would never make any threats; they would never arm, and consequently they would never fight. It would be owing, then, to these principles, or, in other words, to the adoption of the policy of the Gospel, in preference of the policy of the world, that if the globe were to be peopled by this society there would be no wars. Now I would ask, what are Quakers, but men; and might not all, if they would suffer themselves to be cast in the same mould as the Quakers, come out of it in the same form and character?

But I will go still further: I will suppose that any one of the four quarters of the world, having been previously divided into three parts, was governed only by three Quakers, and that these had the same authority over their subjects as their respective sovereigns have at present; and I will maintain that there would never be upon this quarter of the world, during their respective administrations, another war: for, first, many of the causes of war would be cut off: thus, for instance, there would be no disputes about insults offered to flags; there would be none, again, about the balance of power: in short, it would be laid down as a position, that no one was to do evil that good might come. But as, notwithstanding, there might still be disputes from other causes, these would be amicably settled: for, first, the same Christian disposition would be manifested in the discussion, as in the former case: and, secondly, if the inatter should be of an intricate nature, so that one Quaker-government could not settle it with another, these would refer it, according to their constitution, to a third. This would be the "ne plus ultra " of the business. Both the discussion and the dispute would end here. What a folly, then, to talk of the necessity of wars, when, if but three members of this society were to rule a continent, they would cease there. There can be no plea for such language, but the impossibility of

Sentiments of Pious or Eminent

modern Writers against War.

[From Pictures of War, by Irenicus.]

Erasmus, A.D. 1536.-War is every where rashly, and on the slightest pretext, undertaken; cruelly and savagely conducted, not only by unbelievers, but by Christians; not only by laymen, but by priests and bishops; not only by the young and inexperienced, but even by men far advanced in life, who must have seen and felt its dreadful consequences; not only by the lower order, fickle in their nature, but above all by princes, whose duty is to compose the rash passions of the unthinking multitude by superior wisdom, and the force of reason. Nor are there ever wanting men, learned in the law, and even divines, who are ready to furnish firebrands for the nefarious work, and to fan the latent sparks into a flame.

View, with the eyes of your imagination, savage troops of men, horrible in their very visages and voices; men clad in steel, drawn up on every side in battle-array, armed with weapons, frightful in their crash and in their very glitter; mark the horrid murmur of the confused multitude, their threatening eye-balls, the harsh jarring din of drums and clarions, the terrific sound of the trumpet, the thunder of the cannon, a noise not less formidable than the real thunder of heaven, and more hurtful, a mad shout like that of the shrieks of bedlamites, a furious onset, a cruel butchering of each other! See the slaughtered and the slaughtering! Heaps of dead bodies, fields flowing with blood, rivers reddened with human gore!

scene.

: In the mean time, I pass over the corn fields trodden down, peaceful cottages and rural mansions burnt to the ground, villages and towns reduced to ashes, the cattle driven from their pasture, innocent women violated, old men dragged into captivity, churches defaced and demolished, every thing laid waste, a prey to robbery, plunder, and violence.

Not to mention the consequences which ensue to the people after a war, even the most fortunate in its event, and the justest in its principle; the poor, the unoffending common people, robbed of their little hard-earned property; the great, laden with taxes; old people bereaved of their children-more cruelly killed by the murder of their offspring, than by the sword-happier if the enemy had deprived them of the sense of their misfortune, and of life itself at the same moment; women far advanced in age, left destitute, and more eruelly put to death, than if they had died at once by the point of the bayonet; widowed mothers, orphan children, houses of mourning, and families that once knew better days, reduced to extreme penury.

: Why need I dwell on the evils which morals sustain by war, when every one knows, that from war proceeds at once every kind of evil which disturbs and destroys the happiness of human life?

[See much more on the same subject, in a work entitled, "Anti-Polemus," translated by Dr. V. Knox, and published about the year 1794.]

VOL. III.

Sieur Charron, 1601.-One, and that indeed the usual and ancient cause of war, is the insatiable thirst of riches and dominion; that abyss of avarice and ambition, which measures the greatness of a prince's glory by the extent of his territories, and enlargement of his conquests. The raging desire of gain, and the rash heat of anger, are the disturbers of peace, and the violators of leagues and treaties.-On Wisdom.

Jeremy Taylor, 1642.-As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, tyranny to charity, so is war and bloodshed to the meekness and gentleness of the Christian religion. I had often thought of the prophecy, that in the gospel, our swords shall be turned into ploughshares, and our spears into pruninghooks. I knew that no tittle spoken by God's Spirit could return unperformed and ineffectual; and I was certain, that such was the excellency of Christ's doctrine, if men would obey it, Christians should never war one against another.

Grotius, 1645.-If, by the Jewish law, an involuntary murderer was obliged to flee to a place of refugeif God prohibited David from building a temple to him, because his hands were defiled with blood, though his wars might be called religious contests-if, among the ancient Greeks, persons who had defiled themselves with slaughter, without any fault of theirs, required expiation-who does not see, especially a Christian man, how wretched and ill-fated a thing war is, and how earnestly even a just war should be avoided. Among the Greeks professing Christianity, the rule has been long observed, that those who had slain an enemy in war, were for a time debarred from all sacred rites.

Dr. Hammond, 1660. - If it be true which Psellus saith, that the devils feast on the vapour that is exhaled from the blood of men, surely the Christian devils, and of late the English, are the fattest of the whole herd, the richliest treated of any, since

G

school! How pernicious the fruit of their victories!

Thos. Hartley, M. A. 1756.-How long, ye potentates, will ye continue to lay heavy burdens on your people, and to add poverty to war? How long will ye give cause to Turks and Indians to say, Fie upon these Christians! how do they delight in blood! Say, is a punctilio of honour, some rivalship in false glory, worth the peace and treasure of kingdoms, and the lives of many thousands of your subjects? Do you know the end and issue of war, or do you understand how the course of nature is set on fire by the wrath and fury of enraged men, so as to produce the most dreadful effects?-And what is all this contention for? Is it for a little more earth in some distant part of the world, which perhaps you can neither people nor cultivate, and which was at at first torn from its proper posses sors? Why, have you not land enough already! Or, is it for more trade? What a stir and bustle is kept up among you for more trade, as if life and salvation depended on it! Is not the sea wide enough, and the land large enough for you all, but you must go on fighting to engross the whole trade of it to yourselves? God gave Israel his people a small tract of country for their portion; small indeed, if compared with what you already possess; but a new discovered world added to the old, cannot afford room enough for Christians. But, O how little with godliness and contentment is sufficient for a people that fear the Lord!

The unlimited ambition of princes is an abuse of government, leading to the most pernicious effects. This ardour of extending their dominions, contrary to all reason and justice, has disturbed the peace of mankind, and filled the earth with violence, in almost every age; insomuch that universal history is little more than a history of wrongs and robberies, committed by these great violators of the rights of mankind. How have the

poor natives in many countries been driven out of their possessions, and hunted down like wild beasts! What millions were slaughtered by the Spaniards in their first American expeditions! And what millions have been slaughtered since, by other European nations in the East and West Indies, and other parts of the globe! It is shocking to an honest heart, to think what little claim certain Powers have to their possessions in the distant countries before mentioned, unless violence and murder, fraudulent dealings, or the setting up of a flag-staff with the invader's name upon it, can give them a sufficient title, a title which they would be ashamed to allow of in any of their subjects at home; and yet we cannot be unacquainted with the names of certain potentates now living, who would hang a poor man for stealing a cow, whilst they themselves share a kingdom amongst them, acquired by rank usurpation. O for a Nathan this day in every court of Christendom, to take up his parable, and, as the application should require it, to say, even to the most puissant monarch, "Thou art the man!"

EDUCATION.

Under this head we adopt (and shall continue in succeeding Numbers) an extract from the works of the Rev. John Norris, which we think may be read with advantage by the learned and unlearned, by the man of science and the sciolist, by tutor and scholar, parent and child. Considered as a lesson of monition to adolescence, or as a spicuous and unanswerable. The learned beacon to youth, its merits are equally per

Author flourished about the time of the

Revolution; the Essay separately has been long out of print.

Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life; with reference to Learning and Knowledge.

THE PREFACE.

that shall point out any of its irregularities or mistakes, is a universal friend, a promoter of the public happiness. And the more severe his censure is, provided it be just, the more serviceable it may be.

Especially, if the irregularities he points out are not only important, frequent and inveterate, but such as lie secret and unobserved, and have all along passed under the notion of excellencies. He that reflects upon such misconducts as these, obliges by his discovery as well as reproof.

This consideration has occasioned the following Reflections upon the Study of Learning and Knowledge; the greatest faults of which, by a kind of unaccountable superstition, are canonized for virtues.

The truth is, the light that divulges other miscarriages will be sure to hide these. For beside that they are visible only to a few (since none can judge of the faults of the learned without learning) those few that do discern them, have seldom ingenuity enough to acknowledge them. For either they are so proud as not to be willing to own themselves to have been so long under a mistake; or so ill-natured that they don't care others should be directed to a better way than they themselves have travelled in.

In the following reflections I have endeavoured to mark out some of these less observed misconducts, wherewith I myself have been too long imposed on, and which after all my conviction (so deep are the impressions of early prejudice) I can hardly yet find power to correct. For Education is the great bias of human life, and there is this double witchcraft in it, that 'tis a long time before a man can see any thing amiss in a way he is used to, and when he does, 'tis not very easy to change it.

I can easily divine how these reflections will be received by some of the rigid votaries of old learning. But if they are of service here and there to an ingenuous and unenslaved spi

rit, I shall not much regard the magisterial censures of those, whose great and long study has had no better effect upon them, than to make them too wise for conviction. REFLECTION I.

Wherein the general conduct of hu

man life is taxed, for placing learning in such things as are little or nothing perfective of the understanding.

1. As there are two faculties in man, understanding and will; so there is a double conduct of human life, intellectual and moral. The moral conduct of men has been continually exposed, ever since preaching and writing have been in the world. But it has fared otherwise with the intellectual, which stands not so fair a mark, nor has been so often hit. Not that it is really less faulty, but because its faultiness is less notorious, lies further in, and must be drawn forth into view by a chain of consequences, which few have either discernment enough to make, or patience enough to attend to.

2. The chief irregularities of it are three, respecting the end, the means, and the degree of affection.

First, The placing learning in such things as are little or nothing perfective of the understanding.

Secondly, The undue and irregular method of prosecuting what is really perfective of it; and

Thirdly, The too importunate pursuit of knowledge in general.

3. First, Men generally place learning in such things as are little or nothing perfective of the understanding. This, I confess, is a severe charge, as it fastens an imputation of folly upon the learned order: and not only so, but in that very thing wherein they think their wisdom consists. Learned men do indeed often, not only own but affect ignorance in things beside their profession. But to censure them as defective in that one thing they pretend to, to make that their blind side where they think they see clearest, to maintain, that