208

BARBARITY OF WAR.

LXXXV. - BARBARITY OF WAR.

EN'GINE (ĕn'jin), n., a machine.
DE-LU'SIVE, a., tending to deceive.
IM-PE'RI-OUS, a., commanding.
RE-CIP'RO-CAL, a., acting in return.

A-TROCIOUS, a., very wicked.

LAC'ER-ATE (las-), v. t., to tear.
AL-LE'VI-ATE, v. t., to lighten.
Sub-or'di-nate, a., inferior.

Be careful in the pronunciation of the following words: em-bel'lish-ments (not -munts), ten'der-ness, fig'ures, draw'ing-room (not droring-), en-ter-tain'ments, chiv'al-ry (shiv-), wound (woond).

1. ON every side of me I see causes at work which go to spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the poetry which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many admirers, as, by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter.

2. I see it in the music which represents the progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men, as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence.

3. All, all, goes to prove what strange and half sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of the popular and prevail.

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ing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature.

4. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful benevolence of the gospel, chasing away every spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its simple but sublime enterprises for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered into the world, and war— cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war— will be stripped of its many and its bewildering fascinations. REV. THOMAS CHALMERS.

5. Nobody sees a battle. The common soldier fires away amid a smoke-mist, or hurries on to the charge in a crowd which hides every thing from him. The officer is too anxious about the performance of what he is specially charged with to mind what others are doing. The commander can not be present every where; he learns from his reports how the work goes on. It is well; for a battle is one of those jobs which men do without daring to look upon.

6. Over miles of country, at every field-fence, in every gorge of a valley or entry into a wood, there is murder committing — wholesale, continuous, recip'rocal murder. The human form - God's image is mutilated, deformed, lăcerated, in every possible way, and with every variety of torture. The wounded are jolted off in carts to the rear, their bared nerves crushed into maddening pain at every stōne or rut; or the flight and pursuit trample over them, leaving them to writhe and roar without assistance-and fever and thirst, the most enduring of painful sensations, possess them entirely.

7. The ripening grain is trampled down; the garden is trodden into a black mud; the fruit-trees, bending

B

beneath their luscious load, are shattered by
non-shot. Churches and private dwellings ar
fortresses, and ruined in the conflict.
stack-yards catch fire, and the conflagration
on all sides. And yet the desolation which
spreads over the battle-field is as nothing w
pared with the moral blight which war diffuses
all ranks of society in the country where it ra
8. Such is war, with its sufferings and
Such is war in Christian and civilized Europ
in an age when most has been done to alle
horrors. Whitewash it as we will, it still ren
of dead men's bones and rottenness within.
who trust most to it will be sure to feel most
that it is an engine the direction and efficacy
defy calculation—which is as apt to recoil up
who explode it as to carry destruction into th
of their adversaries.

LXXXVI. THE PRUSSIAN GENERAL ON THE

Pronounce Blucher, Blook'er; yea, yà or ye. The former is most

'T WAS on the Rhine the armies lay:
To France, or not? Is 't yea or nay?
They pondered long, and pondered well;
At length old Blucher broke the spell:
Bring here the map to me!
The road to France is straight and free.
Where is the foe?". "The foe? Why, her
"We'll beat him. Forward! Never fear!
Say, where lies Paris?"—"Paris?-here!"
"We'll take it. Forward! Never fear!
So throw a bridge across the Rhine;
Methinks the Frenchman's sparkling wine

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211

LXXXVII. — LAST CHARGE OF NEY.

I-NENTAL, C. As here used, it is to the continent of Europe, apart from the British isles. blood-stained.

N'GUINED, pp., O'RON (skwŏd'run), n., a body of ops in any regular form.

'AL ́ION, n., a body of soldiers m five to eight hundred.

ZENITH, n., the point in the heavens
directly over our head.

SA'BER OF SA'BRE, n., a sword.
PLOW or PLOUGH, n., an agricultural
implement.

AL-LIED', pp., united by treaty.
REF'LU-ENT, a., flowing back.
Ex-HAUST (ĕgz-hawst'), v. t., to empty.

ounce Prussia, Proo'she-a. Do not slight er in en'er-gy ; e in sud'den-ly ; h in ust', ex-hib'it; ow in follow, shadow.

THE whole continental struggle exhibited no limer spectacle than this last effort of Napoleon to e his sinking empire. Europe had been put upon plains of Waterloo to be battled for. The greatest tary energy and skill the world possessed had been ted to the utmost during the day. Thrones were ering on the ensanguined field, and the shadows ugitive kings flitted through the smoke of battle. . Bonaparte's star trembled in the zenith, -now ing out in its ancient splendor, now suddenly paling ɔre his anxious eye. At length, when the Prussians eared on the field, he resolved to stake Europe on bold throw. He committed himself and France Ney, and saw his empire rest on a single chance. . Ney felt the pressure of the immense responsity on his brave heart, and resolved not to prove vorthy of the great trust. Nothing could be more osing than the movement of that grand column to assault. That guard had never yet recoiled before uman foe; and the allied forces beheld with awe its 1 and terrible advance to the final charge.

. For a moment the batteries stopped playing, and firing ceased along the British lines, as, without the ting of a drum, or the blast of a bugle, to cheer

212

LAST CHARGE OF NEY.

the plain. The next moment the artillery opened, and the head of that gallant column seemed to sink into the earth. Rank after rank went down; yet they neither stopped nor faltered. Dissolving squadrons, and whole battalions disappearing one after another in the destructive fire, affected not their steady courage. The ranks closed up as before, and each, treading over his fallen comrade, pressed firmly on.

5. The horse which Ney rode fell under him, and he had scarcely mounted another before it also sank to the earth. Again and again did that unflinching man feel his steed sink down, till five had been shot under him. Then, with his uniform riddled with bullets, and his face singed and blackened with powder, he marched on foot, with drawn saber, at the head of his men. In vain did the artillery hurl its storm of fire and lead into that living mass. Up to the very muzzles they pressed, and, driving the artillerymen from their own pieces, pushed on through the English lines.

6. But at that moment a file of soldiers who had lain flat on the ground, behind a low ridge of earth, suddenly rose, and poured a volley in their very faces. Another and another followed, till one broad sheet of flame rolled on their bosoms, and in such a fierce and unexpected flow, that human courage could not withstand it. They reeled shook, staggered back, then turned and fled.

7. Ney was borne back in the refluent tide, and hurried over the field. But for the crowd of fugitives that forced him on, he would have stood alone, and fallen on his footsteps. As it was, disdaining to fly, though the whole army was flying, he formed his men into two immense squares, and endeavored to stem the terrific current, and would have done so, had it not been for the thirty thousand fresh Prussians that pressed on his exhausted ranks.