injury, but to do good. We have met in the broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that no advantage can be taken on either side, but all is to be openness, brotherhood and love; while all are to be treated as of the same flesh and blood." These are, indeed, words of true greatness. "Without any carnal weapons,' says one of his companions, "we entered the land, and inhabited therein as safe as if there had been thousands of garrisons." A great man, worthy of the mantle of Penn, the venerable philanthropist, Clarkson, in his life of the founder of Pennsylvania, says, "The Pennsylvanians became armed, though without arms; they became strong, though without strength; they became safe, without the ordinary means of safety. The constable's staff was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the greater part of a century; and never, during the administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a war or a quarrel."

Here, then, will be found the true grandeur of nations—not in extent of territory, nor in vastness of population, nor in wealth; not in fortifications, or armies, or navies; not in the phosphorescent glare of fields of battle; not in Golgothas, though covered by monuments that kiss the clouds; nor yet in triumphs of the intellect alone, in literature, learning, science or art. The true grandeur of humanity is in MORAL ELEVATION, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man; and the truest tokens of this grandeur in a State are the diffusion of the greatest happiness among the greatest number, and that passionless, God-like Justice, which controls the relations of the State to other States, and to all the people who are committed to its charge. Peace has its own peculiar victories, in comparison with which Marathon, and Bannockburn, and Bunker Hill shall lose their lustre. Our own Washington rises to a truly heavenly stature,-not when we follow him over the ice of the Delaware to the capture of Trenton-not when we behold him victorious over Cornwallis at Yorktown; but when we regard him, in noble deference to justice, refusing the kingly crown which a faithless soldiery proffered, and at a later day upholding the peaceful neutrality of the country, while he received unmoved the clamor of the people wickedly crying for war.

But let us not confine ourselves to barren words in recognition of virtue. Let us, while we recognize the Law of Right and the Law of Love, aspire to the true glory, and, what is higher than glory, the great good, of taking the lead in disarming the nations. Let us abandon the system of preparation for war in time of peace, as irrational, unchristian, vainly prodigal of expense, and having a direct tendency to excite the very evil against which it professes to guard. Let the enormous means thus released from iron hands, be devoted to labors of beneficence; and the result shall be glorious beyond conception. Then shall the naked be clothed, and the hungry fed; institutions of science and learning shall crown every hill-top; hospitals for the sick, and other retreats for the unfortunate children of the world, for all who suffer in any way, in mind, body or estate, shall nestle in every valley; while the spires of new churches shall leap exulting to the skies. The whole land

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shall bear witness to the change; art shall confess it in the new 576 inspiration of the canvass and the marble; the harp of the poet shall proclaim it in a loftier rhyme. Above all, the heart of man shall bear witness to it, in the elevation of his sentiments, in the expansion of his affections, in his devotion to the highest truth, in his appreciation of true greatness. The eagle of our country, without the terror of his beak, and dropping the forceful thunderbolt from his pounces, shall soar with the olive of Peace into untried realms of ether nearer to the sun.

To this great work of Peace, let me summon you all; nor let it be said that the age does not demand it. The mighty conquerors of the Past, from their fiery sepulchres, demand it; the blood of millions unjustly shed in war crying from the ground, demands it; the voices of all good men demand it; the conscience even of the soldier whispers peace. this should bend the patriotic ardor of the land, the ambition of the We should lead in this great work. To statesman, the efforts of the scholar, the pervasive influence of the press, the mild persuasion of the sanctuary, the early teachings of the school. Here, in ampler ether and diviner air, are untried fields for exalted triumphs, more truly worthy the American name, than any snatched from rivers of blood.

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at least one spot, the small Island of Delos, dedicated to the Gods, and kept at all times sacred from war, where the citizens of hostile countries met and united in a common worship. So let us dedicate our broad country! The Temple of Honor shall be surrounded by the Temple of Concord, so that the former can be entered only through the portals of the latter; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its gates; the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant; while within JUSTICE, returned to the earth from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and majestic front; and the future chiefs of the Republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by human blood, shall be "the first in PEACE, and the first in the hearts of their countrymen.” But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let us strive to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the whole world forever. Let the selfish boast of the Spartan women become the grand chorus of mankind, that they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's camp. belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth, be exLet the iron changed for the golden cestus of Peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent homage that was bestowed by massacring soldiers on the spot occupied by the Sepulchre of our Lord. Vain man! to restrain his regard to a few feet of sacred mould! The whole earth is the Sepulchre of the Lord; nor can any righteous man profane any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth, and lay a new stone in the grand Temple of Universal Peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament of Heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

No. LXIV.

CLAIMS OF PEACE ON LITERARY MEN.

THE general claims of peace are common to all mankind. Every one that wisely regards his own welfare, as well as every sincere lover of God, his country or his species, must desire the abolition of a custom which has from time immemorial filled the earth with crime and wo. But I will not now attempt to tell how it wastes property and life by wholesale;—how it breaks up families, and lays villages in ruins;-how it plunders cities, desolates provinces, and rolls its waves of blood and devastation over empires;what sufferings it heaps upon the field of battle, scatters along the march, and crowds into the camp, the siege and the hospital;—how it preys, like a shoal of countless vampyres, on the character and happiness of individuals, communities and nations;-how it checks the progress of knowledge and freedom, of virtue, religion and general improvement ;-how it debases the intellect, blunts the conscience, and brutalizes the heart;-how it fosters ignorance, and feeds intemperance, and panders to the basest passions, and make? the resting-place of soldiers and seamen an emblem of Sodom itself;-how it multiplies almost every species of vice and crime imaginable, and taints the moral atmosphere of the whole world;— how it neutralizes the power of the gospel in Christendom, and retards its spread and triumph over the earth;-how fast it ripens mankind for perdition, and sweeps them into the bottomless pit by thousands and millions. Here are topics immensely important; but, passing from all these, I shall now glance only at some that are more or less peculiar to literary men.

1. The very nature of this cause commends it to their special regards. It embraces all the great interests of our race; nor do I see how any inquisitive or generous mind can quietly rest in ignorance of a subject so vast, so interesting in itself, and so closely linked with the welfare of mankind. You can find no theme involving more points of importance in politics, morality or religion. It spreads itself over the entire surface of human nature, and presents some of its most startling developments. It touches the main-springs of human action. It forms the web and woof of all history. It pervades and leavens the literature of every age. It enters into the theory and practice of all governments. It must shape, more or less, every system of ethics and political economy. There is no end to the points which it starts for discussion. It embraces an infinity of facts important as the weal or wo of our whole race, and involves principles which lie at the very foundation of society, morals and religion. It affects the condition, character and interest of all mankind. No nation, no community, not a solitary individual on earth, but is concerned in this subject.

I can hardly conceive any topic more important in its nature, more extensive in its connections and bearings, or more vital to the welfare of individuals and nations.

Here is a vast field well nigh unexplored. The principles of peace, applicable alike to individuals and communities, have never been fully applied to nations; and such an application is regarded by not a few as preposterous and impracticable. Yet something has been done to pave the way for a result so devoutly to be wished. Grotius, in his great work on the Rights of Peace and War, led the van of this inquiry, and collected no small part of the materials requisite for such a system of international law as must one day regulate the intercourse of all civilized nations without the sword. Still many points of this code remain untouched, and some of its fundamental principles are neither rightly applied, nor properly understood. Here is a department of jurisprudence the most profound, extensive and important that philosophy ever investigated; and I have often wondered that men of science and letters have given it so small a share of their attention. Shall such a field be neglected by the studious and the cultivated? It surely deserves their special and most earnest attention. It will richly repay all the labor they may bestow upon it, and will bear a favorable comparison in every respect with any of those to which the scholar gives the full vigor of his powers. You can find none more important in history, mathematics or philosophy, in astronomy or chemistry, in any of the arts or sciences, in any branch of a common or liberal education; and if you spend year after year in learning languages spoken by no nation now on the globe, in tracing the movements of the planetary system, in mastering the dry abstractions of mathematics, in conning the rules of rhetoric, in threading the labyrinths of metaphysical science, or in classifying rocks and stones, pebbles and shells, birds and fishes, reptiles and insects, can you overlook such a subject as the world's entire, perpetual pacification?

2. Another special claim of this cause arises from your capacity for its proper investigation. More than ordinary cultivation is requisite for such a purpose. It is easy to interest common minds in the details of war; but the cause of peace has aspects, relations and bearings, which an intellect either superficial, undisciplined, or poorly furnished, will never be able fully to comprehend. To master such a subject, demands an extent of knowledge, a reach of thought, and habits of inquiry and reflection, possessed only by caltivated minds. Here is a field emphatically their own; and they ought to enter it as pioneers of the people. Scholars must first take hold of peace in earnest, and press its claims on the community, before the millions will wake to its real importance.

3. Glance, moreover, at the mental effects of war. Its ironhanded sway over the minds as well as the bodies of its minions, must give the cause of peace peculiar claims upon intellectual men who demand freedom of thought, speech and action. The mental despotism of war is the worst form of oppression on earth. It allows the soldier neither liberty of speech, nor freedom of in

quiry, nor the safe, unshackled exercise of his own conscience; it turns him into a mere wheel in the vast machinery of war, and forbids his moving beyond his prescribed sphere in the work of carnage and devastation. It well nigh annihilates all individuality of mind and character. The will of thousands it holds in stern subjection to a single mind, and keeps them in a state of bondage more galling to the soul than that of a Polish serf, a Turkish peasant, or a galley slave.

All history, all observation, confirm these statements. "It has been a generally received opinion,” says Franklin in one of his let ters to Vaughan, "that a military man is not to inquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders! All princes that are disposed to become tyrants, must probably approve of this opinion, and be willing to establish it; but is it not a dangerous one? On this principle," a principle essential to the war system, "if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy not only an unoffending neighbor nation, but even his own subjects, his army is bound to obey. A negro slave in our colonies, being commanded by his master to rob or murder a neighbor, or do any other immoral act, may refuse, and the magistrate will protect him in his refusal. The slavery of a soldier then is worse than that of a negro."

War allows to its agents no real freedom of mind. Lord Wellington once said in a public debate, that no man of religious principles, of such scruples as would interfere with any deeds of atrocity required in this trade of human butchery, should be a soldier; and two British officers, having conscientiously refused to take any part in certain Popish ceremonies which they deemed idolatrous, were tried by a court martial, and cashiered. They appealed to the King; and his organ, in confirming the sentence, observed that, "if religious principles were allowed to be urged by individual officers as a plea for disobedience of orders, the discipline of the army would sustain an injury which might be dangerous to the state."

But the mental tyranny of war is not confined to soldiers; it extends more or less through the nation, and seeks to bring all ninds under the control of brute force, and brute courage. It is the coarsest, as well as the cruellest of all despotismus, and presents a startling contrast to the character of a civilized, Christian community. Here is the very genius of pagan barbarism lording it over Christendom itself; and with all our pretensions to intelligence and piety, we very much resemble in this custom the ancient Egyptians bowing down to crocodiles and alligators. War is still the undisputed tyrant of Christendom, its recognized demi-god, with his creed of violence, his precepts of crime, and his logic of lead and steel. It treats man as a brute, and tramples his intellectual manhood in the dust.

Look at the influence of this custom on mind in civil and political matters. It forbids the predominance of intellect and knowledge in the affairs of state. Talent, intelligence, every kind of mental culture, it keeps in the lowest possible scale of estimation, or makes them mere handmaids to its selfish and savage purposes.