naturally shocked by the character and events of the

war.

A few quotations will illustrate these remarks. Mr. Polk, as we have seen, while devastating Mexico, was at all times sighing for peace. His presses teemed with the most brutal plans for "conquering peace."

'We must now," said one of them, "destroy the city of Mexico, level it with the earth on which it stands, serve Puebla, Perote, Jalapa, Saltillo, and Monterey in the same way, and then increase our demands till we insist on the perpetual possession of the Castle of Juan d'Ulua, as a key to the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico. This course would save hundreds of lives. Occupy all the seaports on the Gulf and the Pacific for revenue for the payment of the expenses of the war. Such a course would compel the Mexicans to sue for peace."

"Our

Said another: "Unless we distress the Mexicans, carry destruction and loss of life to every fireside, and make them feel a rod of iron, they will not respect us." Mr. Polk's own organ, the official Union, declared: work of subjugation and conquest must go on rapidly and with augmented force, and, as far as possible, at the expense of Mexico herself. Henceforth, we must seek PEACE, and compel it by inflicting on our enemies all the evils of war."

These barbarous sentiments, which were rife through the land, were aggravated in atrocity by the lying pretext on which they were urged. We, an invading foe, were to murder by wholesale, and level cities to the earth, to procure a peace that was ours the moment we ceased to assail the Mexicans. Did we choose to recal our armies, we well knew our enemy had no means of revenging the wrong we had done her. Mexico was fighting solely in self-defence, and the only peace we desired, the only

peace we were ready to conquer, was the cession of the territory for which we had commenced the war.

Not only were the general precepts of justice and humanity thus set at defiance, but pains seemed to be taken to attract public admiration for such acts of ferocity and impiety as were calculated to nourish the war spirit. A silly child of eleven years was said to have written a letter to one of the Generals, asking to be employed against the Mexicans, and boasting that he had money enough to buy a pair of pistols and a dagger; and the epistle of this little boy was paraded in the papers, headed THE RIGHT KIND OF SPIRIT." Anecdotes of officers, which, if true, could not fail to disgust all who reverence the awful realities of Christianity, have been loudly trumpeted as instances of American patriotism and heroism. Thus we have had an account of a captain mortally wounded, and just expiring. "The whole of his lower jaw, with a part of his tongue and palate, is shot away by a grape shot; he communicated his thoughts by writing on a slate. He does not desire to live. He concluded an answer to some inquiries concerning the battle of the 9th, by writing we gave the Mexicans hell!'" These words so peculiarly horrible, as uttered by a dying man, became with a certain class a slang phrase, and to give the Mexicans hell, seemed to be the glorious privilege, as well as duty, of American Christians. A Mississippi paper adopted it, with a blasphemous addition :-" By some mistake a piece of poetry headed 'Song of the Sword,'* appears on our first page. It seems that in our absence, when, it may be, the boys were out of copy, this song was selected to fill up a place. We never saw it till it was too late to make the correction. It does not

*An English poem on war, having no allusion to this country.

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express our sentiments. It is Whiggish, and very bad poetry withal. We go for giving the Mexicans HELL, whether Christ be our guide or not." Under the caption, NOBLE EXPLOIT," we are told of a soldier mortally wounded, remonstrating against being carried off the field, exclaiming," he was a dead man, and damned if he did not want to kill some of them."

Some comment having been excited by certain profane expressions, untruly we hope, alleged to have escaped from General Taylor, in the heat of battle, a New Orleans paper replied: "It is a paltry affectation in any one who knows the General, to pretend to be shocked at what was related of him at Buena Vista. It is a mere sham for the benefit of puritanical souls, who do their damning after a more economical formulary, than is generally used in the field. The words came out of General Taylor's mouth, and were no doubt as acceptable to heaven as the roaring of the cannon which belched forth death, and strewed the earth with slaughter."

The few instances we have cited (and they might be multiplied indefinitely), indicate the baneful influences to which public opinion has been exposed, through the efforts to create and maintain a war spirit in the community.

The Church has, in some few cases, united in this unholy work, of corrupting public opinion. The pulpit has occasionally uttered its benedictions on the Mexican invasion; and ministers of Christ, by joining in military funeral pageants, have given the sanction of the religion. they professed, to the cause in which the deceased perished. On some of these occasions sermons have been delivered, breathing little of the spirit of the Prince of Peace. Men who had lost their lives in the act of voluntarily carrying fire and sword into a foreign country, have been

held forth to the admiration of their countrymen, as having fallen in the discharge of duty. But these reverend patriots omitted to instruct their audience, that the Mexicans who fell in the act of defending their wives and children, were no less obedient to the commands of duty than the American volunteer; nor did they avail themselves of the opportunity to draw the obvious inference that, as both Americans and Mexicans were but discharging their duty in killing each other; mutual slaughter is an acceptable sacrifice to the common Father of all, and in accordance with the precepts of the Divine Redeemer. Some of the clergy very consistently reduced to practice the doctrines they taught. Thus we had the announcement in a St. Louis paper, of "A BAPTIST PREACHER KILLED IN BATTLE," with an eulogy on his patriotism. The New Orleans Picayune thus noticed another officer of the Church militant :-"A company of about ninety men arrived here yesterday from the parishes, under the command of the Rev. Richard A. Stewart, as captain. Captain Stewart is a worthy clergyman, of the Methodist persuasion, who allows nothing to prevent his discharge of that duty every citizen owes his country in the hour of peril!" The Reverend Captain, it seems, so exerted himself in the hour of his country's peril, as to acquire at least that honor which cometh from man; for on his return from the wars, we again find him noticed in the Picayune of February, 1848. In an account of a Taylor meeting in New Orleans, it is said, "Mr. Stewart, of Iberville submitted a resolution, nominating General Zachary Taylor as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. A member of the Convention rose to second the resolution, and said, 'that as the mover might not be known to all the Convention, he would announce him to

them as the Reverend Colonel Stewart, of Iberville, the fighting clergyman! (immense applause.) "

It is however due to justice to acknowledge, and to acknowledge with gratitude, that the sacred office has rarely been desecrated by a vindication of the Mexican war; and that in numerous instances ecclesiastical bodies and individual pastors have, with Christian boldness and fidelity, exposed and denounced its wickedness. Nor was opposition to the war confined to the clerical profession. The whole religious community, especially at the North, were, with few exceptions, unanimous in reprobating it; and indeed, had it not been for the acts and efforts of politicians, of men striving to keep the offices they had, and others striving to gain the offices they wanted, the great mass of the people would have regarded the war with abhorrence.

The moral sense of the nation was, moreover, impaired by the sentiment industriously cultivated by the politicians of both parties" Our country, right or wrong." This sentiment was of course intended to vindicate each party, for the support it gave to the war, by insinuating that devotion to country is more imperative than moral obligation.

The war has also had a most unhappy influence in familiarizing the public ear to falsehood, and under circumstances tending to divest the sin of much of its vileness. Falsehood was dignified, both by the magnitude and importance of the objects it was intended to promote, and by the elevated position of those who condescended to use it as an instrument.

It was one of the lamentations of the Prophet, that "truth has fallen in the streets;" and in our days, the Mexican war has caused her to be trampled in the dust, not only in the streets of Washington, but in every high