IADD Address, ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE TENTH ANKTVERSART? MASSACHUSETTS PEACE SOCIETY, DECEMBER, 25, 1 825 BY WILLIAM LADD, ESQ. BOSTON, PUBMSHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER, 81 WASHINGTON STREET. 1826. I'ri/r.t1 IHJ Lou rir R Butts and Co. Congress fltreet. UCSB LIBRARY t; ' vy ^ ADDRESS. OPINION, says one of our most able statesmen, " Opinion is the queen of the world." But her decrees are not, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unalterable. Changes sometimes take place ; and the frequency of change is, generally, in an inverse ratio to the magnitude of the body changing. Small communities change often ; while larger ones are more slow and gradual in their changes ; and it is a long time before an opinion, which has been entertained by the bulk of mankind, will be abandoned. Yet such changes have actually occurred, in the sciences, in poli- tics, and in religion. The opinions now main- tained are, many of them, directly opposite to those, which were supported a few centuries ago. and these changes have been the result of greater light and knowledge. Thus, the ancient systems of astronomy were overthrown by Copernicus, limited monarchy and self-government take the place of despotism, and " the glorious Gospel of the blessed God" succeeds to heathen absurdities and the austere precepts of the Old Testament, which were suited to the hard hearts of a stiff- necked generation ; and when this " new and better covenant" had been obscured, by a long night of ignorance and superstition, it was again brought to light by a few magnanimous reform- ers ; and knowledge has been since that time increasing, though we are yet far from the virtues of the first professors of Christianity. Of the many changes in public opinion, I would call your attention to those only, which have an immediate bearing on the cause of per- manent and universal peace. Piracy was a common practice with the polished Athenians, the most polite and refined nation of antiquity, and that piracy was practised in the most bloody and ferocious manner ; it being the custom to murder all the prisoners, excepting a few, reserved for slavery. With our Scandinavian ancestors, a hero was famous in proportion to the success of his piracies. A renowned pirate was considered as the most praiseworthy and honour- able of mankind, enjoying the peculiar smiles of Odin, whom he was enabled to propitiate by sac- rifices of human victims. The greatest glory and pleasure of this warlike nation consisted in in- toxicating themselves with mead, drunk from the sculls of their slaughtered enemies, and their greatest disgrace was to die in bed ; to avoid which, they dashed themselves in pieces, by leap- ing from precipices. As their state of society was unfriendly to agriculture, and their support, depending on pillage, precarious, it was lawful for parents to expose their children to perish, or to sell them into slavery, when it was inconve- nient to support them. Less than two centuries ago, vessels were fitted out in British ports on both sides the Atlantic, for the avowed purpose of piracy ; and the brave Dampier returned to England to publish his journal of a cruise in the Pacific ocean, and to enjoy the glory and plunder he had acquired by his heroic deeds of murder and robbery ; and was not only unpunished and uncensured for his crimes, but advanced to the station of a com- mander in the royal navy. How much has public opinion changed, in all these particulars ! So far is piracy from being honourable, in our days, that all private war, even though sanctioned by a license, and waged against the subjects of a hostile power, has be- come, in a great measure, disgraceful ; and a laudable attempt has been made by our govern- ment, to put a stop to privateering throughout the Christian world. The time was, when piracy was considered as honourable as any war ; and the time will come, when no war, at least no offen- sive war, will be thought more honourable than piracy. In ancient times, differences were settled by judicial combat. Public opinion sanctioned the practice, and the conqueror was honoured, while the vanquished was consigned to contempt and ignominy. Unfortunately, this savage custom is not entirely obliterated, but public opinion is so far corrected, that the vanquished are sometimes buried with military honours. Slavery is so intimately connected with war, that it fairly comes within the range of my subject. The present generation has witnessed a wonderful change in this particular. Fifty years ago, the slave trade was as honourable, as it was lucrative. Now it is made piracy, by law, and is viewed with horror and disgust, by every virtuous member of society. Formerly, prisoners of war were put to the torture, or murdered in cold blood, or enslaved. Now, the moment an enemy lays down his arms, he ceases to be a foe, and is treated with all the hospitality, which is due to a stranger. So great is our detestation of a contrary line of conduct, ! lrit. notwithstanding our sympathy for the suffer- ing Greeks, we are shocked at their barbarities, and lament that they have inherited the cruelty, along with the bravery of their pagan ancestors ; regardless of the precepts of that benign religion, by the sacred name of which they are called. The time was, when women and children were carried into captivity and sold for slaves ; now, not only they, but, all other non-combatants, ex- cept seamen in the merchant service, are unmo- lested. But I need not take up your time, to enume- rate customs, which have long since, and forever, passed away ; but which were once as strenuously advocated, as the custom of war is now, or ever has been ; for your memory will furnish you with changes in public opinion, as great as any I have mentioned. We may therefore safely conclude, from the experience of the past, that, as mankind advance in knowledge and refinement, other changes, ameliorating the condition of the human species, may be effected ; and that, among other evils, the custom of war, the most direful scourge that has ever afflicted mankind, may cease. What gives us the greatest encouragement in this hope, is the fact, that society itself has the supreme control over that passion, which above all others, is a cause of war, a love of military glory. And what is this glory ? A bubble, " a puff of noisy breath," which every individual in d 8 society, however low his station, can increase or diminish ; a vampyre, which lives on the breath of the people, and starves the living, to feed the ead. So long as mankind continue to elevate invaders and conquerors, those scourges of their race, to the highest pinnacle of renown, so long must they expect to smart beneath their lash. What induced Alexander to depopulate his paternal dominions, to enable him to conquer Persia ? The love of glory. What induced Charles the Twelfth to draw, from his iron hills, " the soldier and his sword," and im- poverish a country already poor? It was the ex- ample of Alexander, which fired his mind, with the love of military glory. What induced Frederick of Prussia to make war on the young, defenceless, orphan Queen of Hungary ? He tells you himself, " the hope of acquiring rcnoicn" In what do these characters differ from the marauder, who robs the sheepfold and butchers the flock, for sport; from the highwayman, who plunders the traveller of a jewel, that he may give it away ; from the bully, who waylays, robs, and insults a defenceless woman, that he may boast of it ; in what do they differ, except in the magnitude of their crimes, and the multitude of their offences ? As such men are in- fluenced by public opinion, if they met the same contempt in one case as in the other ; if, instead of being entitled " the great," they were brand- ed as infamous, there would be no such charac- ters. It is evident, that the continuance of the custom of war depends on the voice of the people, not only in republican governments, where it is the supreme law, but also in the most absolute monarchies ; for even despots bow to the " Queen of the world" and acknowledge her power. Public opinion can not only prevent those wars which originate in a love of glory, which are by far the greater part, but it can also overawe the love of power, of wealth, of re- venge, and say to the angry passions, " peace, be still." There is not probably in this assembly, nor in all our happy country, a man so hardened, as to assert, that war is a blessing, that it is not a curse, a most direful calamity. War's greatest apologists universally agree to call it an evil ; a tremendous evil. Since then, all acknowledge war to be an evil of enormous magnitude, it is unnecessary for me to descant on its horrors and atrocities. Unfortu- nately, they have been too well exemplified, in our day. What pencil can paint, what language can describe, the horrors of Borodino, Moscow', Bere- zina and Waterloo ? horrors which have not been equalled since the sack of Jerusalem. Nor are these miseries confined to the wounded soldier, consumed, alive, in the burning hospital, amid the 2 10 shrieks and groans of twelve thousand others, as wretched as himself; (a) nor to him who, over- come with hunger and fatigue, and pierced by the northern blast, falls, unheeded by his companions in misery, among the drifted snow, which soon co- vers him ; (b) nor to him who, benumbed with cold, seated on the dead body of his fellow-soldier, gnaws a half wasted human limb, or the remains of a scanty pittance of horse flesh, of which he has just robbed his dying comrade ; too happy, if the excess of his sufferings has brought on a delirium, which causes his hysteric laugh to prevail over the dying groans of his companions; (c) nor to him who, having escaped these dangers, is tumbled, by a fellow-soldier's arm, from the bridge, into the freezing current of the Berezina, or is trampled to death, beneath the hoofs of the flying cavalry, or is crushed beneath the ponderous wheels of the retreating artillery ; (d) nor to him, who lay four- teem nights and days, oh how long those nights and days! expiring on the field of Waterloo, (e) Nor is this all, no, nor trampled harvests, nor burning cottages, nor plundered villages, nor sacked cities ; no, nor houseless age, nor starv- ing childhood, nor even the shrinks of virgin beau- ty, flying, in vain, from the hot pursuit of lust ; no, these do not fill up the picture. In the back- ground, obscured from vulgar gaze, the aged pa- rent, robbed, by the conscription or impressment, of 11 his last earthly hope, the widowed mother, with her defenceless orphans, the betrothed virgin, with all her fond anticipations blasted, and the cup of connubial felicity dashed untasted from her lips, and the thousand ramifications of misery, wherever there are hearts to bleed or bosoms to heave, all these are necessary to make up the scene. And when all these w 7 ell authenticated facts, and ten thousand others, are collected toge- ther, and there is added to them, all that the most vivid imagination can conceive, still the picture falls far, very far, short of the original. Now what is the cause of all this intensity of suffering ? Ambition. And who feeds this insatiable monster with ap- plause, without which it must die ? We, the people. But, because there is no evil, however great, which may not be productive of some good, war has its advocates, who would put a few adventi- tious circumstances in the scale against the im- mensity of suffering and grief, which it causes. War, say its abettors, gives opportunity for the display of fortitude and heroism. So did the In- quisition. But would any one wish for its rc-estab- lislmierit, that another Cranmer, (by turns a per- secutor and persecuted,) might burn his own right hand to a cinder, or that a Huss might exhibit an heroic fortitude and contempt of death, in all its most horrid forms. Public opinion has frowned on religious persecution and annihilated 12 it. The despot of Spain, with all his folly, dare not restore the Inquisition, and when public opi- nion shall equally frown on war, no despot will be able to resist her. But, without war, what should we do for mate- rials for history? What! shall we encourage high- way robbery and murder, lest the annals of New- gate and the newspapers of the day should lack interest ? Are mankind such vultures, that nothing will suit their appetite but blood and carnage. Are not tornadoes, inundations, earthquakes and pestilence, sufficient to satisfy our longings for the miseries of our fellow-creatures ? What prevents us from taking an interest in the march of intel- lect, the progress of science, improvements in the arts, the spread of the Gospel, and the increasing comforts of all classes of men at home and abroad. But, our moral taste is vitiated, in our youth even in our infancy. Almost the first sounds we hear are martial, the first playthings we handle are military, the first pictures and spectacles we see are warlike, and the first books we read exalt va- lour over every other virtue, and conquerors above all other men. Were it not for this, a safety lamp would interest us more than a Congreve rocket, the tunnel under the Thames more than the trophy at Waterloo ; the canals from Portsmouth to Lon- don, and from Havre to Paris, more than the bat- tle of the Nile, which, to say nothing of the loss of 13 lives and limbs, cost more money than both ; and, to come back to our own country, had not our taste been thus vitiated, our grand canal, which, like most other great and noble enterprises, was at its com- mencement sneered at by little minds, but by the completion of which, the stupendous genius, that planned the gigantic work, has covered himself with unfading laurels, and erected a monument, infinitely surpassing the trophies of Alexander or Caesar, of Tamerlane or Napoleon ; I say, were it not for prejudices imbibed in our youth, this splendid and bloodless victory of art over nature, would be a greater cause of exultation than all the glory of the late war, though purchased at less than a twentieth part of the expense. But war is an interesting spectacle. So is a city on fire ; but what modern Nero would set fire to this city, or rejoice in the conflagration, that he might witness the grandeur of the scene ? The view of a volcano is grand and majestic, but who would wish to see the vineyards, villas and villages, which adorn the base of Vesuvius, inundated by a flood of burning lava, and Naples, like Hercula- neum and Pompeii, buried under a shower of cin- ders, that he might gratify his admiration of the sublime. But, say our opponents, war is necessary to drain off the refuse of society, and cleanse the body politic of its peccant humors : a fine com- 14 (diluent to the dignity of human nature in general, and to the army and navy in particular ! But fact speaks a contrary doctrine, and assures us that where one vagabond is disposed of in war, ten others are made ; to say nothing of the brave, the generous and humane, who, infatuated by a love of fame, rush blindly into the same destructive vor- tex. That war corrupts the public morals and lowers the standard of morality is proverbial ; so that a nation that engages in war, for the purpose of mending its morals, acts as wisely as the man, who subjects himself to a loathsome disease, in order to purify his blood. But, say the friends of war, allowing all your arguments to be correct, still it is necessary to keep up a martial spirit for the purpose of self-defence. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, every man in England wore a sword. History does not inform us who first laid it aside, nor is the time of the change distinctly marked, but the fashion altered, and the citizen of London is now infinitely less ex- posed to insult, than when he went armed. What protects the unarmed citizen ? Public opinion ; and public opinion, when well informed, will equal- ly protect the state, that seeks for peace. Besides, the progress of the principles of peace will, like all other great changes, be gradual and general, though they may prevail more in one country than in another; and experience has shewn, that where they have been adopted, they have not invited ag- gression. Our opponents also join our lukewarm friends and say, however good your motive, your object is chimerical and Utopian, and your hopes will never be realized, wars will continue so long as the world stands. The same objections were made against the early reformers, the opposers of the slave trade and the advocates for religious toleration. Yet, these causes have succeeded in a measure, are still in progress, and will advance until the most san- guine expectations of their first movers shall be realized. The greatest changes must have a be- ginning. All the great moral revolutions, which the world has witnessed, have each been com- menced by one or two individuals. Luther and Calvin began the reformation ; Clarkson and Wil- berforce undertook the abolition of the slave trade. Had not individuals made the attempt, the Roman Catholic superstition and the slave trade would have continued to this day undiminished. But were it always peace, we should have none of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war." We should miss our triumphs, our illuminations, our military reviews and balls, our anniversaries of battles, and all that display of beauty, eloquence, glitter and parade, which are so captivating to the fancy of the young, and which renew the youthful vigor of the hoary veteran. These are fine flowers. 16 it must be confessed, but they are manured with the blood of the brave, and watered with the tears of widows and orphans, and their fruits are often " the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomor- rah." Instead of a triumphal procession, after a victory, should the livid and disfigured corses of the dead be borne along, followed by litters filled with the wounded, and surrounded by widows and orphans ; if, instead of martial music, were heard the loud groans of the wounded, and the shrieks of the bereaved, one such triumph would forever sicken us of war. But no, while loud Te Deums rend the air, the sigh which breaks the heart, and the " tear which scalds the cheek," are shut out from our observation. There are other objections against peace, but they are too futile to require refutation, and we pass to other reflections. To those who judge a matter before they hear it, we can say nothing. Of those who are too wise in their own conceits ever to change an opinion, according to the proverb, we can have but little hope. But to men of candour and enlarged views, we say, the subject deserves investigation ; the object we aim at is all important ; the blessings we seek are unspeakable ; they are certainly worth an endeavour. As great changes have taken place in public opinion as that which we contemplate. Public opinion has already passed over more than 17 half the distance, which separates the barbarous customs of our ancestors from a total abolition of the custom of war, and it must, to every one, ap- pear infinitely more probable, that it will advance until it reaches the utmost bounds of our wishes, than that it should retrograde into those shades of ignorance, cruelty, oppression and injustice, which were the delight and glory of our heathen progen- itors. No, a revolution of public opinion has commenced ; and, " revolutions do not go back." The time will come, and that shortly, when na- tions will settle their disputes by amicable adjust- ment or arbitration, and will look back on war with as much amazement, as we do on the ordeal by battle and the burning of heretics, and with equal astonishment, that mankind should ever have thought of settling their differences by the sword, or their faith by the faggot. The friends of peace have much to encourage them. All their reasonable expectations have been thus far realized. The reign of peace, like the kingdom of Heaven, of which it is the harbinger, " cometh not with observation." By its very na- ture it is without tumult, pomp and display. It is not in the whirlwind, it is not in the earthquake, but, it is in the " still small voice." It is not like the cataract, dashing impetuously from precipice to precipice, bedewing the skies with its spray, crowning itself with the rainbow, and holding the 3 spectator in breathless and painful admiration ; but it is like the gentle stream, diffused over a thousand valleys and plains, making the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose, and only marking its course by the verdure it causes. A great, but silent change has already been wrought, not only throughout this country, but also in a great part of Europe. Large bodies move slowly ; but when they are once set in motion, they are not easily resisted. I would not intrude so much on your time, as to mention all the omens of the present day, which are auspicious to the cause of peace. Not the least favourable, is the formation of peace societies, on both sides of the Atlantic. The circumstance, that these societies were project- ed simultaneously, in various parts of the world, without the knowledge of each other, is a demon- stration of a great change in public opinion. That gentlemen high in office, in rank, and in in- fluence, should boldly come forward, to advocate the cause of peace, without fear of singularity, would have been considered incredible, twenty-five years ago. The glorious stand which has been made against slavery, both in this country and Great Britain, may be reckoned among occurrences, favourable to the cause of peace. It is not possible that en- lightened men should have their attention aroused 19 to the state of negro slavery, without being led to the slavery of the soldier, who not only, like the other, loses his right to a trial by jury, and is subject to the same degrading punishments, but, is also compelled to murder his fellow-man, and to put his conscience into the keeping of his com- mander ; and is reduced to the state of a machine, an instrument, a tool in the hands of sordid avarice, or no less selfish ambition, without being able to throw off his awful responsibility to that God, whose laws he is compelled to violate ; and is set to fight like a dog or a game cock, for the sport or gain of others. In this particular, the soldier is worse off than the slave ; for, since public opin- ion has frowned gladiatorial shows out of coun- tenance, slaves are not compelled to fight for the amusement of their masters. I may here be met by the objection, that negro slavery is involuntary, while the servitude of the soldier is otherwise. This is not the case. To say nothing of impress- ment, conscription, and trepanning, as practised in Europe, what better are our own rendezvous ; where a man is inveigled, and often enlisted in a state of partial, if not total ebriety, and when once enlisted, there is no escape but by desertion, which is punished with death, and that sometimes without a trial ? Is it possible, that a people should be sensible to negro slavery, and unmindful of the slavery of the white man ? If public opinion 20 can abolish one species of slavery, it can the other, and there is no doubt it can and will abolish both. What we could save by peace would be sufficient to pay the expense of abolishing slavery, Were we as humane and benevolent, as we are ambitious of military glory, SLAVERY, that disgrace and opprobrium of a free people, would long ago have been wiped away, and all our black popula- tion, except what could safely be permitted to live in freedom among us, would have been colonized abroad. The vessels which lay rotting at our wharves during the late war, would have been sufficient for their transportation, and the sailors employed on board our navy and privateers, suffi- cient for the navigation of those vessels, and the expenses of the war would nearly, if not quite, have paid the ransom. Arbitration on national differences, and the abo- lition of private war on the ocean, two changes, in which our country has the glory of having taken the lead, may be considered as accomplishing the ardent desires of the friends of peace. When we left some of our differences with Great Britain to the arbitration of the Emperor of Russia, it certainly was not expected, that his decision would be enforced by the sword. What then could have enforced it, but public opinion ? If one national difference may be settled by arbitration, all others may be. If private war on the ocean 21 can be abolished, why may not public war share the same fate ? There is one other circumstance, favourable to the cause of peace, which I mention, not for its magnitude, but for its singularity. I allude to the interchange of captured standards between France and Spain ; a bright spot in a vast expanse of blackness, which, like a single lamp in a gloomy sepulchre, is remarkable, not so much for its bril- liancy, as for the contrast which makes darkness visible. Oh, if all the nations of Christendom could be persuaded to follow this example; if all the trophies of victory in the world should be heaped together in one vast pile and consumed ; we might safely affirm, that never a burnt offering, since Abel's, has been so acceptable to the God of peace, and that such a peace offering is only sur- passed by the sacrifice of the Prince of Peace himself. I have, hitherto, addressed my highly respected audience as philanthropists only. But this solemn temple, this sacred desk, remind me that I am addressing an assembly of Christians ; and how- ever, as moral philosophers, we may augur, from the signs of the times, that the custom of war, like other barbarous customs, is about to be ban- ished from civilized society, yet, it is on the holy word of God, on the Gospel of peace, that we chiefly rest our hopes. In all the prophecies of 22 the Old Testament, the reign of Christ is identi- fied with the reign of peace, "when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb," and men " shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, but they shall sit, every one, under his own vine and fig-tree, and none shall molest or make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it." " Peace on earth and good will towards men" was the burthen of the song of angels, when they proclaimed the advent of the Messiah. That there is to be a .time of universal peace throughout the world, no one doubts, who believes the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; and it is equally certain, that this glorious event will be consummated by a general diffusion of the peace- able principles of the Christian religion, and by a change of views, respecting the lawfulness of war, among Christians themselves ; for the precepts taught by Christ and his Apostles are in exact harmony with the prophecies, which predicted his coming. In our Saviour's sermon on the mount, there is not one passage which authorizes war ; but the whole tenor of that discourse forbids it, in the most peremptory terms. It is urged by some, that the words of our Saviour are not to be taken in their literal meaning ; but give them every possible latitude, short of leaving them no mean- 23 ing at all, and I defy any government, to make war, consistently with the principles there incul- cated. The whole tenor of his practice agreed with his preaching, to the very moment when he said, " it is finished." He, indeed, on one occasion, was understood, by his disciples, to command them to buy swords ; but, no sooner was one of them drawn, than he commanded it to be sheathed, as though he had allowed them, to take a figura- tive expression for a literal command, in order to give this last testimony against the use of the sword. Had there been any intention of resistance, HE had no need of swords, who had not only all the powers of nature, but also legions of angels at his command. The Apostles and disciples of Christ followed in his steps, and preached his doctrine, and the whole of the New Testament breathes nothing but peace, and love, and forgiveness, and longsufter- ing, and a new system of morality, that of return- ing good for evil. The first Christians so under- O O stood the precepts of the Gospel, and for the first two or three centuries of the Christian era, no professor of the religion of Jesus bore arms ; but, on the contrary, when a Roman soldier was con- verted, he thought it a duty to throw down his arms, at the ri^k of his life ; and many suffered martyrdom, rather than break what they firm- ly believed to be the commands of their mas- 24 ter. " While the lamp of Christianity burnt bright," while the Church of Christ was pure and persecuted, the custom of war was unknown to Christians. But the corruption of the Church began with her temporal power, and she in turn became a persecutor. She " hated the light" and the lamp of Christianity was extinguished, or was kept alive only in remote places, in dens and caves, amid mountain torrents and perpetual snows. When the Bible was refused to the people, it required no great casuistry to convince the ignorant that war, especially war against heretics and infidels, was not only permitted, but commanded. This is not astonishing, for casuists of later days, with the Bible in their hands, have reconciled the precepts of the Gospel with con- quest, rapine and desolation. Solemn anathemas have been thundered by Christian bishops against Christian nations, and solemn Te Deums have been chaunted in honor of victories obtained over the disciples of Christ. But the Bible is no longer monopolized by the clergy, and denied to the laity, and now that it is in the hands of every one who desires it, we have reason for pious gratitude, that the light of Christianity, if it has not yet abolish- ed the custom of war, has very much tamed its ferocity, and we have every reason to hope, that, as the influence of the Gospel shall increase, as mankind shall be more enlightened by its be- 25 iiign rays, wars will be less and less ferocious, and the intervals of peace longer and longer, until " nation shall no longer lift up sword against na- tion, nor learn war any more." But the subject we are contemplating, however interesting it may be in a temporal point of view, is swelled to a magnitude which defies conception, when we consider man as an immortal being, whose existence shall never have an end, and shall extend through a long eternity of happiness or misery. How mean ! how abject ! how contempti- ble are all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, when compared with the immortal soul of the meanest slave, that writhes under the scourge. Comparing all earthly glory with one such soul, is weighing gas against gold. Earth makes distinctions, which Heaven laughs to scorn, and Lazarus the beggar shall be exalted to a pin- nacle of immortal glory, while the laurels of Caesar the conqueror, shall be trampled in the dust, or only mark a pre-eminence in misery. On this view of our subject, what heart is so hard as not to shrink with horror, at the sight of contending ar- mies, where Christians are set in battle array against Christians, agitated by the direful passions of hatred and revenge, and plunging, in an hour, thousands of immortal souls, each worth the tem- poral existence of a peopled world, unprepared, into the awful presence of their judge, and, if we 4 26 believe the scriptures, consigning many of them to endless misery and anguish ? Oh, most merci- ful God ! didst thou create immortal souls to be thus trifled with ? Oh, benign Saviour of the world! are these thy children, thy professed followers, who, for glory, or for some such fancied and as fleeting good, can, not only inflict the greatest temporal evils on innocent widows and orphans, and bereaved parents ; but can delight and glory in the eternal destruction of their fellow-creatures. Christians, fold not your arms in listless apathy, and think to pass through life guiltless of your bro- ther's blood. What says the Prince of Peace ? " He that is not with me is against me." The continuance of war depends on public opinion, and no person, male or female, is without an influ- ence. If you are not convinced on this subject, it is your duty to investigate it, by reading what has been written on both sides. If you are converted, it is your duty to " strengthen your brethren," and to endeavour to convince others. Not a third, perhaps not a tenth part of our population, have ever seen any publications on the subject of per- manent and universal peace ; or, if they have seen them, have never read them, but, wrapped up in seemingly impenetrable prejudices, imbibed pro- bably in infancy, have refused to give the subject even their serious consideration. But 'mankind are not always the same, and he who turns a deaf 27 ear at one time, may listen at another. Those who have not the power of persuasion, may at least circulate tracts, favourable to the cause of peace, or may put their names, and the weight of their character into the pacific scale. Every one is accountable for his influence in society, and no one knows the bounds to which it may extend. It may not only encircle his children, his family, his neighborhood ; but it may reach throughout his country, and grow wider and wider, until it meets itself at the antipodes, and it may continue not only through his life, but long after he shall have been forgotten, and endure till the heavens shall have been rolled together as a scroll, and throughout the countless ages of eternity. Happily we are not circumscribed by any party, politics, or sectarian principles. All " who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth," find themselves compelled, if they act up to their principles, to be on our side. Let us, who are willing to avow pacific principles, practise them in our lives, and " keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," and however we may differ in sentiment concerning particular doctrines, let it be seen that we agree in the precepts of our holy religion, and that we are kind and charitable one toward another, and tender of each other's character and feelings, that it may be said of us, as it was of the primitive converts, " See how these Christians love one another." NOTES. NOTE A. Page 10. " The hospitals, containing more than TWELVE THOUSAND WOUNDED, began to burn. The heart frozen with horror, recoils at the fatal disaster which ensued. Almost all these wretched victims perished. The few who were still living, were seen crawling, half burnt, under the smoking ashes, or groaning under the heaps of dead bodies, making ineffectual efforts to extricate themselves!" Labaume's Narrative, p. 211. " Amongst the burning houses were three large barns filled with poor soldiers, chiefly wounded. They could not escape from two of these, without passing through the one in front, which was on fire ; the most active saved themselves by leaping out of the windows, but all those who were sick or crippled, not having strength to move, saw the flames advancing rapidly to devour them. Touched by their shrieks, some, who were least harden- ed, endeavoured in vain to save them ; we could only see them half buried under the burning rafters. Through whirlwinds of smoke, they entreated their comrades to shorten their sufferings by depriving them of life, and from motives of humanity, we thought it our duty to comply with their wishes. As there were some who, notwithstanding, still survived, we heard them with feeble voices crying, 'Fire on us! fire on us! at the head! at the head ! do not miss !' These heart-rending cries did not cease till the whole were consumed." Ib. p. 363. NOTE B Page 10. " In the midst of this horrid gloom, overwhelmed by the whirlwinds of snow which assailed him, the soldier could n longer distinguish the main road from the ditches, and often fell into the latter, which served him for a tomb. Others, eager to press forward, dragged themselves along with pain ; badly clothed and shod, having nothing to eat or drink, groaning and shivering with cold, they gave no assistance, neither shewed any signs of compassion to those who, sinking from weakness, expired around them." Labaume's Narrative, p. 329. NOTE C. Page 10. " Without fire, perishing with cold, they lay on the bare ice ; to appease their ravenous hunger, they seized with avidity the horse-flesh which was distributed to them, and for want of time and means to dress it, ate it quite raw ; and I have been assured, though I dare not believe it, that when this supply fail- ed, many of them ate the flesh of their comrades, who had sunk under their miseries." Labaume's Narrative, p. 278. " Whenever a soldier sunk from fatigue, his next neighbour rushed on him and stripped him of his clothes, even before he was dead. Every moment we heard them begging the aid of some charitable hand ; ' My comrades,' exclaimed one with a heart-rending voice, ' help me to rise ; deign to lend me a hand to pursue my march.' All passed by without even regarding him. ' Ah ; I conjure you not to abandon me to the enemy ; in the name of humanity grant me the trifling assistance I ask ; help me to rise.' Instead of being moved by a prayer so touch- ing, they considered him as already dead, and began to strip him ; we then heard his cries, ' Help ! help ! they murder me ! Why do you trample me under your feet 1 Why do you take from me the remainder of my money and my bread 1 You even take away my clothes !' If some officer, urged by generous feelings, (lid not arrive in time to prevent it, many in the like situation would have been assassinated by their own comrades." Ib. p. 407. " Every day furnished scenes too painful to relate. Some had lost their hearing, others their speech, and many, by excessive cold and hunger, were reduced to such a state of stupid frenzy, that they roasted the dead bodies for food, and even gnawed their own hands and arms Some, who were too weak to lift a piece of wood, or to roll a stone towards the fire, sat down upon their dead companions, and with an unmoved countenance, gazed upon the burning logs. When they were consumed, these livid spectres, unable to get up, fell by the side of those on whom they had been seated. Many, in a state of mental alienation, in order to warm themselves, plunged their bare feet into the fire ; some, with a convulsive laugh, threw themselves into the flames, and uttering shocking cries, perished in the most horrible con- tortions ; others in a state of equal madness, followed their ex- ample, and shared the same fate !" Ib. p. 410. " Multitudes of these desolate fugitives lost their speech, others were seized with frenzy, and many were so maddened by the extremes of pain and hunger, that they tore the dead bodies of their comrades into pieces, and feasted on the remains !'' R. K. Porter's Campaign in Russia, p. 377. "In the hospitals of Wilna, there were left above 17,000 dead and dying, frozen and freezing ; the bodies of the former broken up, served to stop the cavities in windows, floors, and walls ; but in one of the corridors of the Great Convent, above 1,500 bodies were piled up transversely, as pigs of lead or iron. When these were finally removed on sledges to be burnt, the most ex- traordinary figures were presented by the variety of their atti- tudes, for none seem to have been frozen in a composed state. Each was fixed in the last action of his life, in the last direction given to his limbs ; even the eyes retained the last expression, either of anger, pain or entreaty. In the roads, men were col- lected round the burning ruins of their cottages, which a mad spirit of destruction had fired, picking and eating the burnt bodies of fellow-men, while thousands of horses were moaning in agony, with their flesh mangled and hacked to satisfy the crav- ings of a hunger that knew no pity. In many of the sheds, men scarcely alive, had heaped on their frozen bodies human carcasses, which, festering by the communication of animal heat, had mingled the dying and the dead in one mass of putrefaction." Sir Robert Wilson's Sketch, p. 34. NOTE D. Page 10. " On seeing the enemy, those who had not crossed, mingling with the Poles, rushed towards the bridge ; artillery, baggage, cavalry, and infantry, all endeavoured to pass first. The strong threw into the water the weak, who impeded their advance, and trampled under foot the sick and wounded whom they found in their way. Many hundreds were crushed under the wheels of the artillery ; others, who had hoped to save themselves by swim- ming, were frozen in the river, or perished by slipping from the ice. Thousands and thousands of hopeless victims, notwith- standing these sorrowful examples, threw themselves into the Berezina, where they nearly all perished in convulsions of grief or despair." Labaume's Narrative, p. 394. NOTE E. Page 10. " It was now tte thirteenth day after the battle. It is im- possible for the imagination to conceive the sufferings of men, rudely carried at such a period of their wounds. ****** At four in the morning I offered my services, and at six, I entered on the most painful duty of my life, in inspecting and operating on these unfortunate men. I was thus engaged, uninterruptedly, from six in the morning till seven at night, for three successive days." Charles Bell, Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital. NOTE F. Page 10. " The French troops, as they poured into the devoted city, had spread themselves in every direction in search of plunder, and in their progress they committed outrages so horrid on the persbns of all whom they discovered, that fathers, desperate to save their children from pollution, would set fire to their places of refuge, and find a surer asylum in the flames. The streets, the houses, the cellars flowed with blood, and were filled with violation and carnage!" R. K. Porter's Narrative, p. 170. " But nothing was so terrific as the dread that reigned in every mind, and which was heightened in the dead of the night by the shrieks of the unfortunate creatures who were massacred, or by the cries of young females, who fled for refuge to the pal- pitating bosoms of their mothers, and whose ineffectual struggles only served to inflame the passions of their violators." Labaume's Narrative, p. 214. " The few houses that escaped their (the first division of the French army,) ravages, were burnt by the second division, who completed what their comrades had left unfinished in the work of devastation. In the ruins were entombed; sol. tiers and pea- sants, children wantonly murdered, and young gals massacred an the spot where they had been violated." Ib. p. 329. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 069 868 6 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482