the daughter expiring under the cruel agonies which brutal soldiers have inflicted, first by violating her chastity, and then by stabbing her bosom with their bayonets. He must learn, that the young children are fled with their distracted mother into the concealment of some neighbouring wood, while all this tale of sorrow is told by the forlorn, and wretched, helpless old grandsire, whom he finds weeping amidst the blood, the desolation, and the mangled corpses of his family. When any man has surveyed the scene thus far, let him hasten to the late field of battle, and see at one view what horrid havoc, what inexpressible misery, what Satanic effects are produced by war. There all the varieties of its general carnage will exhibit themselves to all his senses; wounded dying men and wounded dying horses mingling their groans, and pouring out their life-blood into the same channel; friends and enemies, swords, muskets, helmets, fallen in one indiscriminate heap; some with their faces on the earth, biting the ground in the agonies of death, and others rolling their convulsed eyes for the last time towards that sun which they are to behold no more for ever. As the work of slaughter ends for the day, let him follow the mangled, wounded multitudes, as they are carried to some rude building, or laid in rows beneath the shelter of a hedge, until the surgeon can amputate the limbs of some and bind up the wounds of others. Then hour after hour let him mark the sufferings of those wounded soldiers, and count up the deaths that day after day thin their ranks. When he has done this, he will be enabled to realize in part what are the sad and cruel effects of war; he will feel convinced, that its horrors and evils are infinitely more deplorable than those produced by eruptive volcanos and destructive earthquakes."

My neighbour stood aghast while I spoke; and as I ended, he implored the divine Being to save us as a nation and people from the sins and calamities of war. He then hastened on to his labour, and I proceeded forward towards a distant cottage, where one of my people lay patiently waiting the hour which would soon arrive, and dismiss the happy soul from a pained and dying body. The subject of war, however, kept possession of my thoughts, and many more of its evils passed and repassed before the mind, until I felt most powerfully the truth of that Scripture, Madness is in the heart of man while he lives, and after that he goes down to the dead."

Surely, among all the unhallowed practices which our pretended Christian nations tolerate and approve, none so completely prove the unchristian state of those nations as that of war. Whatever may be advanced in justification of positive self-defence against the actual violence of bloody and unprincipled invaders, there can be none produced, on the authority of Scripture, to justify or even palliate one out of a hundred of all the wars that have ever, been waged in the world. We are not surprised at any thing which men and nations may think or do, so long as they know not God, or so long as they reject his holy word. Whether we survey the ambitious, bloodthirsty spirit and practice of ancient, polished, heathen Greece or Rome, or whether we contemplate the brutal passions, the tiger-like disposition and depredations of northern savages or of Oriental idolaters, all is one piece of consistency; because man in a savage as well as in a polished but heathen state, is, as has been long truly styled, "half a beast and half a devil." But that men and nations professing to fear God and to believe the Holy Scriptures, that men and nations professing

to be looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, should maintain such favourable opinions of war-should see so little of its abominations, and feel so little compunction at entering on all its dire and dismal operations, and that too on, the slightest pretence, and often with no, pretence at all, is most astonishing. That men professing to believe in a future state and a just judgment, should, from no other real motives than those of a selfish nature, "wade as far as they can through slaughter to a throne," nay to a very pitiful pre-eminence above their neighbours; and for these poor, dying, distinctions, willingly shut the gates of mercy on mankind surely this is mockery of religion, and the height of profanation and contempt of God. O thou meek and lowly Saviour! thou Prince of peace! thou God, of love and mercy! how long shall, thy name, thy word, and thy religion be thus mocked and blasphemed? What claim, what authority, can, kings and princes challenge to style themselves "most Christian "while war is held up by them in high and honourable esteem, and practised in all its horrors on every trifling occasion, and its deeds of blood and darkness are made the straight and sure way to riches, titles,, and honours among men? Blessed Saviour! at thy birth the host of hea ven proclaimed "peace on earth, and good will, towards men!" It was peace which thou thyself didst preach and command, which thou didst bequeath to thy followers as. their duty and solace across the waste, howling wilderness of a distracted world. Yet, alas! there have been but few among thy professed followers, who have valued, the boon, or endeavoured to promote its extension in the world. O.

* The kings of France are styled, "Most Christian Majesty."

that thou. wouldest hasten the time when men should love one, another, and nations learn war no more!,

When, with the Gospel of this blessed Saviour in our hands,, and the subjects of death, judgment, and eternity on our minds, we sit down and read the history of those bloody wars, those ambitious pursuits, those diabolical sentiments and desolating practices which our own and other nations, called Chris tian, have maintained, one is struck with amazement that the sweeping judgments, and righteous indignation of Heaven, have not been again and again poured out on these portions of the earth. The evils attendant on war, which I mentioned to my neighbour John,, form but a part of those which are seen and felt on earth. A long. train of heart-rending calamities might be added to what was there only hinted at; these, however, we will now pass over, and for one moment direct our thoughts to that eternal state which awaits the dying warrior, in common with dying men of every other description Were warriors to die like the horses which, bear them into the rage of battle, were there no existence after the present life, no account to. be given in at a future tribunal, no heaven to be lost or gained, no, region of unspeakable and eternal misery to be avoided or partaken of,, then would the soldier's folly in. throwing away his life be less.comspicuous, and the prince's criminality in. urging his subjects on to their destruction be less heinous.. But the case is not so.. After death. comes the judgment; after time is concluded, comes eternity; after the day of probation is ended, comes heaven or hell, as the unalterable, the eternal residence of every man. To die is at all times, and under all circumstances, a solemn matter. To depart hence unpardoned, sanctified, and consequently unsaved, is the prelude to weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth

un

for ever:. Now,, when we consider an army of one hundred thousand men marching on to a campaign, in which they will slay perhaps, two thirds of as numerous an army of their adversaries, and leave two thirds of their own number dead on the plain-when we consider the awful profaneness, which pervades such a collected host of men in their general manners, the rage, and lust, and murder that operate in the hour of battle and in the day of plunder when we call to mind, that in the very heat and full exercise of all these unhallowed pas, sions and pursuits their souls are dismissed to the righteous tribunal of heaven, there to be judged by Him who hath commanded all men to love each other as brethren when we read as from the very lips of this Judge himself, that there is neither repentance non reformas tion in the grave, that at death he who is unholy must remain unholy still, and he that is filthy must remain filthy still, that nothing which defileth can enter into his kingdom when, I say, we thus reflect as we gaze on the heaps of slaughtered warriors, O what can charity it self furnish to sooth our grief on allay our fears as to the final state of by far the greater portion of all who are thus untimely cutoff? Whatisha dow of a plea worthy one moment's hearing, can those princes and senators advance in justification of their conduct, or in extenuation of all, the accumulated and eternal misery they have brought on so many of their fellow-creatures, whose immortality is now their greatest curse, because they have passed away from this state of pro bation uncalled by their Maker, and unprepared to give up their account? They have closed their period of time, but not repented finished thein days, but not reformed. They have died: in, the perpetration of acts which God has forbidden, and sealed, for ever seal ed; thein unspeakable, their eternal

misery! We hear, indeed, much sophistry and many harangues set ting forth to the world how that ex pediency, necessity, and even posi tive duty, call upon rulers to marshal the peaceable inhabitants of the land, and to send them forth from time to time to slay and be slain; but if we look to the word of God for an explanation of motives which actuate men on these occasions, we are: informed, that" wars and fightings come of men's lusts." (James, iv. 1.) And whoever reads, with a mind open to conviction, through the history of this or any other na tion,, will infallibly be led to this conclusion, that the most glaring ambition, the most pitiful envy, the broadest injustice, and the most. criminal disregard of human suffer→ ings, have been, the leading motives. and actuating principles of by far: the greater part of all those who have planned and proclaimed, the many wars which have distracted: and polluted the earth. Expediency is a term most convenient and well suited to varnish over every wicked action which Jesuits, at, the altan, and ambitious senators at the council-board, have. perpetrated. Caiaphas,, the infamous high priest, argued on the ground of expedi→ ency, and Pontius Pilate, the timeserving governor, did the same, when the one adjudged the Sa viour of the world to death, andi the other gave him up to be crucis. fied. Were it not for the base passions of ambition, revenge, envy, and covetousness actuating those who govern the nations, we should hear little of the necessity of war, and not once in an, hundred years would the plea of duty dare to advance itself in justification of drawing the sword.

O how will those wholesale mur derers confront a holy God and an assembled world of pure and hap py spirits? Fain would they per suade themselves that no such in terview will ever take place. Buo the day is hastening on, when they

must stand forth, not to receive the idle acclamations of a guilty infidel multitude of wicked men, but to tell out all the real, all the hidden springs of action, all the true motives and actual principles that urged them on in the praise and practice of war. Then shall a collected world hear them confess, in the bitterness of unavailing sorrow and madness of unceasing despair, "We planned and carried on wars, that we might exalt ourselves on the ruin of others, that we might make us a name upon the earth. The miseries we brought on our people, the burdens with which we loaded our own country, and the fetters we riveted on others; the famine and pestilence we occasioned in the earth, and the souls we hurried into another world these were circumstances considered light as the dust on the balance when weighed against the gratification of humbling our cotemporaries, of extending our own power, and augmenting our own fame. We thirsted for universal dominion, and we desired to be renowned above men. The fabric of our fame was cemented with blood; and when our names were wafted to the ends of the earth, it was in the shrill cry of suffering humanity, in the curses and imprecations of those whom our swords had reduced to despair: but we sorrowed not at these lamentations, we grieved not at the miseries we had produced in the earth, we were renowned among men, and we disregarded the approbation of God."

Others, that is, the great mass of those who compose the ranks of slaughterers, will have in general no better reason to give for becoming warriors and shedding the blood of their fellow men, than that idleness led them to prefer warfare to honest labour; vanity prompted them to exchange a plain garment for a tawdry uniform; and a love of that praise which comes from man,

induced them to set at naught that praise which comes from God. They will be ready to confess, and that with truth, that they had no particular wish to destroy their fellow-creatures, they felt no particular enmity against any other tribe or class of men; but as they had become soldiers, they were led to the war, and the business of war was to slay and be slain. O the madness of the heart of man! Well, of this blessed fact we are certain, that as soon as our pretended Christian nations become in reality nations of Christians, war will be learnt no more. The past transactions of men will then be viewed as they ought to be, and acquire suitable titles and appropriate definitions. Then the history of the warrior will excite only pity and surprise at the folly and wickedness of such a profession as that of arms. And the name of the conqueror's grave will be "the grave of the destroyer of men." Then will the ancient Briton, who offered his own fellow-creatures in sacrifice to his idol gods, and the more modern Briton, who trafficked in human blood, and bartered the defenceless children of Africa for lucre of gain, and their still more modern descendants, who justified war, and chose its profession as one most high and honourable to man; then, I say, will all these be remembered with an equal mixture of pity, surprise, and holy indignation. Yes, the day is advancing when the world will bless God that such crimes no longer exist, but in the records of past ages; that such doctrines are approved of only in hell.

As yet, the earth groans while it drinks in the blood of its inhabitants, and the blood of man cries to heaven; and soon these cries and groans will receive a reply. Nay, that reply is now given, and has been given through all the past sanguinary ages of the world-given in strains of righteous indignation, and displays the retri

butive justice of Heaven. Thus will the life of this world pass on for an appointed season, and then the change cometh when wars shall cease to the ends of the earthwhen swords shall be beaten into

plowshares and spears into pruninghooks-when princes and senators shall no longer bid the hostile legions slay each other, nor such a person as a warrior be found on the earth. Meanwhile, it is the duty of the Christian, in whatever rank he moves, to inculcate peace on earth and good will towards men; to exhibit to all within his reach

the genuine spirit and true principles of the Gospel of Christ, and

Exil'd by thee from earth to deepest hell, In brazen bonds, shall barbarous Discord dwell:

And mad Ambition shall attend her there: Gigantic Pride, pale. Terror, gloomy Care, There purple Vengeance bath'd in gore re

tires,

Her weapons blunted, and extinct her fires; There hateful Envy her own snakes shall

feel,

Christian Majesty," while they so wantonly spill the blood of those

And Persecution mourn her broken wheel; There Faction roar, Rebellion bite her chain,

ALIQUIS.

To the Editor of the Christian Guardian.

SIR,

It is very probable, that several of your readers may be unacquainted with the following passage in the Life of the late Rev. Thomas Scott.

"In this instance," of the prevalence of an infectious disorder, "which happened, I believe, before those above related, an incident occurred on which I never can reflect without astonishment; but I venture my credit for veracity on the exact truth. A poor man, most dangerously ill, of whose religious state I entertained some hopes, seemed to me in the agonies of death. I sat by his bed for a considerable time, expecting to see him expire; but at length he awoke as from sleep, and noticed me. I

said, You are extremely ill.' He replied, Yes; but I shall not die this time.' I asked the ground of this extraordinary confidence, saying, that I was persuaded he would not recover. To this he answered,

• What

I have just dreamed that you, with a very venerable looking person, came to me; he asked you what you thought of me: kind of tree is it? Is there any fruit?' You said, 'No, but there are blossoms.'- Well, then,' he said, 'I will spare it a little longer.' All reliance upon such a dream I should, in other circumstances, have scouted as enthusiasm and presumption; but it so exactly met my ideas as to the man's state of mind, which, however, I had never communicated to him; and the event, much beyond all expectation, so answered