his conscience, flagrant with such a crime? You have the matter at full length in Plutarch. He told him, that, let a sovereign do what he will, all his actions are just, because they are his!" Burke's Vindication of Natural Society.

REMARKS.

Clitus was the captain murdered by Alexander, and, according to Plutarch, Anaxarchus was the philosopher who administered the opiate. Is the reader shocked at the horrid principle advanced to quiet the king's conscience? If so, let him inquire how far the same principle is admitted among Christians. How often have professed Christian rulers caused the death of myriads of their own people, and myriads more of the people of other nations, who were at least as innocent as Clitus? On what principle do they satisfy their consciences in making war and authorizing wholesale violence, robbery, and murder? Is not this the principle, -that such atrocious acts" are just and lawful, because done by them," that is, by rulers?

Alexander himself, prior to the murder of Clitus, had probably caused the death of a million of men by his wanton wars, and with as little reason or justice as he killed the captain. It seems that he had been accustomed to applying the opiate to the murders of public war, but had not so fully understood that the same ingredient or principle might be applied with equal propriety to a case of private murder. This secret was disclosed to him by Anaxarchus; and thus his remorse for the murder was dissipated.

Is it not time that Christians should cease to act on Pagan principles-cease to regard as "just and lawful" the worst crimes, when committed or authorized by rulers? Rulers are but men, and too often they are the worst of men. They have no more right to rob and murder the innocent than any other men. Nor any more right to authorize such robberies and murders, than parents have to authorize their children to perpetrate similar deeds. Murder is murder when committed by a king, or his orders, as really as when committed by a pirate or highwayman; and probably no

who have been most eulogized as conquerors. Such has been the insanity of the world.

REVIEW OF BOXING,

BOXING is "the exercise of fighting with the fists, either naked or with a stone or leaden ball grasped in them. It is an ancient exercise, having been in use in the heroic ages. In modern times this art has been in a manner appropriated by the English. About half a century ago it formed as regular an exhibition as we now see at any of the places of public resort, the theatres alone excepted. It was encouraged by the first ranks of nobility, patronized by the first subjects in the realm, and tolerated by the magistrates.” Encyclopedia, Article “Boxing."

In the same article we are informed that so recently as 1742 a new Amphitheatre was erected in England, principally by subscription, which was not only furnished with a stage for the combatants, but with seats for the spectators. "After a course of years however these exhibitions became less patronized and frequented, owing probably to the refinement of our manners.-A fatal issue which attended one of them brought the practice into disrepute. One of the combatants was killed on the spot. His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, was present, and declared that he would have some settlement made on the nearest relation of the deceased, but that on account of the dreadful example which he had then witnessed, he would never either see or patronize another stage fight."

From this British account we learn that so lately as the middle of the last century, Boxing was practised as an honorable and popular amusement; that it was countenanced and patronized by men of the first rank in that age!—What barbarians then were many of the nobility of the English nation! We say many, for two reasons: one is, that we cannot believe that all the nobility of England, at that period, were of such a barbarous character: the other is, that, had there not been many of this character, the custom could not have acquired popularity..

But Boxing has, we presume, been so far abolished in England, as well as in this country, that it is now confined to the lowest and most worthless class of society. It may indeed still be practised by men of no character, to settle their drunken quarrels, as a subsitute for the laws of civilization-just as duelling is by pretended gentleman of honor, and as public war is by the rulers of nations.

The fact, however, that Boxing has lost its former popularity, and is now practised only by the most brutal class of men, affords ground of encouragement, that duelling and public war will soon share a similar fate. For Boxing is not more barbarous than duelling, or war, either in its nature or its origin, and it is much less fatal in its effects. If then Boxing lost its reputation in consequence of the "refinement of manners," a little more "refinement" may exclude duelling and war from the abodes of civilized society,—and render them more infamous and abhorrent to well educated men than Boxing is at the present time.

In the history of Boxing now before us, there is one thing which deserves further notice. By witnessing the "dreadful example" of one man killed on the spot," the Prince of Wales was so affected as to resolve," that he would never either see or patronize another stage fight." What then must be the character of those rulers, who can witness the slaughter of 50,000 innocent men in a single battle, without any favourable impression on their minds, and without forming any resolution never more to patronize such horrible scenes! Nay what must be the character of a man, who, after witnessing such carnage, occasioned by his own ambition, can still thirst for blood, and exert all his influence to involve nations in war!

Frederick the Great, in writing the history of his own wars, reproached the English for their inhumanity, on the ground of their stage fights or gladiatorial exhibitions; yet he seems to have been blind to the inhumanity of his own conduct, in causing armies of men to shed each other's blood, and in sacrificing one hundred and eighty thousand of his own soldiers, that he might acquire the bubble military fame.

Thus probably the people of every nation are blind to the inhumanity of their own sanguinary customs and usages, while they are forward to reproach other nations for conduct not more barbarous than their own. People of this age, blind to their own faults, censure the barbarities of former generations; but the next generation will perhaps discover enough in the history of our times to convince them that their fathers had not very high claims to the character of civilized men.

It will probably be the opinion of future posterity, that their ancestors continued in a state of barbarism, till war ceased to be a popular mode of settling the controversies of nations.

THE WAR FOR A BUCKET.

"IN the year 1005, some soldiers of the commonwealth of Modena ran away with a bucket from a public well, belonging to the state of Bologna. The implement might be worth a shilling, but it produced a quarrel, which was worked up into a long and bloody war. Henry, the king of Sardinia, for the emperor Henry the Second, assisted the Modenese to keep possession of the bucket; and in one of the battles he was made prisoner. His father, the emperor, offered a chain of gold that would encircle Bologna, which is seven miles in compass, for his son's ransom, but in vain.-After twenty-two years' imprisonment, and his father being dead, he pined away and died. His monument is still extant in the church of the Dominicans. This fatal bucket is still exhibited in the tower of the cathedral of Modena, enclosed in an iron cage. Tasso has very humorously described it in his Della Sechia."

This account was sent to us from a southern state on a scrap of a newspaper. To some people it may appear incredible, that so frivolous an occurrence should have been "worked up into a long and bloody war." But those who are acquainted with history, and have been careful to observe the origin of wars, will find no difficulty in believing the

narrative. In a former Number of the Friend of Peace we inserted, from the writings of Frederick the Great, an account of a war between England and Spain, which originated from cutting off the ears of an English smuggler. In an old History of the Kings of England we have seen an account of a war between that country and France-the cause of which was this,-one boy called another boy the ❝son of a bastard." As this reproach was founded on fact, it was "worked up into a bloody war." One of the boys was son to the king of England, the other to the king of France. The two kings engaged in the quarrel of the two boys, and thus the two nations were involved in a sanguinary contest.

We might doubtless collect hundreds of instances of public wars between Christian nations, which had their origin in occurrences as trivial as the three which have now been mentioned; and in such wanton wars millions of lives have been sacrificed. With men who glory in war and have been educated to this execrable employment, any thing will serve for a pretext. However frivolous it may be in the outset, these manufacturers can soon blow it up into a just and necessary war, which shall involve myriads in death or wretchedness.

GENERAL WASHINGTON AND WARNER MIFFLIN.

-IN reading the Travels of Brissot in the United States my attention was arrested by the following passage.-"I was sick and Warner Mifflin came to see me.-It is he that first freed all his slaves; it is he who without a passport traversed the British army and spoke to General Howe with so much firmness and dignity; it is he who, fearing not the effects of the general hatred against the Quakers, went at the risk of being treated as a spy, to present himself to General Washington to justify to him the conduct of the Quakers; it is he, that amidst the furies of war, equally a friend to the French, the English and the Americans, carried generous succours to those among them who were suffering. Well, this angel of peace came to see me."