portion as it cicates tus disinterested and unbounded charity; an find our decrers are Cunista.us just as far, and no farther than Ley de a peace but beneficence.

la vw protang, tuen, and in our lives, let us bear perpetual textutoay to the great caracteristic of the gospel. Were the true apurt of Curistany to be inculcated with but half the zeal would we been wasted on doludu and disputed doctrines, a symjeux, a co-open my a very sort te be produced among Curistane of every incón, most propitious to the pacification of the wond. In consequence of the progress of knowledge, and the extension of commerce, Cunstaas of both bedspheres are at this moment brought nearer to one another than at any former period; and an intercourse, founded on religious syropathies, is gradually connecting the most cutant regions. Christians of different tongues are beginning to unite their efforts in support of that cause which, by its sublimity and purity, obscures and almost anmulates those perisable interests about which states are divided. What a powerful weapon is furnished by this new bond of union to the ministers and friends of peace! Should not the auspicious moment be seized to inculcate on all Christians in all regions, that they owe their first allegiance to their common Lord in heaven, whose first, and last, and great command is love? Should they not be taught to look with a shuddering abhorrence on war, which continually summons to the field of battle, under opposing standands, the followers of the same Savior, and commands them to imbrue their hands in each other's blood? Has not the time arrived, when the dreadful insensibility of Christians on this subject may be removed; when the repugnance of the gospel to this inhuman custom may be carried with power to every pious heart; and when all who love the Lord Jesus, the Prince of peace, may be brought to feel, and with one solemn voice to pronounce, that of all men he is most stained with murder, and most obnoxious to the wrath of God, who, entrusted with power to bless, becomes the scourge, and curse, and ravager of the creation; scatters slaughter, famine, devastation and bereavement through the earth; arms man against his brother; multiplies widows and fatherless children; and sends thousands of unprepared souls to be his accusers at the judgment seat of God? Once let Christians of every nation be brought to espouse the cause of peace with one heart and one voice, and their labor will not be in vain in the Lord. The predicted ages of peace will dawn on the world. Public opinion will be purified. The false lustre of the hero will grow dim; a nobler order of character will be admired and diffused; the kingdoms of the world will gradually become the kingdom of God and of his Christ.

I might suggest other methods; but I will only add, let this subject recur more frequently in our preaching. Let us exhibit to the hearts and consciences of men the woes and guilt of war, with all the energy of deep conviction, and strong emotion. Let us labor to associate images of horror and infamy with this unchristian custom in the minds of the young, and awaken at once their sym

ease less startling, but more common, and I was taken ill,' says a British officer, 'in ist, 1813, but continued with the regiment, better, until we arrived near Madrid. I had become so weak, that I frequently g to mount my horse. The surgeon at r; and with much difficulty I reached ost breathing my last. Here I lay, and ced to a mere skeleton, and had been when our army arrived with the French paration was made to evacuate Salafurther to the rear. Unfortunately I end my surgeon recommended me by

d to be taken prisoner; for, said he, Five but to be taken by the enemy, or life by being removed; adding coolly, re they could get me over the bridge I might have died inside the town for The cannonading had already comy had forded the river, and got round officer in the place, was left to get

fake the miserable alternative proposed Cace was already given up to plunder. in the most dreadful state of suspense, see a Frenchman pounce in upon me, regiment, to my great surprise, rushed to rescue me. He hurried me away, on the back of a rifleman, and got me yed over the bridge. On we travelled ay in full retreat, and the French in close erably wet and cold, and the roads so to the middle in mud. The effort, howfor the animals were killed, and I fell my, who knocked the cart from under me,

red me into the middle of the road, which they tore into shreds, and, turnbres, plundered me of what little I had Tom my finger, and leaving me naked to

ite I lay two days and nights, with no the dead, one of whom lay with his head died in that position during the night, and I ve his body, or even to raise myself up. st, which I attribute to some rum which a wed me to drink from his canteen. The

I saw w no living soul; and there I still lay ed. The day following, an escort of French h some prisoners, among whom was a solpany. He recognized me, and so earnestly

active as a #fmeaning Let it once form the character of a Sengle, and I will attach 'hem to every important interest of Sery. It will call forth wapathy in behalf of the suffering in

heart, open a wider adhere to enterorize, inspire a courage of exhavafless manures, and prompt to every mentice and exposure for the improvement and happiness of the human mee. The energy of us principle has been tried and displayed in the fortitude of the martyr, and in the patient labors of those who have carried the grepet into the dreary abodes of idolatry. Away then with the argiment, that war is needed as a nursery of heroism. The school of the peaceful Redeemer is infinitely more adapted to teach the Rohler, as well as the milder virtues which adorn humanity.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

XXXIX.

MILITARY HOSPITALS,

OR

TREATMENT OF THE SICK, WOUNDED AND PRISONERS IN WAR.

WAR is a tissue of woes; and its real nature, its inevitable effects, we may see in its treatment not only of its victims, but of its own agents when disqualified by fatigue, disease or wounds for continuing their work of death and devastation.

It is hardly possible, during the progress of a war, to make comfortable provisions for the diseased; and even in a time of peace, the condition of a sick soldier would be regarded by most persons as quite beyond endurance. A surgeon perhaps may come to his barrack with occasional prescriptions, and a messmate administer the medicine; but no wife, no mother, no sister is there to watch by his rude hammock, or his pallet of straw, nor a welltrained, sympathizing nurse to soothe his pains, and cheer his drooping, anguished spirits.

But look at the treatment of such sufferers in a time of war. 'There was nothing,' says an English soldier in Spain, to sustain our famished bodies, or to shelter us, when fatigued or sick, from the rain and snow. The road was one line of bloody footmarks from the sore feet of the men; and along its sides lay the dead and the dying. Too weak to drag the sick and wounded any farther in the wagons, we now left them to perish in the snow. Even Donald, the hardy Highlander, who had long been barefooted and lame like myself, at length lay down to die. For two days he had been almost blind, and unable, from a severe cold, to hold up his head. We sat down together; not a word escaped our lips. We looked around, then at each other, and closed our eyes. We felt there was no hope. We would have given in charge a farewell to our friends; but who was to carry it? Not far from us, there were, here and there, above thirty in the same situation with ourselves; and nothing but groans mingled with execrations, was to be heard between the pauses of the wind.'

'I was sent,' says the same sufferer in another place, 'to Braeburnlees, where I remained eight weeks very ill indeed. All the time I was in the hospital, my soul was oppressed with the distresses of my fellow-sufferers, and shocked at the conduct of the hospital men. Often have I seen them fighting over the expiring bodies of the patients, their eyes not yet closed in death, for articles of apparel that two had seized at once; mingling their curses and oaths with the dying groans and prayers of the poor sufferers. How dreadful the thought that my turn might come next! There was none to comfort, none to give even a drink of water with a

P. T. NO. XXXIX.

pleasant countenance. At length I recovered sufficiently to write, and longed to tell my mother where I was, that I might hear from her. I crawled along the wall of the hospital towards the door to see if I could find one more convalescent than myself, to bring me paper and pen; I could not trust the hospital men with the money. One great inducement to this difficult exertion, was to see the face of heaven, and breathe the pure air once more. Feebly, and with anxious joy, I pushed open the door. Dreadful sight! There lay Donald, my only, my long-tried friend, upon a barrow, to be carried into the dead-room, his face uncovered, and part of his body naked. The light forsook my eyes, I became dreadfully sick, and fell senseless upon the body; and after my recovery from the swoon, my mind was for some time either vacant or confused, and it was long before I could open a door without an involuntary shudder.'

Take from the same writer a specimen of the treatment that war gives its wounded servants. We then marched off, leaving our wounded, whose cries were piercing; but we could not help them. Numbers followed us, crawling on their hands and knees, and filling the air with their groans. Many who could not even crawl after us, held out their hands, supplicating to be taken with us. We tore ourselves from them, and hurried away; for we could not bear the sight. On we struggled through a dark and stormy night, carrying the wounded officers in blankets on our shoulders; but such of the wounded soldiers as had been able still to keep up with us, made the heart bleed at their cries.'

Nor is this a solitary case, or one unusually severe. In the late wars of Europe, multitudes of the sick were abandoned to their fate in camps suddenly forced by the enemy; in their rapid marches, vast numbers, enfeebled by disease, or exhausted with fatigue, sank down by the road-side to perish without succor or sympathy; and sometimes thousands were left on the battle-field, day after day, amid the stench of putrefying carcasses, without food or drink, with no shelter from the weather, and no_protection against the voracity of ravening wolves and vultures. During the far-famed campaign of Napoleon in Russia, little attention was paid to the sick, the wounded, or those who became from any other cause unable to take care of themselves. The eighty thousand victims on the fatal field of Borodino, were for the most part left where they fell; and Labaume, glancing at that scene on his return with the French from Moscow, says, "the carcasses of men and horses still covered the plain, intermingled with garments stained with blood, and bones gnawed by the dogs, and birds of prey." While marching over the field of battle, they found one poor fellow stretched upon the ground, with both his legs broken, yet still alive! Wounded on the day of the great battle, he had remained in that condition nearly two months, living on bits of bread found among the dead bodies, on grass and roots, lying by night in the carcasses of dead horses, and dressing his wounds with their flesh!