America. But these victories and successes cost the nation 111,271,9967. sterling, and TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND LIVES!-Such was the indemnity which England obtained for the past.

England was not long to enjoy the blessings of peace and prosperity. In the course of recovering her natural strength and affluence, she was again interrupted by the unhappy and calamitous contest with the American colonies, which broke out in 1775. After a struggle of seven or eight years, in which England lost two hundred thousand lives, and expended 139,171,8767. sterling, peace was signed between the contending powers, at Paris, on the 3d of September 1783, by which Great Britain acknowledged the thirteen provinces of North America, free, sovereign, and independent states.

The late awful contest with France is too recent to require commenting on in this place. Besides the subject is often incidentally touched on, in the course of these pages. Would to God, that we might learn, after looking over this brief catalogue of national hostilities, the wisdom, the profit, the policy, and the duty of studiously cultivating the arts of peace, that the agitated world might at length have repose; and that statesmen and philosophers, private citizens, and philanthropists, might employ themselves in healing those wounds which war has occasioned, and in ameliorating the general condition of mankind.

From Essays by John Foster. (Continued from vol. 11. page 334.) WHEN I add the name of Lucan, I must confess that no author of antiquity, that I know, would have so much power to seduce my feelings, in respect of moral greatness, into a train not co-incident with christianity. His leading characters are widely different from those of Homer, and of a greatly superior order. The mighty genius of Homer

appeared and departed in a rude age of the human mind, a stranger to the intellectual enlargement which would have enabled him to combine in his heroes the dignity of thought, instead of mere physical force, with the energy of passion. For want of this, they are great heroes without being great men. They appear to you only as tremendous fighting and destroying animals; a kind of human Mammoths. The rude efforts of personal conflict are all they can understand and admire, and in their warfare their minds never reach to any of the sublimer results even of war; their chief and final object seems to be the mere savage glory of fighting, and the annihilation of their enemies. When the heroes of Lucan, both the depraved and the nobler class, are employed in war, it seems but a small part of what they can do and what they intend; they have always something further and greater in view than to evince their valour, or to riot in the vengeance of victory. Even the ambition of Pompey and Cæsar seems almost to become a grand passion, when compared to the contracted as well as detestable aim of Homer's chiefs; while this passion too is confined to narrow and vulgar designs, in comparison with the views which actuated Cato and Brutus.-The contempt of death, which in the heroes of the Iliad often seems like an incapacity or an oblivion of thought, is in Lucan's favourite characters the result, or at least the associate, of profound reflection; and this strongly contrasts their courage with that of Homer's warriors, which is (according indeed to his own frequent similes) the daring of wild beasts. Lucan sublimates martial into moral grandeur. Even if you could deduct from his great men all that which forms the specific display of the hero, you would find their greatness undiminished; they would be commanding and interesting men still. The better class of them, amidst war itself, hate and deplore

the spirit and ferocious exploits of war. They are indignant at the vices of mankind for compelling their virtue into a career in which such sanguinary glories can be acquired. And while they deem it their duty to exert their courage in a just cause, they regard camps and battles as vulgar things, from which their thoughts often turn away into a train of solemn contemplations in which they rise sometimes to the empyreal region of sublimity. You have a more absolute impression of grandeur from a speech of Cato, than from all the mighty exploits that epic poetry ever blazoned. The eloquence of Lucan's moral heroes does not consist in images of triumphs and conquests, but in reflections on virtue, sufferings, destiny, and death; and the sentiments expressed in his own name have often a melancholy tinge which renders them irresistibly interesting. He might seem to have felt a presage, while musing on the last of the Romans, that their poet was soon to follow them. The reader becomes devoted both to the poet and to these illustrious men; but, under the influence of this attachment, he adopts all their sentiments, and exults in the sympathy; forgetting, or unwilling, to reflect, whether this state of feeling is concordant with the religion of Christ, and with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. The most seducing of Lucan's sentiments, to a mind enamoured of pensive sublimity, are those concerning death. I remember the very principle which I would wish to inculcate, that is, the necessity that a believer of the gospel should preserve the christian style of feeling predominant in his mind, and clear of every incongruous mixture, having struck me with great force amidst the enthusiasm with which I read many times over the memorable account of Vulteius, the speech by which he inspired his gallant band with a passion for death, and the reflections on death with which the poet closes the episode.

I said to myself with a sensation: of conscience, What are these sentiments with which I am burning? Are these the just ideas of death? Are they such as were taught by our Lord? Is this the spirit with which St. Paul approached his last hour? And I felt a painful collision between this reflection and the passion inspired by the poet. I perceived with the clearest certainty that the kind of interest which I felt was no less than a real adoption, for the time, of the very same sentiments by which he was animated.

The epic poetry has been selected for the principal subject of my remarks, from the conviction that it has had a much greater influence on the moral sentiments of succeeding ages than all the other poetry of antiquity, by means of its impressive display of individual great characters. And it will be admitted, I believe, that the moral spirit of the epic poets, taken together, is as little in opposition to the christian theory of moral sentiments as that of the collective poetry of other kinds. The Greek tragedies abound with just and elevated sentiments, tending to lead the mind to the same habits of thought as the best of the pagan didactic moralists. And these sentiments are more forcibly impressed by means of being accompanied with a well-combined series of action, than they could be by mere moral writing. They are however far less powerfully impressed by the happiest combination of dramatic action than by such striking and sublime individual characters as those of epic poetry. It would seem not to have been the design of the ancient tragic poets, nor to have been allowed by their critical laws, to introduce such sublime characters. The mind of the reader does not retain for months and years an animated recollection of some personage whose name incessantly recalls the sentiments which he uttered, or which his conduct made us feel. Still, however, the moral

spirit of the Greek tragedies acts with a considerable force on a susceptible mind; and if there should be but half as great a difference between the quality of the instructions which they will impart, and the principles of evangelical morality, as there was between the religious knowledge and moral spirit of poets who wrote and contended for their own fame in Greece, and the divine illumination and noble character of those apostles that opened a commission from heaven to transform the world, the student may have some cause to be careful lest his Athenian morality should disincline him to the doctrines of a better school.

(To be continued.)

Fourth Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace.

THE Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace trust that through the encouragement and co-operation of their Christian brethren, the great principles they have endeavoured to exhibit and to promote, have already obtained a stability which gives the strongest conviction of their durable -influence, and they may be allowed, from the eminence on which they believe the Society now stands, to look back on the events and vicissitudes which have marked their progress, grateful if they have been enabled successfully to inculcate those important truths, the consequences of which are so closely connected with the virtue and happiness of individual as well as social man.

They have ever considered, that principles so much in accordance with the lovely and peculiar character of our Holy Religion, so beautifully displayed in the temper and conduct of its Founder-so friendly to human improvement-so encouraging to moral exertion-so conducive to the well-being of man-must have their foundation in Immutable

And shall not a cause so holy and so animating, go on and prosper? Shall not our efforts, which were directed to the high and interesting object of uniting mankind more closely in the bonds of brotherhood, when success was problematical and uncertain-when we had little encouragement from any attempts which had preceded ours-and less from the melancholy history of warring man-shall not our efforts be more strongly excited, now that we see friends and protectors rising around us in every direction, bodies of individuals proclaiming the great truths for which we contend, and the general state of society peculiarly fitted for the reception of the important principles we would fain inculcate?

The present moment is in fact one which brings home most emphatically the solemn inquiry to our bosoms, whether, as the children of one Almighty Parent, the disciples of a common Master, the equal heirs of a divine inheritance, we have not been too long insensible to the lessons which we should have learnt from the merciful character of our Heavenly Father, from the benevolent spirit of the Christian code, and from the circumstances of social communion in which we are placed? It is one of the most striking and satisfactory characteristics of the passing day, that the violence of national antipathies seems gradually subsiding. We have been privileged to witness not only the union of indi

viduals, not only the accordance of widely differing sects, but the harmonious and eager co-operation of rival nations, too long and absurdly deemed natural opponents, in the great cause of religious knowledge. And why may not this union be permament? Why may not the influence of the friendly feeling extend, until it becomes too deeply fixed to be eradicated by the malevolence of ambition, or the selfishness of commercial avarice? What have nations gained by the long and brutal struggles which deface the pages of their history? Are they wiser, or better, or happier? Alas! wisdom, and holiness, and happiness, follow not in the train of war. What victories of fleets or armies can be compared to the silent triumphs of truth and benevolence? The former glare amidst the darkness of desolation and death; the latter shine forth in the display of all the benignant virtues, the sympathies of friend and brother, the exercises of piety and charity.

We belong to a Nation, whose moral and political influence is felt in every quarter of the globe. Privileged greatly beyond numbers of our fellow men, it becomes us to give an example worthy of the station we hold. To ENGLAND have mankind been accustomed to look for lessons of freedom and of virtue; and if she unite to the power she holds, or has held, over public opinion, the example of forbearance, the practical lessons of peace and wisdom,-what may not be expected from her ascendency, an ascendency founded on the diffusion of the mild genius of Christianity, and guaranteed by its close connexion with the well-being of universal man! Thus indeed might our country occupy a station of commanding influence. Her high example of forbearance and true dignity would compel the recognition and the permanent establishment of pacific principles. That example (and let all our energies be exerted

to enforce it!) would produce the most consolatory changes in the state of society. Under her authoritative sanction, mutual jealousies would cease; the rivalry, the hatred, which have been fed by the victims sacrificed to the Moloch of war, would soon be subdued. A nation would become a larger family, and separate states would blend as a greater people. There would then be sympathies for their mutual calamities, joy in their common prosperity. Is this the dream ef enthusiasm ? O no! it is the voice of prophecy-the pro

mise of God!

What a heart-invigorating prospect, to see our country's pre-eminence dependent, not on the bloodstained records of successful war, but on the substantial glory of being first and foremost in the ranks of Christian philanthropy-a magnificent column of moral majesty, rising above the vicissitudes of time!

We know with what we have to contend-the listlessness of the unenquiring, the passions of the violent, the interests of some, and the prejudices of almost all. But he who has marked the sure, though silent progress of truth, even in the midst of discouragement and difficulty, will find no cause for despair. If the principles we advocate be indeed what we conceive them to be, and contend they are, we may be sure of their final prevalence. The question we have now to ask ourselves is, Shall we be instrumental in their promotion? And if any should be disheartened because they can take no prominent, no influential part m promoting the holy cause, let them not be cast down; no virtuous effort is lost. The seeds of truth that are scattered, cannot be scattered in vain; the labour of the lowliest servant of benevolence must finally have its reward.

In connexion with our own efforts, it is to us a subject of the most complacent feeling, that among the great people so closely allied to us by

common ancestry, by common language, and in so many respects by common institutions, there are numerous societies cordially co-operating with us in the promotion of our high and important objects. We have already slightly adverted to this, and we cannot refrain on this occasion from wafting across the Atlantic our sincerest and warmest congratulations to our American brethren, with our prayers for their continued, their rapidly increasing

success.

During the past year we have received considerable encouragement from the correspondence of our continental friends. Though the restraints upon public meetings in some countries, and the poverty of others, added to those Revolutions which have agitated many of them, -though these and other circumstances have prevented the establishment of Foreign Auxiliary Societies, yet we are persuaded that our cause is prospering. Its progress, its peaceful progress, disturbs not the superficies of things, and may not, in consequence, be discerned by the careless observer; but a great change is manifestly going on in the hearts of men, and beneath the frozen surface of seeming indifference mighty principles are at work, and will sooner or later exhibit themselves in their benign influence.

One new Tract, No. 6, consisting of extracts from a sermon by Dr. Bogue, has been published by permission of the author; also editions of Nos. 2, 3, and 4; No. 2 in Dutch, and the Third Annual Report, have been printed, in all, 54,000 copies: making a total of 207,000 that have been printed since the formation of the Society. The sales and distributions this year are about 30,000. Tract No. 3, has been translated into Spanish, and an edition is in preparation. The amount of Subscriptions and Donations received this year is, £385. 5. which the Committee lament to say falls

considerably below the receipts of the previous year and as a very extended field of labour is now open to them, the Committee earnestly solicit the attention of their friends to the collection of additional Subscriptions, without which they will be unable to meet the demands on them, particularly for the translation of tracts and documents into foreign languages. They trust the exertions of their advocates will be stimulated by this appeal, and that while no opportunity is lost for circulating the tracts of the Society, they will be provided with the means of availing themselves of those encouraging circumstances which they hail as giving the promise that their great object may be finally accomplished. Several of the Auxiliaries are prosperously engaged in promoting the views of the Society. The Committee cannot, however, state accurately the number of Subscribers, from the want of returns. New Auxiliaries have been established at BATH, BRISTOL, SOUTHAMPTON, PLYMOUTH, and STOCKTON.

The Committee of the Swansea and Neath Auxiliaries have selected from the different Publications of the Society a Tract adapted for circulation in Wales, which, being approved by the Committee, has been translated into Welsh, and will soon be ready for distribution

Of the proceedings of the Societies at New York and at Glasgow, your Committee have obtained no recent intelligence. From that of Massachusetts they have received frequent communications, also their Fourth Report, extracts from which will be found in the Appendix.

Copies of the Tracts have been transmitted by a member of your Committee, when on the Continent, to the Kings of France and Spain, through the regular channels of communication. Much attention has been excited to the subject in Paris, and your Committee hope that some measures will soon be taken in that capital to promote the cause. Opportunities