officer, an aide-de-camp of the Emperor at St. Petersburgh, upon the state of the sick list among the Guards, I was not a little astonished at his telling me that mercury and quinine were medicines too expensive to be given to the men; and when I adverted as politely as I could to the inhumanity as well as false economy of such a system, he replied, 'Ah, mon cher, a soldier in Russia costs nothing.""-Jesse's Travels in Circassia.

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PRAISE OF PEACE-MINISTERS.

Nothing is more useful for both the people and their rulers than to dwell on the excellence of those statesmen whose lives have been spent in furthering the useful, the sacred work of peace. The thoughtless vulgar are ever prone to magnify the brilliant exploits of arms, which dazzle ordinary understandings, and prevent any account being taken of the cost and the crime that so often are hidden in the guise of success. All merit of that kind is sure of passing current for more than it is worth; and the eye is turned indifferently upon, and even scornfully from, the unpretending virtue of the true friend of his species, the minister who devotes all his cares to

stay the worst of crimes that can be committed, the last of calamities that can be endured by man. To hold up such men as Walpole in the face of the world as the model of a wise, a safe, an honest ruler, becomes the most sacred duty of an impartial historian; and, as has been said of Cicero and of eloquence by a great critic, that statesman may feel assured that he has made progress in the science to which his life is devoted who shall heartily admire the public character of Sir R. Walpole, the determined friend of peace." -Edinburgh Review, April, 1840.

WAR POETS AND PEACE POETS.

"Le genie d'Homere, exaltant dans ses vers immortels les exploits d'Achille et des vainqueurs de Troie, fut peut-etre (sans qu'il eut pu le prevoir) l'inspirateur et le complice des crimes d'Alexandre, de César, et de beaucoup d'autres conquerans qui ont ensanglantè la terre.”—Julien Emploi du Temps. (Vide Southey's Poem on the Battle of Blenheim.)

"Never may from our souls one truth depart,-
That an accursed thing it is to gaze

On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye;

Nor, touch'd with due abhorrence of their guilt
For whose dire end tears flow and blood is spilt,
And justice labours in extremity,

Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,

O wretched man, the throne of tyranny."

Wordsworth.

STRANGE CALCULATIONS ON THE EFFECTS

OF WAR.

Dr. Dick calculates that "since the creation of the world 14,000,000,000 of beings have fallen in the wars which man has waged against his fellow creature-man. If this amazing number of men were to hold each other by the hand, at arm's length, they would extend over 14,583,330 miles of ground, and would encircle the globe upon which we dwell 608 times! If we allow the weight of a man to be on an average one cwt. (and that is, if anything, below the mark), we shall come to the conclusion that 69,250,000 tons of human flesh have been mangled, disfigured, gashed, and trampled under foot. The calculation will appear more striking when I state that if the fore-fingers only of every one of those 14,000,000,000 human beings were to be laid out in a straight line, they would reach more than 600,000 miles beyond the

moon; and that if a person were to undertake to count the number, allowing 19 hours to the day and 7 days to the week, and to number at the rate of 6,000 per hour, it would employ that person 336 years: and awful is the consideration that 3,500,000 pipes of human blood have been spilt in battles."

MOTIVES FOR THE ABOLITION OF WAR.

Are there wanting MOTIVES for a simultaneous effort among Christians to abolish this ruthless practice? Some of these are found in-its expense; the number of its victims; the character of the system; and the value of human life.

As to its expense. To select a fragment only of our own history:-Of 127 years, terminating 1815, England spent 65 in seven successive wars, during which she was obliged to borrow 834 millions sterling; and raised by taxes 1499 millions more: thus forming a total of 2023 millions! Our National Debt of 800 millions, with all its fiscal burthens and commercial restrictions, is the permanent fruit of this enormous expenditure. The number of human beings who have been sacrificed at the shrine of Moloch must

have been so great as almost to defy calculation. Edmund Burke, in his "Vindication of Natural Society," has, nevertheless, made a computation of this kind; and his estimate is, that, by means of war and its horrid concomitants, not less than 35,000,000,000 human beings have been taken out of existence!-As to the moral character of the system, it is correctly described by a clergyman of the Church of England, who says: "War is the most fruitful parent of crime of all the evils with which the earth is afflicted. Actions which, in peace, are denounced by the universal voice of civilized man as the most execrable vices, are, in war, passed over as of ordinary occurrence, or even are promoted into virtues. Falsehood, lewdness, rapine, sabbath-breaking, murder, the destruction of the works of art and of the fruits of industry, are all consequences of war. A single campaign does more harm to the morals of a people than years of virtuous teaching can remedy. It familiarizes the national mind with vice; renders the victors selfish, and the vanquished base. It is a flame which bursts out unexpectedly, which consumes all before it; but the ravages whereof who can repair?”—The value of life is so self-evident, as to need only to be adduced as a