pious ambition, and for destructive genius, he has had no equal. Thus far I grant that he was Great; but my inquiry is, was he good? Was the world the better for his existence? Did he promote the cause of human happiness? Did he advance one hairbreadth the progress of liberty and civilization? Ah! my Lord Duke, it had been well for the nations of the east had he never been born. He deserved neither a tear nor a tomb! He richly merited to be hissed off the stage of being, and driven into darkness by the curses of mankind! His name should have been blotted out of the vocabulary of their tongues, or, if retained, it ought never to have been pronounced but with execration and horror! In all respects, he is diametrically opposed to the spirit, principles, and procedure of the Christian missionary. The one destroys, the other builds up, the social edifice. The one imparts felicity, the other inflicts calamity. The presence of the missionary excites songs of gladness; the presence of the warrior extorts groans of grief. The latter is a scourge, the former a comforter, of mankind.

Cæsar, I need not remind your Grace, was a meet successor of Alexander, at a distance of some two centuries. He applied a master's hand in crushing the nations of the west. To fit him for the work of evil, not one additional quality of any kind was wanting. With a frame of iron and intellectual powers approaching to perfection, a taste exquisitely refined, an eloquence unrivalled, or rivalled only by one; with manners and habits the most polished and popular; reckless, prodigal, and splendid; with a courage that feared no danger, a perseverance that knew no weariness, and a sagacity which penetrated all things; with the impetuosity of a torrent, and the ambition of a Lucifer; a perfect pattern of all vices, a matchless example of all talents, he stood forth by far the most accomplished deceiver and destroyer of men that had ever appeared

beneath the European sky. His career, from the storming of Mitylene to his own assassination in the Senate-house, was one series of sanguinary atrocities. His chief business, in his first province, was to pillage the inhabitants, to pay the debts incurred by his profligacy. During the first division of his wars, he destroyed or took some eight hundred towns and cities,—subdued three hundred nations,—and butchered more than a million of men! What shall be said of the second division, terminating, as it did, with the havoc of the plains of Munda ? Who can estimate the amount of calamity which this conqueror brought upon mankind? Is not his conduct also inconceivably aggravated by the fact, that his wars were not defensive, but aggressivewanton, covetous, or ambitious invasions and outrages on innocent kingdoms? But how shall I speak of the climax of his crimes, the plunging of his sword into the heart of his own country? Did the sun ever look down upon a conflict so dreadful, so inhuman, so diabolical, as that of Pharsalia, in which fathers slew their children, and thousands fell by brothers' hands?

Such, my Lord Duke, was Julius Cæsar, whom mankind have so lavishly lauded, so heedlessly glorified. Among his reputed excellences, some men of letters have actually celebrated his "humanity." How blinding to the keenest vision is the glory of war! The humanity of Cæsar! This ruthless soldier, this victim of a cruel ambition, aimed at nothing short of the complete subjugation of mankind. To promote their welfare, in the smallest degree, never entered his thoughts. He would have deemed the blood of one-half of the human race a cheap price to pay for the thorough conquest and enthralment of the other! In his eye, men were no more accounted of than beasts. His dispensation was destruction. His glory was celebrated by the wail of widowed and fatherless millions, by the groans of nations, and the crash of the fallen liberties

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of his native country! Let Cæsar the emperor, only be compared with Paul the missionary, in spirit, in principle, in action, in character, and work. Paul, too, in his own way, was a warrior. The distance of time between their respective appearances, was not great; they both in part acted in the same spheres, and on the same people. The efforts of their several operations may be examined, compared, or contrasted. They may be tested also by extension. Ten thousand Cæsars within fifty years, would have done much towards the utter depopulation of the globe; a like number of Pauls would, within the same space, have done as much towards filling it with the blessings of truth, knowledge, liberty, purity, piety, peace, and happiness. Which, then, is the great man? Which of their enterprises merits the epithet glorious? As were the respective works, such also were the agents in their performance. The spiritual and moral difference between Cæsar and Paul is inconceivable. Cæsar was the chief priest of Roman idolatry; Paul, the Heaven-taught and Heavensent teacher of Christianity. The men were as opposite

as their functions; and their effects as diverse as either. Paul enlightened the nations, and lifted them up to fellowship with God. Cæsar subdued, oppressed, enslaved them. Cæsar's weapon was the sword; Paul's, the truth of the gospel. The one, like Apollyon, destroyed men's lives; the other, like Messiah, saved them.

Alexander and Cæsar may suffice as illustrations of the military enterprise of the ancient world. I will not dwell on Jenghiz Khan, and the madmen of the Middle Ages, but, coming at once to more modern times, fix upon Charles XII., of Sweden. This savage sovereign, from his youth, was bent on being a hero. He resolved to become the Alexander of the North. He was, however, in all things an original. He possessed few points in common with either Alexander or Cæsar,-few, in

As compared

deed, in common with any of mankind. with these conquerors, however, in several material differences, the advantages are wholly on his side. Notwithstanding his intense passion for military fame, his earlier wars were defensive. When neighbouring powers plotted cruel acts of aggression upon his tender youth, he awoke from that strange stupor in which he had spent his previous years. His whole character was in a moment changed. He utterly and for ever renounced and abjured all sensual indulgence; he laid aside all regal magnificence, and adopted the most rigid economy. In May, 1700, as your Grace will remember, he left his capital for the war, and commenced that career of brutish obstinacy, blind courage, and cold ferocity, by which he is distinguished from the whole fraternity of heroes. He seems, in truth, to have been considerably tinged with insanity. In support of this allegation, we have many facts both of a public and of a private character. His conduct at the great battle of Pultowa, and especially at Bender, where he braved the power of the Ottoman empire with three hundred Swedes, and with that body began to fortify a mimic camp in the face of an army of twenty-six thousand men, more befitted an inmate of Bedlam than the sovereign of a great nation. Of war as a science, Charles knew very little; and he was still more ignorant of every other branch of human knowledge. He was a transient but severe scourge to many countries. From the time that he began to reign till the day of his death, he busied himself entirely with the work of destruction. He was a great and unmixed curse to his own people, and a blessing to none besides. How to confer human happiness, was never for a single hour his study; and by none of his actions, for a moment, did he ever gladden a solitary heart. He was a cold, callous, selfish, ferocious wretch, who deserved neither love nor imitation. All he did was to augment the misery of men already miserable. His birth was a heavy cala

mity to the earth; and his death, at the early age of thirty-six, was a deliverance to Europe. Nothing could have been more fit than that such a monster should have had an atheist for his historian.

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In

His talents

Next, in order, my Lord Duke, you will doubtless allow me to mention the name of Frederick the Great, of Prussia, whose marvellous history equally demonstrates the benefits of peace and the evils of war. was one of the most gifted of the human race. many points, he closely resembled Cæsar. were of every kind, and all of the highest order. He was fitted alike to excel in the arts of peace and in the arts of war. His law reforms, as comprised in the "Frederician code," appear to have been a glorious achievement; his works, as a man of letters, entitle him to a place among the first writers of his time; his efforts to promote the fine arts, learning, agriculture, and commerce, do him lasting honour. Had he rested satisfied with such pursuits as these, and employed his resources to promote them, great had been his glory. But the demon of war possessed him, and he was occupied with these pursuits only in the few and transient intervals of a long and destructive career. He was the occasion of great calamity to all the nations that were round about him. He kept the north of Europe in one continual ferment. There is scarce a place or city, of any name, adjacent to his kingdom, which has not some tragic association with his mighty but murderous achievements. Liege, Glogau, Molwitz, Czaslaw, Prague, Friedberg, Sohr, Kesseldorf, Kolin, Rosbach, Lissa, Olmutz, Zorndorf, Zullichau, Cunnersdorf, Lundshut, Dresden, Lignitz, Torgau,—to mention no other, will, at the close of time, have to surrender an enormous mass of human dust, comprising the bodies of those that were slain in the battles of Frederick. To accomplish his military projects, he hesitated not to perpetrate the most fearful enormities. He was an infidel, if not an atheist, and the friend and com