The fury of man's wrath to cool, Till their own choice becomes their scourge, Hail, sacred Peace! thou com'st to heal The spade, the plough, the forge, the loom : Let mercy's sweet message be heard, The plough and the pruner restore, To kindle the world to a flame; THE HERALD OF PEACE. JUNE 1821. You TO THE FRIENDS OF PEACE. OU are disciples of Him who was called by the prophetic spirit, the Prince of Peace; and it is a glorious title: you are believers in a religion whose object it is to give glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will towards men; and it is a noble object. The spirit of your religion, and the spirit of war and discord, are in deadly opposition, and one or the other must finally prevail. You cannot doubt which. The word of God enables you to anticipate the triumph of good over evil. That holy victory is certain; but it becomes you not to await it in idle expectation. The assurance of success should operate as a motive to activity and perseverance. They are your bounden duty. Christianity and War are words easily pronounced in the same breath, easily joined by the pen in the same sentence. What those words represent can never be forced into union. The one is a constellation of virtues, and the other a mass of crimes. The Christian who acts up to his religion, has nothing to do with war but to lament it, to protest against it, and to join his prayers and efforts for its VOL. III. abolition, with those who are likeminded. War is inconsistent with his principles; with the sacred maxims which he reverences, and by which he would have his character formed, and his life regulated. Ambition prompts it; but he is lowly minded. Many are enriched by its spoils; but he inquires, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Revenge kindles its desolating flames; but he has learned not to resist evil, but overcome it with good. His feelings are averse from war, so far as those feelings are in harmony with his convictions. He has no sympathy with the rage of combatants, or pride of victors. His heart is in scenes of quiet and repose, of honest industry, and benevolent exertion. Duties, accompanied with solemn sanctions, are imposed on him by divine authority, and he cannot allow that man may suspend or abrogate these; or suppose that a feeble fellow worm of the earth, who must himself appear at the bar of judgment, can bear him harmless in their violation. camp he cannot do to others as he would that they should do unto him, Y In a and therefore he has no business in a camp. He worships the God of peace, and prays for the universal extension of peace; and such prayers with the weapon of death in his hands would be blasphemy. He hopes for a heaven of peace and righteousness, and the occupation of slaughter would be an ill preparation for its enjoyment. Nay, the word of prophecy tells him on earth of swords beaten into ploughshares; and as such is the design of Providence, he shrinks from fighting against God. O that this decided opposition, this absolute incompatibility between War and Christianity, were felt by all Christians! When that shall be the 'case, the fulfilment of prophecy is at hand. Surely the attention now excited to the subject, amongst different sects, and in widely distant countries, is an omen of its approach. We are willing to hope so, and rejoice in the growing light, however faint as yet, which announces the coming on of that happy day. May it shine brighter and brighter. It must do so. The struggles of darkness with the sun are vain; and as vain the struggles of human error, pride, ambition, or revenge, with truth, and providence, and God. Such are the hostile parties; and in the array let the friends of peace rejoice, for stronger is he that is for us than they that are against us. To the Editor. On Duelling. THE practice of duelling has frequently been very deservedly reprobated in the pages of the Herald. It may be interesting to some readers to be acquainted with one fact which has come recently to my knowledge, wherein the peace-maker's principle, that of overcoming evil with good, was found better than a duel. The fact was this.-A young gentleman of most respectable family from England, had resided at Rouen in France about two months, when on a certain day in August last, he was passing into a public room at a Restaurateur, for the purpose of getting his dinner, and met a French gentleman, who had formerly been an officer under Bonaparte, but did not in passing him take off his hat, to pay him that mark of attention which his pride was disposed to receive. The English gentleman had not long been seated at dinner before the other returned with some companions, and, seating themselves at the opposite end of the same table, began very freely to abuse the rude manners of the English, and to endeavour evidently to irritate the Englishman, with whom he was so highly offended, for shewing him the insult described. Working each other up significant an occasion, the spirit of to a high pitch of frenzy on so inthe Englishman was certainly roused; he felt it impossible for him to sit there and hear himself and his countrymen abused, without either demanding satisfaction, or forfeiting his character as a gentleman, according to the ideas in which he had been brought up. I must here for a moment beg to interrupt the thread of the narrative by stating, that the young English gentleman, although would be degrading to submit to inalways accustomed to consider it sult, had within the last year of his life been considerably affected by family afflictions, and acknowledges himself to have experienced some of the sweetening influences of religion. The young French gentleman on the other hand, much attached to his late master, Bonaparte, had resolved if possible to kill an Englishman that day, in honour of the anniversary of his accession. He is besides much given to duelling, and a sure marksman. To proceed-the English gentleman, no longer able to keep his seat, rose to demand satisfaction. His op ponent rose at the same instant, and the champions would presently have challenged, but for providential interposition.-At the very moment the English gentleman rose from his seat, this passage of Scripture presented itself to his mind, "A soft answer turneth away wrath," accompanied by a ray of light so penetrating, that it instantly produced a degree of heartmelting conviction, yielding to which, the English gentleman accosted the other in apologizing language, for having, as it appeared, transgressed undesignedly those usages of politeness which he was very unconscious of any necessity for observing in passing an intire stranger, and begged pardon. His antagonist was instantly disarmed; and the spirit of the lion and the lamb were made to lay down together. The English gentleman told me he was now altogether convinced of the evil of duels, and felt it as impossible for him now to accept a challenge, or offer one to another, whatever be the occasion, as before he fancied it was impossible on such an occasion to avoid it. P. To the Editor of the Herald of Peace. THE following is a translation of a Note I have recently received from an intelligent young man who resides in a populous part of the interior of France. At his earnest request, I sent him a set of the Tracts of the London Peace Society, from Paris; the object of which Society appeared entirely new to him, and to many other gentlemen of high respectability and influence, to whom it has been mentioned. It has excited much interest, and several have expressed the pleasure they shall feel in co-operating with such Christian societies, to promote their views by an extensive dissemination of the principles of Peace. "E. M. thanks Mr. P. from his There never was an enterprise more noble or more Christian, than that of the Friends of Peace. E. M. will consider it the greatest honour to be accounted worthy to be connected with so respectable a society. He trusts that he has already taken some steps in the path in which an honest man ought to walk. heart, for his obliging present of the Tracts published by the Society of the Friends of Peace;-he has read E. M. solicits permission soon to address to Mr. some reflections the custom of war, produced by reading these little Tracts of the Friends of Peace.' upon March 20th, 1821. E. M. who is a man of talent, received his education in the French Royal College for the Artillery, and became an officer in that service; but he has now entirely quitted the military profession. On Active and Passive Valour. [Some extracts from the acute and ingenious work of SOAME JENYNS, on the Internal Evidences of Christianity, have appeared in the former Numbers of the Herald of Peace. The following well deserves to be added. It is a good il lustration of the nature of real heroism, of that heroism which alone becomes the followers of Jesus Christ.] VALOUR, for instance, or active courage, is for the most part constitutional, and therefore can have no more claim to moral merit, than wit, beauty, health, strength, or any other endowment of the mind or body; and so far is it from producing any salutary effects by introducing peace, order, or happiness into society, that and suffering religion, under the titles of patience and resignation: a real and substantial virtue this, and a direct contrast to the former; for passive courage arises from the noblest disposition of the human mind, from a contempt of misfortunes, pain, and death, and a confidence in the protection of the Almighty; active from the meanest, from passion, vanity, and self dependence. Passive courage is derived from a zeal for truth, and a perseverance in duty; active is the offspring of pride and revenge, and the parent of cruelty and injustice. In short, passive courage is the resolution of a philosopher; active the ferocity of a savage. Nor is this more incompatible with the precepts, than with the object of this religion, which is the attainment of the kingdom of heaven; for valour is not that sort of violence, by which that kingdom is to be taken; nor are the turbulent spirits of heroes and conquerors admissible into those regions of peace, subordi nation, and tranquillity.' " Extract from the Rev. T. Madge's Sermon, entitled "The Character of George III, and the Character of his Reign, considered separately.” "IN the course of these memorable contests, which have entailed upon us burthens which we shall continue to feel every day and every hour of our lives, the warrior may find something of which to "talk exceeding proudly." He may boast of the skill of our commanders, and the prowess of our soldiers; he may see what to him appears glorious in ensanguined fields and smoking cities-in wasted provinces and deserted villages-in mangled limbs and dying_agoniesin orphaned children and widowed mothers-in blighted loves, and withered hearts, and ruined hopes. But the Christian has learnt his language, and borrowed his terms from a different vocabulary. He is not to be blinded and spell-bound by a wordhood-winked and cheated by sounding |