covenant of his fathers ?"*

We are brethren. The poor, the humble, the barbarous, and the heathen, are all connected by ties the most indisputable and lasting, to the wealthy, the powerful, the civilized, and the Christian. Neither mountain, nor ocean, nor race, nor language, nor creed, nor colour, can break this chain; for the soul gives man the impress of his Maker, and stamps at once his common lineage from the Divine Parent, his right to a brother's title and a brother's affection.

"Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" In a private family, discord converts the happy home into an abode of misery; how much more destructive of happiness, and extensive in its consequences, is the strife of a world!

Can we

And shall we not spare a brother? inflict a needless pang on one who, subject to equal sufferings with ourselves, demands compassion and assistance? Can we stain our hands and burden our souls with a brother's blood? War is nothing less than one vast fratricide! Well might Milton exclaim

"O what are these?

Death's ministers, not men! who thus deal death
Inhumanly to man: and multiply

Ten thousand fold the sin of him who slew

His brother; for of whom such massacre

Make they, but of their brethren, men of men ?"

*Mal. ii. 10.

+ Psalm cxxxiii. 1.

The physical formation of man in itself should be sufficient to negative the idea that he was intended for strife. He comes into the world weak and powerless. The first lesson he is taught is that of dependence upon others. He is formed with every capacity for social life. The friendship of two human beings is a source of much gratification; the friendship, the Christian friendship of the whole family of man would produce the very highest state of mortal happiness.

The human body is consecrated to the Almighty, as it is the tenement for a while of the Spirit: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." "The body is for the Lord, and

the Lord for the

body. Know ye not that your

bodies are the members of Christ? What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."*

It is not physical, it is not social man that should so powerfully arrest our attention, as the moral and intellectual being we see before us. Man is made in the image, and after the likeness

* 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; and vi. 13 to 20; and see Rom. xiv. 7, 8.

of his Maker; he possesses the divine qualities of spirituality, reason, freedom of will, and immortality; he is formed "a little lower than the angels, and crowned with honour and glory." Well might the Jewish command against shedding blood, go forth in connection with the reason, that "in the image of God made he man." The soul of man was moulded by the Divine hands, and possesses faculties of a sublime and lasting nature. Christianity, by establishing the claim of man to immortality, has displayed him as a favoured child of the Almighty, as a being of value in His sight, and an object of his special care,-as one worthy even of the life and death of Jesus. The promise of an eternity beyond the grave, while it should make us endure any affliction rather than risk heavenly bliss, should also create within us a deep reverence for our fellow men, who, like ourselves, can never die. This doctrine has declared that life is sacred, and that death is followed by infinite consequences. It is the prerogative of the Almighty alone, to summon hence that spirit which he gave for an allotted period; and the human creature that dares to invade with guilty and polluted touch the sanctity of life, assumes the Divine privilege, and commits the most horrible of all treason,-treason against God! Enlightened and instructed Christians should acknowledge that the future welfare of an individual is of

greater importance than the preservation of a city, or the temporal prosperity of a nation.

"The cloud capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea! all which it inherit, shall dissolve,"

But

"The soul, immortal as its Sire,
Shall never die !"

How reckless of the future must that man be, who can rush into the presence of his Maker in the midst of human blood and crime! What an insult is shown to the works of God in the conflict of battle, when thousands of souls are dismissed before their appointed time, and, worst of all, are dismissed in sin to receive eternal judgment.

Impious man! You dare to send the spirit of a brother to perdition! You are destroying the semblance of your Maker! You are sacrificing the child in the presence of its Father! You cannot recreate the body, nor breathe life into the pallid and bleeding form: but, above all, you cannot restore those holy faculties which were given for the service of God, and the benefit of man; you cannot recall the soul you have plunged into eternity!

It has been truly said, "We know not the worth of a man. We know not who the victims are on whom war plants its foot,-whom the conqueror leaves to the vulture on the field of

battle, or carries captive to grace his triumph. Oh! did we know what men are, did we see in them the spiritual, immortal children of God, what a voice should we lift against war! How indignantly, how sorrowfully should we invoke Heaven and earth to right our insulted, injured brethren !"*

"The visible effects of the far-famed battle of Waterloo," observes another forcible writer, "were sufficiently appalling. Multitudes of the wounded, the dying and the dead, spread in wild confusion over the ensanguined plain! But did the Christians fully know the invisible consequences of such a contest-could they trace the flight of thousands of immortal souls (many of them disembodied, perhaps, while under the immediate influence of diabolical passions) into the world of eternal retribution-they would indeed shrink with horror from such a scene of destruction."+

* Channing on War, p. 34.

+ " Essay on Lawfulness of War under the Christian Dispensation," by Joseph John Gurney, p. 21.