and scattering terror, agony, destruction. But why should they dwell on the disgusting picture? It is for them to anticipate, it is for them to co-operate in introducing, that "day of promise" whose sun shall shine forth unclouded, and pursue through ages of peace and joy its bright and benignant course. They can have no doubt that such a day will burst upon the world; for such is the assurance of that sacred volume on which they build their fairest hopes, and whence they gather their strongest arguments and consolations. On that they rest, and rest unshaken. To it they appeal from the contempt of the scornful-from the hopelessness of the despairing-from the indifference of the idle-and from the passions of the proud. N. B. It is necessary it should be fully understood that the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace is in nowise to be considered responsible for the articles which may appear in this Work: They will use it as their official organ, and they recommend it to the patronage of the friends of that Society; but they have no influence over the editorial department, and they wish to have none. ON THE MILITARY PROFESSION. WHAT is a Soldier? Rub off the varnish which poets, orators, politicians, and historians, have so thickly spread over his profession, and what is he? A man clad in garments of a prescribed form and colour, who is paid so much per day, or month, to destroy his fellow creatures according to the directions of his commander. He is a servant; he does his work, takes wages and wears a livery. Yes, a livery; for the military uniform is nothing more, make it as gay and gorgeous as you please. It is true there is nothing disgraceful in this circumstance, for many an honest man and good Christian wears a livery, and many more wish they did, for the sake of their ill-covered backs. But they would not, at least so we hope of many, wear the livery of blood. Nor have they the foolish vanity, common to the high-born fop, who wishes to display his graceful person to advantage, and the ignorant rustic, fired with envy at the serjeant's worsted sash, who greedily covets the livery to adorn the body, heedless of the servitude of which it is the badge, and of the debasing, the wicked drudgery which it pledges the wearer to perform. Few servants are proud of liveries, though they wear them. They submit to the coat, because it belongs to the station in which they have to earn their bread; and would gladly rise above the one, and throw off the other. In the army, many have pressed into the servitude for the childish vanity of exhibiting themselves in its pretty livery. There are two particulars in which soldiers are much worse off than other servants. Their servitude, as to the great majority at least, is not dissoluble at pleasure. It is not so properly servitude as slavery. However much they may have been disappointed in the place, it is not allowed them to give their masters warning, and seek a new one. They are sold for life, or at least for a term of years. For many of them no year of Jubilee will ever come. They have rashly adopted the worst side of the alternative offered to slaves in Judea, and renounced their liberty for ever. Their ears are bored. The awl has pierced and fixed them to the door-post of Moloch's temple. Without the mercy of discharge, they have only the prospect of continuing in their dreadful trade of shooting others; or deserting, and being shot themselves. The poorest wretch that ever felt his blood quailing within him, as famine stared him in the face, should pause, and reflect, before he thus mortgages himself without hope of redemption. But there is still more need for serious reflection if the nature of the work be recollected which he hires himself to perform. The tasks of servants are often laborious, but they put no force upon the conscience. The burden presses not there. Even slavery brought but seldom that necessity for chusing between obeying man, and obeying God, which is prominent in a soldier's life, if he have a clear sense of Christian duty. The evil is accidental in the one case, essential in the other. The first Christians might be slaves, but would not be soldiers. With this station they were told to be content, but were never told so as to that. How could they indeed, when its works are only recognized in the New Testament as among the works of the devil, which Christ came to destroy? The soldier's labour is immense. He has to make bodily exertions the recital of which fills us with astonishment, and under which nature often sinks, and he perishes, without the stroke of the enemy, of mere fatigue and exhaustion. Violent occasional exertions, long continued endurance, and severe privations, make up the sum of his existence in the scene of warfare; and all for what? To make ruins of towns, and deserts of fruitful fields, and on some great day of contest to stretch as many as possible of his wretched fellow labourers in the opposite ranks lifeless on the ground. To burn and waste, and maim and kill, without hesitating, or asking why, these are his duties. The love of plunder and of fame, ferocity and revenge, are the dispositions which such acts imply, and which, if not previously existing, are generated, and, if existing, cherished by them. Can there be a deeper contrast with the deeds and dispositions which Christ has pronounced "blessed" in the opening of his Sermon on the Mount? And shall man dare to impose, or obey, a code of duty hostile to that which he has given? Or, can he dare it with impunity? What are his wages? A bare support for the great multitude. They might have earned a better by honest industry in a thousand different ways. The more distinguished, indeed, gain estates and titles. Their laurels are gilt. One country is impoverished, to pay them for having desolated another. Childish vanity, hard necessity, intractable idleness, greedy avarice, are not, certainly, the only soldier-making motives. There are some of a higher class, according to the common estimation. There is the desire of renown. The field of battle is the temple of glory, and while the many fight only for their pence a day, some are worshipping that idol, "Fame is there, to say who bleeds, And Honour's eye on daring deeds." While the rest have only their anonymous share in a "passing paragraph of praise," these are celebrated by name, they have each his niche in history, and their deeds will be sung in the ballads of future generations. And is this the crown for which an immortal being should strive? Has his Creator placed him in this probationary world to peril all for such a tinsel prize Grovelling ambition! Grovelling, even though we put out of view the mighty realities, the awful judgment of another world. fame of Alexander, or Cæsar, or Charles 12th, is vulgar to that of Howard. In the dawn of knowledge, The their glory is waxing dim, but his brighter and brighter. Public opinion will soon demand histories in which heroes shall be no longer canonized, but the benefactors of mankind shall be those sciousness of having served their king and country. And in religion, persecutors have thought they were doing God service. No king, who is, what he ought to be, the father of his people, can be served by what impoverishes and demoralizes them; and to what people has war, even the most But they boast the delightful con- successful war, proved a blessing? "Around whose name the varying style refines.” ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To R. Marsden, Esq. Treasurer of as a measure of their society the the Society, &c. DEAR SIR, In the packet of tracts of the Peace Society which you sent me before I left England, No. 12 was wanting. In The Sun of 8 March 1814 is to be found a heart-rending picture of the calamities of warfare. 1 wish you could prevail on some of our friends who possess time and ability for the undertaking, to prepare a statement, for one of the next publications, of the various evils all attributable to war, from which mankind suffer. I mean especially such as although they may not appear to a superficial observer to have immediate connexion with war, are yet ultimately referable to it alone, such as the endless prohibitions and restrictions upon trade and commerce, and on the free intercourse of nations with each other. The more the subject is considered, the more will it be found that war is the source and main-spring of almost every evil, and of almost every grievance under which mankind are suffering. War is the chief and primary engine of the kingdom of Satan, and his efforts will not be wanting to counteract every thing attempted by your excellent Society. I hope and trust ere long to see a co-operation between us and the Bible Societies established in so many parts of the world: they cannot, it is true, adopt intentions of ours; but the individuals Believe me, Yours, Dear Sir, Malta, Christmas-day 1820. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging communications of the 7th ult. to which I have delayed my reply, until I was in possession of the parcel which you had the goodness to forward to me; and it was only on the 20th inst. that the long-wished for parcel reached niy hands. I beg to offer you my sincere thanks for your compliance with my request, and I shall feel truly happy should an opportunity offer to enable me to reciprocrate so much kindness. My wishes to be made acquainted with the interesting concerns of the Society for the promotion of permanent and universal Peace, have been fully gratified, and I beg to assure you, that I shall give the subject that attention and consideration which the noble object of the promoters of the Society so justly challenge, and that I shall not omit to communicate their proceedings to the Friends of Religion and Peace in this Country. I must, however, beg leave to state, that I had been given to understand that the Peace Society was closely allied to the British and Foreign Bible Society, and that the number of its members had been much more considerable: nor can I help regretting that the exertions for the promotion of Peace, founded on the Gospel, should not have been more generally recommended both in the higher and lower ranks of society. The Friends and promoters of your highly laudable Society, have my best wishes and prayers for the entire success of their exertions; and with the assurance of my personal regard and esteem, I have the honour to be Sir, Your most humble and obedient Servant, The Hague, 30 March 1821. Extract from a Letter on the Conscription, in the Italian Possessions of the Austrian Government. IN the month of August 1819, we were cruising in the Adriatic, and found that the system of conscription was still in exercise in most of the Austrian possessions we touched at, indeed it was acted upon with peculiar rigour just then, and to induce men to quit their homes with less repugnance, they were told, that they would be kept only three weeks (at Fiume and the other places appointed for the re-union of recruits,) to learn their exercise, and then be sent home again, free of expence, till their services should be required. How little the poor people depended on these promises, or how averse they were to the system altogether, though in the utmost misery in those very homes they clung to, may be deduced from the following facts, out of many more we were told of: At the time already specified, we passed several days in the island of Cherso, and in the course of our rambles about the country, found many men secreted in the bushes to avoid the conscription, as the drawing of lots was just then taking place. They urgently begged for food, fearing to make their hiding-places known even to their countrymen. On our arrival at Pola a few days after, we found the same persecution going on there, and the cultivation of the country at the same time miserably neglected for want of hands. Here we were told, and the story was confirmed by the Austrian officer commanding the District, that a poor woman finding her husband was forced to leave her, was driven to such despair, (women never being able to earn above the merest trifle in those countries) that taking her five children up to a cliff overhanging the sea, she threw them all in, and herself after them! To the Editor. SIR,-You have directed the regard of your readers, in a former Number, to Mr. Sheppard's "Inquiry on the Duty of Christians with respect to War;" but your attention was on that occasion exclusively directed to the first part of his publication, where he attacks the peculiar principle of the Peace Societies, and maintains, that in certain circumstances it be lawmay ful for Christians to engage in warfare. To my mind, the observations brought forward in opposition to his reasonings were as satisfactory as the spirit with which they were expressed was pleasing. If all theological controversies had been conducted with the same pacific dispositions which usually characterize the pages of The Herald, the religion of Jesus would have flourished more extensively; recommending itself by the amiable character of its disci, ples, to the consciences of all men. Because they have not known what spirit they were of, therefore, in all ages of the church, Christians have been found imitating the conduct of James and John, and in their uninstructed zeal have been ready to call down fire from Heaven to consume their adversaries. No such feelings as these, however, animate the mind of the author of the Inquiry. Whilst in a proper spirit he contends that Christians may, under peculiar circumstances, take up arms, he is evidently inspired with an anxious desire for the universal prevalence of pure Christianity, when of necessity wars would come to a perpetual end. He is, therefore, the advocate for defensive war only, and is as inveterately principled against the usual grounds of hostility among nations, as are the warmest friends of Peace. After having taken a general view of the Christians' rule in regard to War, and noticed the objections which might be made to it, he says, "The other system, that of unrestricted, unsanctioned warfare, has been tried ever since Nimrod's time; and has repeatedly ended in the destruction of nineteen mutual aggressors by the twentieth; an Alexander, Cæsar, or Tamerlane. History exhibits the effects of this system; conjecture foretels, with alarm, those of the defensive. Can they be worse than the former ?" Considering no martial operations as justifiable to the view of a Christian, but those which result from judicial authority, national or international, he says, "it follows, that he cannot use arms at the unlimited direction of the State." But it may be asked by the advocates for the War system, What kind of reliance can be placed on that -national force, the individuals of which are to decide how far they will chose to comply with the directions of judicial authority; and who, at the moment when their serivces are most needed, may see fit to disband themselves? Mr. S. would meet this objection by alleging, that if the Governments were truly Christian, there could be no disagreement in the views of themselves and their subjects. But as the Govern ments of Europe, though professedly Christian, are notoriously influenced by motives of state policy, and not by the spirit of the gospel, the system advocated by the Inquirer is wholly inapplicable to the present state of things. Indeed he appears perfectly aware of this, and exhibits in a very striking manner the motives by which States are in general actuated; and which we think is sufficient to deter the Christian from yielding himself up to the unlimited military service of any Government. "Now there is no doubt that the State itself, as comprising the legislative and executive power, is the supreme court of the realm; and if it were true, that it is, or supposable that it will be, always actuated by principles of justice, as to national affairs, in the same degree as its own inferior courts are, as to municipal affairs, then the Christian subject needs not, on my principles, scruple to become a member of an armed force, at the unlimited disposal of the State. But nothing is more certain than that this time is not yet arrived. It is apparent from all history and experience, that, while the force of its civil courts may be employed in doing justice and maintaining peace, the greater force of the State may be wielded in violation of every rule of Christian justice, and peace. The pride, resentment, covetousness, or ambition, of a sovereign or a minister, or the same spirit prevailing in the nation, and exciting a popular cry, may lead to the most unjust use of that force. While the civil court may be punishing the duellist, and reprobating his lawless notions of personal honour, the State may engage in a duel, where myriads of lives are to be sacrificed to national |