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No. XXII.

THE BARBARISMS OF WAR.

"AND HE SHALL JUDGE AMONG THE NATIONS, AND SHALL REBUKE MANY PEOPLE : AND THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOW-SHARES, AND THEIR SPEARS INTO PRUNING-HOOKS: NATION SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWORD AGAINST NATION, NEITHER SHALL THEY LEARN WAR ANY MORE." -Isaiah, ii. 4.

WHOEVER has witnessed or bent his mind to the contemplation of the miseries of war, even as they exist in the more enlightened and civilized countries of Europe, must be struck with the infinite blessings which are yet in reserve for the world, when the gospel of Christ shall completely heal the distractions hitherto existing among men, and shall so far enlighten their understandings, and transform their minds, as to cause them to beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.

Innumerable and indescribable are the crimes, the horrors, and curses to which war is continually giving birth. Horrors and crimes, which,

were it not for the awful degeneracy of human nature, we could not contemplate without experiencing somewhat of that amazement which the patriarch Abraham sunk under, when the Divine Being unfolded to his view a portion of the miseries which his descendants were to endure, and of the judgments that were to fall on the obdurate resisters of his grace. (Genesis, xv.)

Every reflecting and benevolent mind, whether in a civil or military capacity, must look forward to that period as the most happy that this earth can witness, when war shall be learnt no more. Duty may now lead the Christian soldier to the painful task of levelling the enemies of his country to the ground; but he will not, like the savage warrior, exult over a fallen adversary with unfeeling joy and cruel exultation. On the contrary, so far as he is a Christian, he will exercise all the noblest feelings that are attached to his present imperfect state of existence. While the foe lies bleeding at his feet, the heart of the Christian victor will bleed tears of compassion over the wounds his duty called on him to inflict.

But where the real principles of Christianity are not in some degree implanted in the bosom, there the soldier is a brute in human shape. He is a self-interested creature, or rather an unfeel

ing monster, who will shed the blood of every fellow-creature he can that crosses his path, or thwarts his interest or his arbitrary will. If the slaying of ten thousand men can obtain for such characters the riches and the titled rewards of a court, they rejoice in the opportunity of committing such slaughter, that they may obtain the price of blood. Hence it is that many are found in this as well as in other countries, who are ready to enter into the naval or military service of any foreign power, Turk, Pope, or Infidel, and thus hire themselves out to that master who will pay them best for shooting their fellow-creatures. No wonder that such men endeavour to persuade themselves there is no God, no future state of retributive justice, and eternal rewards and punishments.

One of the inseparable evils of war is, that, under every modification, and in every aspect, it has a direct tendency to brutalize the human species, to drive back the half enlightened and half transformed individual again into the regions of that apathy of feeling and barbarism of sentiment which have hitherto so enslaved and cursed the world. This is as might be expected. Our lusts, which war against the soul, and against the purity and righteousness of heaven, are the soil from whence wars have ever sprung,

and from whence they will in future proceed. (James, iv. 1.) This is the fountain from whence ́all the indescribable mischiefs of this execrable practice not only issue forth, but from whence they are continually receiving new accessions of strength and malignity. Nor is the evil confined to the mere combatants. It extends its contaminating and baneful influence over whole nations, and more or less deprives almost all the different members of society of some portion of those tender and humane christian feelings which they once possessed.

How completely has our own country proved this! Removed as its favoured inhabitants have been during the late twenty years of war, far from the theatre of battles, and the desolating scenes of famine and the sword, one might have expected all their sensibility and tenderness of conscience and feeling would have at least remained, if not increased; and that every account of the slaughter and devastations of war would have harrowed up their souls, and stirred them up to pray, "that the sword might be returned to its peaceful scabbard, and slay no more." But was it so? No; the continuance and frequency of our accounts of the havoc of battles paralyzed the feelings of the nation until the intelligence of the slaughter of thousands,

and tens of thousands, of friends and enemies, was heard with an awful indifference, and disapathy of mere specu

coursed of with all the lating political minds.

If a ship, or a few boats, or a fort were taken; or the enemies' troops driven back over a few fields in some remote part of the world, the inhabitants of our island rejoiced at the unimportant and unprofitable victory, although sometimes purchased at the expence of thousands of lives. Nay, our very females, who pride themselves in their sensibility of feeling, have put on their gayest attire, and danced to the sprighliest music down the splendid public assemblyrooms of our great cities, in commemoration of the battle of Waterloo, while the widow's and the orphan's cheeks were yet suffused in tears for their slaughtered husbands and fathers, who fell to rise no more in this world.

It was not my lot to see much of these evils on the land. The burning cities driving forth their despairing inhabitants, to perish in the snows and famine of a Russian climate;the mountains of frozen soldiers and frozen horses, both foes and friends, collected into one indiscriminate heap, and burning together in one common funeral pile to prevent an epidemic

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