most eminent lawyers, statesmen, and authors of the present day, on the subject of war, I said, "The multis utile bellum' 6

was one

of its great causes-for the gratification of martial glory in princes-for a provision for younger sons of the nobility and gentry-for contractors and newspaper writers, and id genus omne."

"Yes," added he, "and the usura vorax is a not less powerful cause-the speculations of moneylenders who fan the flame of war to reap a harvest from its spoils."

WAR A DIRE MISCHIEF.

Warriors, says the poet, "load death's quiver with a crime;" on which, says Warburton, "I may not speak very intelligibly whilst I speak the language of poetry; but in plain English I look on war as the blackest mischief ever breathed from hell upon the fair face of the creation. It is not now for the surplice or the cloak-a very trifling quarrel-we are contending, but for deer skins or beaver skins, on which we are told our all is at stake."

"The corn

NO WAR A JUST WAR.

waves green over the fields of Borodino, as it does over those of 'carnagecrowning Waterloo.' May they be the last

monuments of the effusion of human blood! The days of battle are gone by in the West, though the sun rises red in the East. Armed aggression may be opposed by armed resistance; but a thirty years' war for the establishment of a creed, and a seven years' war of succession, will not return again in our times. It is curious, almost impossible to believe, that such words could have proceeded from the mouth of Bacon, that 'a just war is as wholesome to a nation as strong exercise to the body; it drains away superfluous humours.' The possessions in Africa are teaching this to the French; we may also experience something of the kind in our Eastern dominions and Chinese war: but neither of them come under the denomination of the just war, which is the saving clause of the Chancellor. It would be difficult to prove how that which is naturally productive of so much injustice can at any time be just."-Life of a Travelling Physician, vol. iii., p. 76.

NATIONAL ARBITRATION A DESIDERATUM.

"We daily make great improvements in natural, there is one I wish to see in moral philosophy-the discovery of a plan which would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats."— Franklin.

CHRISTIANITY THE ANTAGONIST OF WAR.

"When the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influence over the minds of public men in their public capacities, war will cease throughout the Christian world."-Bp. Watson.

CIVIL WAR A GIGANTIC EVIL.

"All wars destroy the morals of mankind by habituating them to refer everything to force, and by necessitating them so often to dispense with the ordinary suggestions of sympathy and justice.

"But this is peculiarly the effect of civil wars, where the moral obligations before the contest have been more completely established, and have

yet, during the contest, with more than ordinary violence, been torn asunder; that regular occupation of the mind amid the common pursuits of life, those peaceful habits of thought which are so necessary to most of the virtues of the human character-all these, on occasions of civil war are most materially disturbed, and even sometimes destroyed ; and the military virtues (high virtues, no doubt, but which have been always found compatible with the greatest licentiousness,) seem alone to survive.-Smyth, lect. vii., p. 34.

MOTIVES OF WARS.

"The wars of Europe were in their origin grand movements of nations. Impelled by necessity, by caprice, or some other cause, entire populations, sometimes numerous, sometimes mere bands, migrated from one territory to another. This is the general character of European wars until after the crusades at the end of the 13th century. At that epoch wars of a different character commenced almost equally different from modern wars. These were foreign wars, entered intonot by the people, but by their

What

rulers, who sought at the head of their armies adventures and dominions in foreign countries. They left their own states to plunge into the heart of Germany, Italy, or even Africa, without any other motive than their personal caprice. Almost all the wars of the 15th, and part of those of the 16th centuries are of this nature. interest-I do not speak of a legitimate interest —but what motive merely had France to desire that Charles the Eighth should possess the kingdom of Naples? This war was evidently not undertaken from any consideration of policy: the king believed he had personal claims on the kingdom of Naples, and, urged by personal ambition, and in order to satisfy his personal desires, he attempted the conquest of a distant state, which was no advantage to the territorial convenience of his own kingdom; which, on the contrary, compromised his exterior power and his internal repose. The same thing may be said of the expedition of Charles the Fifth into Africa. The last war of this kind was the expedition of Charles the Twelfth against Russia.-Guizot's Lectures on European Civilization, p. 447.