war were generally known and contemplated, surely they would not produce feebler horror at its enormities, conviction of its guilt, or wishes and efforts for its abolition, than prevailed on that subject. It is an immense advantage that, when once the subject is properly understood, the pleadings of interest will join with those of humanity, prudence co-operate with conscience, and true policy second the views of benevolence and religion.

To love peace, nations have only to learn their]!

real interests.

It is not to be imagined that violent exertions, sudden changes, or acts of legislation, will serve this great cause: they would only retard its success. Nor is it benefited by the strenuous assertion of abstract principles. That any nation should proclaim to the world that its differences shall be hereafter settled by negociation or mediation, and not by arms, is not to be expected, and probably not to be desired. All that the friends of peace can do, or ought to attempt, is, on proper occasions, to state their opinions, and constantly to diffuse information. Europe is becoming one great public. A distaste with war, a disposition to examine more rigidly into its causes and effects, and a general preference of other modes of deciding quarrels, will gradually and contemporaneously spring up and advance in all countries. Sovereigns, statesmen, generals, and also those classes of the community whose private interests are served at the expense of the public good, may be the last to partake of this improved feeling; but long before it reaches their hearts, it will have sufficient influence to controul their measures. Religion, so often in its corrupted state the occasion of discord and bloodshed, will attain its purity and power, and bring on the universal reign of the Prince of Peace.

Christianity is incompatible with war, and Christianity is both designed and destined to extend to all nations. I do not see how the obvious inference from the pacific tendency of Christianity, and its unbounded prevalence, can be eluded. But if it could, our hopes would be unshaken; for on this particular result from its progress, the prophets have bestowed their richest imagery, nor does it seem easy to reconcile the notion that mankind shall always be subject to war, with belief in, or fair interpretation of, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. We gladly turn from it to prophecies such as these: "I will break the bow, and the sword, and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.-And I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God." (Hosea ii. 18, 23.) "In the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong

nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it." (Micah iv. 1-4.) "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp; and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah xi. 6-9.) The prediction of Isaiah, from which the text is taken, closely corresponds with that of Micah, and these, with the rest, agree in asserting the diffusion of religious knowledge as the means, and the abolition of war as the result. Here, then, the argument rests on the authority of Scripture, of inspiration, of God. The general prospects of human improvement, to which your attention is next to be directed, are irradiated with light from heaven. The time shall come, when am

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