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of the spirit of love, in the dreadful wars in which they have been mu tually engaged.

The advocates for defensive war will probably maintain, that these reasonings can only apply to contests between those nations which profess the name of Christ, and do not preclude them from carrying on wars with infidels and barbarians. Taking these precepts of the Saviour in the letter merely, the force of the objection is admitted; but if the governments and nations of Europe only, professing Christianity, would unitedly agree to observe this essential command of Christ in reference to

each other, the permanent tranquillity

of the world would not be far distant.

WATERLOO.

To the Editor of the Herald of Peace. Sir, I am a Frenchman lately landed in England. I am a friend of my race: as a Frenchman and a philanthropist I address you.

In one of my wanderings through the capital of England, I crossed a magnificent bridge. I paid a penny for this privilege; I concluded in consequence, that this fine piece of architecture had been lately erected. I had hardly crossed the Thames when I inquired its name; the reply was, Waterloo Bridge.

The word grated on my feelings as a Frenchman: it brought to my mind a series of mournful recollections. As a philanthropist, it distressed me more severely. Why should national disputes and national hatred be thus perpetuated by insulting monuments, adorned with injurious and reproachful names? Is it thus, I exclaimed, that the seeds of discord are to be scattered? Is it thus that the benevolent efforts of individuals, the noble crusades of public bodies against war and misery, are to be

There

are

eternally frustrated? surely objects better worthy of celebration than the triumphs of war.

I recollected however that my country had first given this dangerous example, in the column of the Place Vendôme; but its name is not insulting or sanguinary. The bridges on the Seine: they too have divested themselves of their inhospitable and unholy titles.

Will not England imitate our example? Shall her noblest monu→ ments be consecrated to the memory of feuds and discords, of devastation and death?

Adversity and experience are the stern instructors of nations as well as of individuals:... The delusion which to dissipate:... Austerlitz and Watercrowned the conqueror is beginning loo will be equally blots in the page of history.

L.

Third Annual Report of the Tavi

stock Auxiliary Peace Society. We congratulate the public on the increase that has taken place in the number of subscribers this year, which has advanced from thirty to seventythree, and on the improved amount of the subscriptions, being from 107. 15s. to 197. 7s. In addition to this, we believe we may confidently affirm, that the principles on which the institution is founded have, by the cir culation of tracts, and the indirect influence of your Society, aided by the active exertions of a Ladies' Associ ation, instituted since our last annual meeting, taken a deeper root, and been more widely diffused in this neighbourhood than in any former

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praved passions and natural propensities of man.

While we believe the reasoning faculty, when rightly exercised, independent of Christian light, would point out the atrocity and impolicy of all war, though it could impart no power to remove its source from the hearts of men; and while we have before us the unqualified protests of enlightened and devout Heathens, against the custom and spirit of shedding human blood; we cannot but with increasing importunity recommend the subject to the attention of all those who profess to be followers of Him who suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him who judgeth righteously,' and who commanded that we should 'love our enemies, and do good to them that hate and despitefully use us.' And further declared, that it is incumbent on his disciples that they keep his commandments.

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Can such persons, we would ask, be consistent, while they directly or indirectly countenance or encourage the practice of war, and at the same time profess to give their unqualified assent to this weighty and all-important declaration, "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his?' We will leave it to that righteous principle of moral truth, implanted in the heart of man by his Maker, to determine. We believe we shall not go beyond the bounds of Christian charity and truth, if we affirm it to be essential to the Christian character, that the principles of revenge and retaliation, much more those of aggression, be removed from the human heart, and give place to the noble feelings of meekness, gentleness, forbearance, and brotherly kindness; and where this is effected, what becomes of War and all its accomplishments?

We would inquire, Where is the consistency of those who profess to

believe and put their trust in God, nay, to live by faith, not fearing what man can do unto them, while at the same time they so far fear them that can only kill the body, as to violate the plainest precepts of the Gospel, rather than risk the loss of any temporal or imaginary good?

We hope these considerations will have weight, especially with those who by pecuniary aid assist to support and extend the pacific doctrine, fully convinced that the consistent and habitual exemplification of it will effect far more than can ever be done by any other means.

A late writer observes, that "War is one great crime." It is not so much a violation as a repeal of the laws of morality and of God; the precepts of the Bible are directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good, of the latter to inflict injuries; the former commands us to succour the oppressed, the latter to overwhelm the defenceless; the former teaches men to love their enemies, the latter to make themselves terrible even to strangers. The rules of morality will not suffer us to promote the dearest interest by falsehood; the maxims of war applaud it, when employed in the destruction of others. The Bible says, Thou shalt not kill; War says, Thou shalt kill. The greater number, the more glorious.

The Bible commands, Thou shalt not steal; plunder is of War both cause and consequence. The Gospel says, Overcome evil with good; but War exhorts to subdue evil by greater evil, and more tremendous malignity. The one says, Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you; and the other, Carry outrage, misery, and murder amongst those who have excited no anger, inflicted no injury. Who shall make these principles coincide? 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 as

sassin. Suppose a man were to go to one place, and shoot a person whom he never saw before; then to a second, and stab another by whom he was never injured; then to a third, and burn another 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? None but those who are grossly blinded by prejudice will answer in the affirmative. Indeed we confidently presume, that could the film of prejudice be once removed from the eye of the mind, the object of your Society would, in a great degree, be accomplished; its principles, we are sure, would then be recognized and adopted by all the friends of humanity and truth. We are aware that an objection apparently formidable may be, and sometimes is, brought forward by persons whose benevolence and love of truth is indisputable, namely, That a feeling or principle of self-defence is implanted in man by his Maker, and that if it be incumbent on the professors of Christianity practically to be influenced by the principles taught by your Society, it would be opposing the Author of Nature and the Author of Christianity to each other. This objection is plausible; but it should be noticed, that the propriety of selfdefence, in every case where an injury is either inflicted or even threatened, is not called in question; but the subject in dispute is, as to the means of self-defence that should be had recourse to by all who profess to believe in the existence and universal providence of that God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, who maketh the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of that wrath restrains; who when a man's ways please the Lord, maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him; who protected Daniel even among lions, because he trusted in him. Again, let the experiment be tried, and it will in the aggregate be found that the most successful means of

defence are those recommended by infallible Wisdom, to overcome evil with good, to obviate a threatened injury by overtures of kindness, to prevent the recurrence of injuries inflicted by returning acts of beneficence. The experiment has been often made, and has been found as often successful. Thus the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight himself in the abundance of peace; and though a thousand fall at his side, and ten thousand at his right hand, the evil shall not come nigh him, because he hath made the Lord his refuge, and the Most High his habitation.'

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The Evils of War.

Ir is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some indeed must perish in the most successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death.

The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.

Of the thousands and ten thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery, and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious incampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and enterprise impracti

cable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away.

Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part with little effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceive scarcely any alteration but an increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited, are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle grew rich by the victory, he might shew his gains without envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death of multitudes and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations!

These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich as their country is impoverished; they rejoice when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation, and laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest. JOHNSON, Falkland Islands.

WHEN at length Hyder Ali

found that he had to do with men* who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an ever

lasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness dren, husbands from wives, enveloped of function; fathers torn from chilin a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, known and hostile land. Those who were swept into captivity, in an unwere able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but escaping into the jaws of famine. from fire, sword, and exile, they fell

For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from Servants of the East India Company. the gates of Madras to the gates of

Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead uniform silence reigned over the whole region." BURKE'S Speech on the Debts of the Nabob of Arcot.

On Duelling.

[The following excellent paper on Duelling, written by Steele, appeared in the Guardian No, 20, April 3, 1713. We make no apology for inserting it entire.]

Revenge, which still we find

The weakest frailty of a feeble mind. Creech.

ALL gallantry and fashion, one would imagine, should rise out of the religion and laws of that nation wherein they prevail; but, alas! in this kingdom, gay characters, and those which lead in the pleasure and inclinations of the fashionable world, are such as are readiest to practise crimes the most abhorrent to nature, and contradictory to our faith. A Christian and a gentleman are made inconsistent appellations of the same person; you are not to expect eternal life, if you do not forgive injuries;

and

your mortal life is uncomfortable, if you are not ready to commit a murder in resentment for an affront: for good sense as well as religion is so utterly banished the world, that men glory in their very passions, and pursue trifles with the utmost vengeance; so little do they know that to forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can arrive at. A coward has often fought, a coward has often conquered, but a coward never forgave.' The power of doing that flows from a strength of soul conscious of its own force; whence it draws a

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certain safety, which its enemy is not of consideration enough to interrupt; for it is peculiar in the make of a brave man to have his friends seem much above him, his enemies much below him,

Yet though the neglect of our enemies may, so intense a forgiveness as the love of them is not to be in the least accounted for by the force of constitution, but is a more spiritual and refined moral, introduced by Him who died for those that persecuted him; yet very justly delivered to us, when we consider ourselves offenders, and to be forgiven on the reasonable terms of forgiving; for who can ask what he will not bestow, especially when that gift is attended with a redemption from the cruellest slavery to the most acceptable freedom? For when the mind is in contemplation of revenge, all its thoughts must surely be tortured with the alternate pangs of rancour, envy, hatred, and indignation; and they who profess a sweet in the enjoyment of it, certainly never felt the consummate bliss of reconciliation. At such an instant the false ideas we received unravel, and the shyness, the distrust, the secret scorns, and all the base satisfactions men had in each other's faults and misfortunes, are dispelled, and their souls appear in their native whiteness, without the least streak of that malice or distaste which sullied them and perhaps those actions, which, when we looked at them in the oblique glance with which hatred doth always see things, were horrid and odious, when observed with honest and open eyes, are beauteous and ornamental.

very

But if men are averse to us in the most violent degree, and we can never bring them to an amicable temper, then indeed we are to exert an "obstinate opposition to them; and never let the malice of our enemies have so effectual an advantage over us, as to escape our good-will. For the neglected and despised tenets of re

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