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the despot's sword and the spear before them. They wrote as they thought-in fetters! The exceptions, such as Tacitus, and one or two more, only confirm the rule and even where he and others spoke as freemen of freedom, their regards were not directed to the masses of mankind. They had no conception of lifting up the spirits of the prostrate millions by providing them with intellectual and moral culture. They sought nothing, and deemed nothing desirable, beyond immunities and privileges for the wealthier classes of society.

One of the most extraordinary and peculiar features of the new kingdom, according to the Jewish authors, was the intense and undeviating regard to be had for the poor. Indeed, pity for the poor is a distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish writers generally, to an extent infinitely surpassing all others. How emphatic

and bitter, and full of pathos, is their complaint in behalf of the oppressed! Nor was this confined to minds of a plebeian order: the best of the Jewish kings were the friends of the afflicted poor. Take, for example, the following reflection of the Royal philosopher :-" "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun; and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter: on the side of their oppressors, there was power; but they had no comforter! Wherefore, I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive! Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun!"* How touching is the following delineation of the character of the new King!" He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. He shall judge the poor of the people; he shall save the children of the needy; and shall break in

Eccles. iv. 1-3.

pieces the oppressor! He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight."*

How unlike is this predicted course of the new King to every thing that has hitherto been associated with crowns and thrones! The history of the past is before the eye of your lordship, and it will be advantageous to the claims of the Messiah to contrast him with all who have ruled mankind. The compassion which he will cherish for the poor will result from the same rectitude of mind and tenderness of spirit, that will lead him to denounce and abolish war. The Messiah's peaceful. reign will be full fraught with blessings to all, but especially to the millions of working people and of the poor. A few of the aristocracy gain fortunes and titles by war; but the poor are invariably losers. How sublime and awful is the language of Isaiah relative to the bloodstained and remorseless tyrant of Babylon!

"The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak, and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst

* Psa. lxxii. passinî.

weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners ? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts."*

Critics talk of invective, my Lord; was there ever invective like this? Your lordship will not fail to mark the subjects of it. This is the circumstance which calls for special notice. The deadly crime of the Imperial Destroyer of mankind, was his unparalleled pride and ambition, in which, apart from its Luciferian

* Isa. xiv.

atrocity, there was something inconceivably grand and awful! The Searcher of hearts exposes the secrets of the tyrant's bosom. No human spirit, probably, ever so fully entered into infernal communion with the prince of the fallen angels. Pride, independence, impatience of divine restraint-these lie at the foundation of his guilty aspiration. His iniquity is fearfully aggravated by his knowledge. He speaks not as an idolater, but as a man who understands, while he hates, the leading truths of religion. Like the devils, he believes there is one God, but it does not appear that, like them, he even trembles! "I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will be like the Most High!" Could the mightiest and proudest spirit in Pandemonium expand this thought, or elevate this language? Here we have ambition on the most gigantic scale; and the principle is the same whether it burns in the spirit of a Napoleon or of a Francia. It is charged against the King, that he "weakened the nations"-that he "made the earth to tremble and shook kingdoms"-that he "made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; and that he opened not the house of his prisoners." These, my Lord, these are the prophet's charges against this prince and prototype of murderers! Does your lordship remember any thing in the entire library of classic learning which, in relation to war, can be compared to this as a charge of guilt, an expression of hatred and abhorrence ? This is the crime, but what is the judgment? It is awful, my Lord, inexpressibly awful-awful beyond precedent or parallel! Vengeance pursues and overtakes the Imperial homicide in both worlds. The whole earth, after a preparatory pause of dread silence, breaks forth, as with the voice of ten thousand thunders,

in pealing shouts of tempestuous exultation at the tyrant's fall! The invisible world is moved from centre to circumference. All the myriads of the empire of death are assembled to receive the spirit of the warrior, dyed in the blood of millions! They receive him with a fierce storm of reproachful and scornful interrogation! They with one voice proclaim his crime-predict his doom! The sickened earth, in token of her abhorrence, vomits forth his very carcase as an abominable drug—a mortal poison! The indignant orb which he had covered with death, refuses him a tomb! Let the reason be engraved upon the sceptre of kings," BECAUSE THOU HAST DESTROYED THY LAND, AND SLAIN THY PEOPLE!" While he had devastated other kingdoms, he had ruined his own. Vengeance, too, was to descend upon his seed, and the abode which his gory steps had polluted was to be rooted up. The seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned!"

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The foregoing, my Lord, is a Hebrew writer's picture of war, a delineation of its guilt, and a prediction of the doom of its great promoter. You will, I doubt not, allow that in strength and severity of reprobation, the most powerful of modern orators are jejune and imbecile as compared with the prophets of Israel. Let us contrast the Prince of Peace with this military hero. In his reign the very 66 mountains," ," like beasts of burden, of strength immeasurable, “shall bring PEACE to the people, and the little hills by righteousness." His government will constitute a fountain of public felicity, a source of universal prosperity. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish ; and ABUNDANCE OF PEACE So long as the moon endureth ; and he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; prayer shall also be made for him continually, and daily shall he be praised. His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long

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