WAR A CALAMITY TO BE DEPLORED.

"I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet ?"-JEREMIAH iv. 19-21.

It is my purpose to exhibit war as a plague, and to describe, from divine authority, its antidote. Let me preface the specific subject by a few preliminary observations, explanatory of what has led to the

occasion.

It is now fifty years since war was last formally proclaimed by an English sovereign; and from the proclamation until the cessation of hostilities, a period of at least eleven years was spent in sanguinary conflict, in which all the nations of Europe were involved. It would be difficult to compute the millions of money that were spent by the several Governments in warlike munitions, and in the support of armies, during that time. It is probably impossible to reckon the myriads of men that were slain in the fields of battle; while it would be utterly vain to attempt to recount the domestic sorrows, and

sufferings, and privations of the widows and orphans, whom those wars bereft of husbands and fathers, and left comparatively without homes, or instructors and guardians. But it would far surpass human conception to attempt to reckon the crimes, the individual transgressions, the degrading cruelties, of those that held the supreme or subordinate command of their fellow men in battle-fields, in the siege and pillage of towns and cities, and in the tumultuous hour of deadly strife. To estimate the horrors and criminal outrages of war, perpetrated individually and by the collective multitude, would require an eternity.

It is now nearly forty years since the general war terminated; and during this period the nations of the world have made evident progress, both in the arts of civilization and in cultivating international commerce-sources of incalculable happiness to the people. The measure of this progress has been of the most marked character, and has added intensely to the enjoyment and improvement of mankind. Science and literature have also been advanced in all European nations; and men of this generation have been taught to value and aspire after something else than the glitter and tinsel of warlike costumes and shining armour, and to admire other achievements besides the adventures of arms and sanguinary encounters. The disposition does not so

much prevail among the people at present, as it once did, to glory in the pageantry and symbols of war-the mock fights, the parade and trappings of belligerent battalions. Britain has made progress during these forty years above all other nations in the arts of peace. Her people have learned that peace has its victories and laurels, more enduring than the blood-stained banner. Revolutions have been silently but effectually achieved by steam and iron, the rail and the electric wire-by the civil engineer and the natural philosopher-which surpass the changes wrought by Alexander's conquests, or the convulsions effected by the wars of Napoleon. Not only has machinery been improved, and employed in its accumulated forces and facilities for the happiness of the people; but the science of mind has been extended-the adaptation of social powers and popular liberties has been developed. Not only has the machinery of government been improved, and the principles, on which Governments ought to be conducted, rectified, brought into greater sympathy with the people, and made to proceed in more harmonious action and order; but the rulers and the ruled have begun to feel themselves more like men of a common race, like members of a community with common interests, like fellow citizens whose prosperity as much affects the humblest peasant as the highest peer; the subject and the prince. A dis

position is increasingly manifest, even among the classes who used to designate the people "a herd,” "the commonalty," "the great unwashed," and "swinish multitude," to admit to more friendly, to more equal intercourse; a conviction or feeling of the necessity at least to pretend to be the friends of the poor has grown up in their minds; and the policy of attempting projects that may seem to advance the welfare of the community has now acquired some popularity. Such has been the transition in the years of peace.

During those halcyon years, have gone forth into all lands of the heathen, African and Asiatic, the heralds of divine truth. The messengers of heavenly peace and righteousness have sought access amongst inhabitants of the most despotic countries, and have found an entrance amongst the most degraded nations. There are dynasties, indeed, that have resisted the aggressions of truth and the encroachments of light; and amongst these is the imperial house of Russia, no less than the petty rulers of Tuscany and of Rome. In the lands of the Czar, some thirty years ago, there was an organization of the Bible Society, and an agency employed for the diffusion of the sacred Scriptures; seeking to convert the people to the knowledge of the will of God, and also to the reception of its principles and influence. But at the beginning of the reign of the present ruler of all the Russias, that Bible Society