volved in the same censure.

The criminality of

wars is seen in their authors, their agents, and their effects on society.

The authors and promoters of wars incur a dreadful responsibility. The most favourable statement which can be made, is, that they err in calculation, by thinking that war would advance the interests of their country. This error

is gross enough; for where is the war on record that proved really advantageous to the people? They set all experience at defiance, and throw away the lives of multitudes upon a desperate game of chances. And should it be successful,

the good of the victors must be much less than the sum of evil which they and the losers share; so that in the most plausible case, they are condemned, as sacrificing to selfish patriotism the dictates of philanthropy. The real motives are generally still worse. It is sometimes an expedient to take off public attention from the correction of internal evils. Sometimes engaged in to gratify the pride, passion or ambition of princes. What motives have of late years cherished the love of war in this country? Some desired it to raise the price of corn; others to destroy the commerce of rival countries, and gain us the monopoly of the markets of the world; others for the opportunities afforded of gaining wealth or honours. Is all this morally innocent? Are

classes of men to write, with impunity, their caprices in a people's blood, or build their greatness on a people's ruin?

As to the military profession, the abolition of which would be now equivalent to that of war, without at all censuring those who may conscientiously enter into it, or approve of it, I have no hesitation myself in coming to the opinion, that it is utterly inconsistent with Christianity. The soldier hires himself out to kill at the command of others. Did he only fight when convinced of the justice of the cause, the case would be very different; but he gives up the right of deciding on that. If a war begun, as he thinks, in a just cause, by some change of circumstances, become unjust in its continuance, he cannot withdraw : and the established maxim is, that he is to leave that to his superiors. What is he, in such a case, but a paid and licensed murderer? The terms God has proseem harsh-are they not just ? nounced him guilty who sheds his fellow's blood: there may be an exception for self-defence; but for the command of superiors there is no exception. Mr. Scargill, in his short but excellent essay on War, avows the same opinions: "He who wantonly puts a fellow-creature to death, is guilty of murder; and he who puts a fellow-creature to death, without knowing why, is equally guilty; the cause may be good, but if he knows

it not, he is a murderer. No casuistry can save him from the guilt of it. He may conclude that they who lead him to slaughter know and are assured of the justice of the cause, but unless he knows it also, he is in the sight of God guilty of violating the laws of heaven. A man may be honestly engaged in the service of a certain cause, in which circumstances may lead him to war, and if fighting may be justified at all, it may be right in certain circumstances; but he is not thereby bound to fight in every cause which his superiors may adopt." The plain question is, does the command of a superior justify a violation of the laws of God? If it does for the hired soldier, it does also for the hired assassin. Suppose a man were to go to Copenhagen, and shoot a person whom he never saw before; then to Washington, and stab another, by whom he was never injured; then to the coast of France, and burn a third in his own house; what would all this be but repeated and atrocious murder? Would its moral character be changed by the command of a prince, minister, or general? Certainly not; any more than their command would justify perjury or forgery. Indeed, the vindicators of war must plead that they would justify these also. Armies need spies, and spies must deceive; and forgery was more than once or twice employed in the late contest with great applause.

What a school of morals, into which to drain off the youthful part of the population of a country, after some years of education in it, to be turned back upon society! All habits of regular industry gone, accustomed to take by force, familiarized with wounds and blood, their duty slaughtering, and their diversion gambling or debauchery, what is to be expected when they are disbanded? What, but that which always happens-robberies, murders, crowded gaols, disgusting executions. The commencement of peace sometimes doubles, and more than doubles, the number of criminals; uniformly shews a fearful increase. The influx of such characters is like inoculating society with a moral pestilence.

This combination of calamity and guilt must, and has, proved a gloomy interruption of that progress which may still be traced in the history of mankind, and it clouds our prospects of futurity. It is as if an individual should resolve, at certain intervals, to give himself to mischief, and forget all distinction of right and wrong, virtue and vice, good and evil: to abandon the study of truth, and the acquisition of goodness. Such an abandonment is war, to nations.

It prevents civilization. Tribes are kept in the savage state by wars with each other, and with their more polished neighbours. The Slave-Trade fomented hostility through a thousand petty kingdoms, which might have been won by friendly

intercourse to quietness, harmony, commerce, and improvement. Did America pursue a more gene rous policy towards the Aborigines of that continent, they might have all been induced, like those of them among whom the Quakers settled, to modify their habits and gain a social existence, instead of being destined, as they apparently are, to be exterminated by the sword of aggression. Civilization to some degree has been the occasional and accidental result of conquest. It never was the object--and might have been better attained by better means. On the other hand, the most refined have been barbarized, and Rome itself, the luxurious and magnificent, beheld her sun go back in the heavens to the darkness from which it arose.

The cultivation of literature, the peaceful arts of life, the intercourse of different nations, which soften and obliterate prejudice, and diffuse the discoveries and superiorities of one over all others, these great principles of improvement are all suspended by war, and for the time almost annihilated. The sword divides where oceans could not separate. It elevates prejudice and destroys philanthropy. Millions of men are taught to hate other millions, from whom they might receive useful knowledge, to whom they might render important service, with whom they might exchange affection and esteem. As war hires to execute slaughter the arm that should labour, it also hires to plan that slaughter the mind that