it becomes us to bow in submission, and hide ourselves in the dust before that Holy Being who knows our ill deserts, and whose secret ways are inscrutable to man. But in the devastations of war, it is not an Almighty Being whose prerogatives we are not at liberty to question, but one of the feeble. erring creatures of his footstool, that seizes the burning thunderbolt, and scatters it through the world. And what renders the act the more astonishing, it is not the mere impulse of an unforeseen phrenzy, the ebullition of a momentary madness, but a matter of calculation, and cool reasoning, carried on in the very face of heaven, and in defiance of the divine precept. thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

It is well ordered in Providence, however, that criminal principles and practices do not fail to expose themselves, and ultimately to work their own cure. The cries of widows and orphans had been heard from every quarter, mingling on every breeze; but they were too little regarded. The symptoms were at last observed of a great political commotion; the clouds came; the thunders muttered; the lightnings gleamed; there was a quaking and rocking of the earth, and then there suddenly opened the grand volcano of the French Revolution of 1790, to the wonder and bountiful edification of all the advocates of war. At that dreadful period there were certain experiments, which had a wonderful effect in enlightening the sentiments of some classes of people. It was found that the glittering sword of war could strike upward, as well as downward; among the high and the mighty, as well as among the poor and powerless peasants. The scythe fell upon the neck of princes; those, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, were arrayed in beggar's rags, and ate their crumbs in a dungeon; the innocent children died with the guilty fathers; delicate women, the delight of their friends, and the ruling star of palaces, were smitten by the hand of the destroyer, and bowed their heads in blood. And then were beheld the hundred guillotines, the horrid invention of the fusillades, the drownings in the Loire, the dreadful devastations of La Vendee, the gathering of armies on the plains of Italy, the bridge of Lodi, and the battle of Marengo. These were the beginnings of terrors, the opening of the incipient seal; but the end was not yet. For twenty successive years the apocalypse of the book of war opened itself from one end of Europe to the other, and on the ocean as well as on the land, in the thunders and fires which at once shook, and enlightened, and awed the world, of the Nile and Trafalgar, of Jena and Austerlitz, together with the dashing of throne against throne, and of nation against nation. At length the "white horse of death" was seen taking his way through the

centre of Europe, and power was given to him to kill with the sword and with hunger; and he was followed by "the beasts of the earth," an army of five hundred thousand soldiers; and they were all offered up as victims on the frozen fields of Russia; and the Kremlin, and the ancient and mighty city of Moscow were burnt upon their funeral pyre. The earth shook to its centre; a howling and a lamentation went up to heaven; the living ate the dead, and then fed upon their own flesh, and then went mad; the wolves and the vultures held their carnival, while Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted. Nevertheless the sickle of the destroyer was again thrust among the clusters; and the wine-press of war was trodden at Dresden, and Leipsic, and Waterloo, till the blood "came out of the wine-press, even to the horse-bridles."

The increased intercourse of nations, and a consequent intermingling of their interests and sympathies, are tending strongly to such an international tribunal as we propose. It has heretofore been the policy of nations to be as independent of each other as possible, and to regard the injury of a neighbor as a benefit to themselves; but they are fast learning, that God made nations, like individuals in a family, like the cluster of families in a town, or the multitude of towns constituting a state, for a system of reciprocal dependence, and so interwoven their interests as to render the prosperity of one tributary to that of all the rest. Hence the wonderful impulse given to the commerce, population and general thrift of Christendom. This happy state of things war would interrupt; and its evils, felt not only on the tax-book of the belligerent, but in the workshops and counting-rooms of the neutral, are combining against it nearly all the pecuniary interests of the world.

Observe, also, the growing disposition of Christendom to employ pacific expedients for the adjustment of national disputes. These substitutes,―negotiation, arbitration and mediation, are fast coming to supersede entirely the actual use of the sword. There seems to be a general, established concert for avoiding war by such means. Holland and Belgium referred their difficulties to England and France; points in dispute between Great Britain and ourselves were submitted first to Russia, and next to Holland; the United States and Mexico called on the king of Prussia to act as their umpire; and the five powers of Europe, extending their benevolence beyond the limits of Christendom, offered to mediate between the Pacha of Egypt, and the Grand Sultan. Here are the elements, all the essential principles, of the tribunal we propose; and they must pave the way, sooner or later, for its actual establishment. There is even now a strong and grow

ing predisposition in favor of such a scheme. It is already a favorite. Every body hails the proposal as a magnificent con ception; even the skeptic deems it a glorious dream of phi lanthropy; and all profess themselves anxious to see it realized, if it can be, in the permanent peace and amity of the civilized world. The current of the age is setting towards it in a gulf-stream. The pursuits, the habits, the sympathies of nearly all Christendom encourage it, invite it, demand it; nor can the general mind ever be put to rest without it. Come it must; and the only question is, how soon?

Mark, also, the degree of actual preparation for such a tribunal. The age even now is well nigh ripe for it. The intercourse of civilized nations by travel and commerce, by enterprises of benevolence, and interchanges of art, and science, and literature, has woven their sympathies, habits and interests into the web of a vast and glorious brotherhood. They form one community, one great family. Christendom has already become, in many important respects, a confederacy of nations; and, sooner or later, they must have a common tribunal to regulate their intercourse without the sword, and to watch over their common interests. They deeply need it now; and they might come at once under its supervision with little or no violence to their present habits; for the frequent resort of late to mediation, arbitration, and other pacific expedients for the adjustment of their difficulties, has paved the way for the speedy establishment of a congress embracing all Christendom.

Review, likewise, the history of international law and intercourse. Trace its progress from the earliest times through Egyptians and Persians, through Greeks and Romans, through the chaos of the dark ages, through the confederacies, and leagues, and diplomacies of later periods, down to the arbitraments and congresses of the last century or two; and you will find ourselves drifted already to the very brink of this final improvement in the law of nations. Only one breeze more, and we reach the port.

To the same conclusion would a review of consolidated governments lead us. If we go back to patriarchal ages, and observe how families expanded into tribes, how tribes were formed into petty states like the twelve hundred in ancient Italy, how such states were at length combined into large kingdoms like those of modern Europe, we shall see that only one step more in this process of fifty centuries is required for a general confederacy of Christendom under a common congress and court. Such a result, however sublime and momentous, would be only the extension of an old and wellestablished principle. It would merely be pushing the car of

improvement a little farther on the same track of ages. It would only do for large communities or states what has been done a thousand times over for smaller ones.

All the materials, indeed, are ready for the edifice. We need no new principles; only an application of those which have been for ages at work in every well-regulated government on earth. Trace the gradations of civil courts from the justice's bench through the court of common pleas, and the supreme court of a state, up to the judiciary of the United States; and you will perceive that we can go no farther without reaching a high court of nations. The whole art of government must either stop here forever, or come, sooner or later, to this glorious result, this climax of political improve

ment.

SECT. 5.-EFFICACY OF THE MEASURE.

The measure we recommend, might well be expected to accomplish, in a good degree, all the objects heretofore specified; but we shall now consider merely its influence in preserving peace, and endeavor to prove, both from history, and the nature of the case, its probable efficacy for such a purpose.

Listen, then, to the teachings of history. The experiment has already been made in a variety of ancient and modern cases; and the general result justifies the belief, that such a tribunal as we propose, would eventually put an end forever to the wars of Christendom. The Amphictyonic Council of Greece, composed of delegates from each of its states, and empowered to examine and decide all their disputes, did much to preserve peace between them for a long series of ages; and, though unable, in times so barbarous and warlike, to keep the sword continually in its scabbard, still it must have saved rivers of blood. The Achæan League did the same, and was often solicited, even by foreign nations, to act as the arbiter of their disputes. We might also quote almost every government in Europe as a virtual illustration of this principle; for Austria, France, Great Britain, all the leading states of Christendom, kept for the most part in domestic peace for centuries, are each a cluster of small tribes or baronies so long associated under one head as to have lost in some cases their original distinctions as independent principalities. Austria and Great Britain are obvious, striking examples; and the fact that the three kingdoms of the latter, and the numerous principalities of the former, are preserved in amity by the general government common to them all, goes far to prove the efficacy of our principle. This principle has hewise kept peace between our own states for more than

sixty years, (1844,) and between the confederated cantons of Switzerland for more than five centuries. Even the occasional congresses or conferences, so frequently held during the last two centuries between the leading powers of Europe as to average one every four years, have seldom failed either to preserve or restore peace. Not that they have always been completely successful; but they have fully evinced the efficacy of the principle, and added strong confirmation to the hope of an eventual confederacy of all Christendom under a congress or court that shall keep its members in constant and perpetual peace. If experiments so partial, and under circumstances comparatively so unfavorable, have still accomplished so much even for pagan or half-christianized nations, what may we not expect from a tribunal perfect as the highest wisdom of modern times can make it, cheerfully recognized by the whole civilized world, and enforced by a strong, universal, omnipresent public opinion?

Look at the nature of the case. Such a tribunal would either produce or imply a state of public sentiment strongly favorable to the peaceful adjustment of all difficulties between nations. 'There would be a general, most decided aversion to the sword; a feeling like that which made Franklin say, there never was a good war, or a bad peace; a willingness, a full determination to preserve peace at almost any sacrifice short of national destruction or dismemberment. Would not such sentiments alone, if universally prevalent, well nigh suffice to keep all Christendom in perpetual friendship and peace?

But a congress would remove the grand incentives to war. It would crush, or chain, or neutralize the war-spirit. It would make the warrior's business odious like that of the hangman, and render it the chief glory of rulers, not to wage successful war, but to preserve unbroken, universal peace. It would give a new direction to the energies of all Christendom, and turn the ambition of princes and statesmen into peaceful channels. It would sweep away the grand nurseries of war by superseding all war-establishments. It would eventually convert standing armies into handfuls of police-men, and leave war-ships to rot, arsenals to moulder, and fortifications to crumble into ruins. Here are the chief combustibles of war; and, when these are all removed, it will be well nigh impossible to kindle its fires on any emergency.

But such a congress would obviate nearly all the occasions of war. These are now found in points of national honor;— in sudden bursts of passion among rulers;-in occasional outrages of officers or citizens;-in clashing views, customs or interests;-in temporary misconceptions and animosities;in claims for redress denied, or unduly delayed;-in mutual