of independence stifled her industry and smothered her commerce. No interest flourished but the military, and her fiberties ultimately perished in its giant gripe. This interest, having no sympathy with industrial pursuits, in its nature aristocratic, is already rapidly growing among us. A few years only will consolidate its strength, and spread its influence through all the ramifications of contractors and employées, dependent upon war expenditures. Such an interest is one to be dreaded, perhaps, more than any other, when we reflect upon the materials of strife within us, the rancor of party spirit, and the recklessness of fanaticism."

A further consideration which will impress upon us more vividly the wickedness of "the waste of treasure” in war, is the various beneficial uses to which such mighty sums of money might be devoted. If "moneys," as the old Roman said, “are the sinews of war," so are they also the sinews of peace. If the "dollar" be not "almighty," and the god of this world, it is at least an essential instrument in promoting every good word and work among mankind. Money builds the city, and beautifies the country. Money fills the sails and turns the water-wheel. Money tunnels the mountains, and barricades the rivers. Money speeds the loom, and propels the cars, and operates the telegraph. Money gives food to the well and medicine to the sick. Money clothes our bodies and raises our houses. Money erects the schoolhouse and the sanctuary, and puts a teacher in one and a preacher in the other. Money multiplies the Scriptures, and heralds the blessed news of salvation from clime to clime. It is money that is needed at this moment, as the great coöperator, to send civilization and Christianity to those who are now sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, as well as to re-civilize civilization itself, and to re-Christianize Christendom. Money, money, is the call of the educator, the reformer, the philanthropist, the missionary; and it is not a selfish call; for by this power

the printing, and teaching, and speaking, and exploring, and travelling, are physically sustained, and "seed is given to the sower, and bread to the eater."

In this light, consider that the $200,000,000 of money squandered in this unjust, unnecessary, and unconstitutional war, would found a library in each of the ten largest cities of the United States, namely, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Brooklyn, Albany, and Washington, which should contain as many volumes as the largest library on the continent of Europe, and endow it with a princely fund sufficient to keep it in repair, and enrich it with the accessions of all living literature from every nation, thus opening inexhaustible fountains of knowledge for all future generations, and placing the interests of learning on a foundation worthy of the first republic on earth.

Or, suppose this sum devoted to the endowment of common schools, academies, and colleges, of agricultural, reformatory, scientific, normal, and professional seminaries of instruction; and to the establishment of Lyceums, Lowell Institutes, Adult Schools, Teacher's Institutes, and then a magnificent apparatus of means and agencies of every description would be provided to cultivate what the poet has called

"Acres of untilled brains,"

to develope the mighty mind and the great heart of our America, and to prevent the hourly repetition of that pathetic "tragedy," of which the prose-poet speaks, “that there should one man die ignorant who had the capacity for knowledge."

Imagine such a sum employed in the industrial and material improvements of a country, to give security to its navigation and commerce; to facilitate domestic and foreign intercourse; to bind city to city, and State to State, and nation to nation, in harmonious coöperation; to develope the

;

physical and mineral resources of the earth, and make her not the step-mother, but the own mother, of her children and how many millions of naked would be clothed, and how many millions of the hungry would be fed, and how much time would be redeemed from inexorable toil to devote to the higher culture of our nature, and to the making not of money, but of men, worthy to be called men!

Or, were it expended in the fine and the useful arts, to join everywhere in eternal union, beauty and utility; to stimulate and reward invention; to carry all the sciences, and, consequently, all the arts depending upon them, to a higher state of perfection; to multiply in the cities and habitations of a free people the rarest productions of architecture, painting, sculpture,-the works of genius baptized into the name of Christ; how ample would be the instrumentalities for developing such a national character as the world has never before seen, except in the dream of some rapt sage, or the vision of some inspired prophet!

Let it be consecrated on the altar of philanthropy, and what chain would not be broken, what prisoner not visited, what sick untended, what beggar unrelieved, what insane given over, what idiot abandoned, what blind, or deaf, or dumb, or maimed uncared for, what inebriate unreformed, what licentious not purified, and what criminal uninstructed and unrecovered!

Or, propose the sublimest of the works done, or to be done in this world, and the one in a manner comprehending all the other enterprises referred to, we mean the Christianizing of the whole world, the sanctification of the five human races; and in the interest alone of this gigantic war-bill we should find abundant means, so far as pecuniary resources are concerned, to set in operation forty-eight majestic missionary and Bible societies, as large as the American Board, and the British and Foreign Bible Society, to work with omnipresent and almost omnipotent power in every land, and shed the

light of divine truth and mercy in every benighted heart and habitation, and plant the churches of the Redeemer on every hill-top and in every valley from pole to pole. Call it not folly or fanaticism to imagine such a Millennium. It was once the hope of prophecy; it was later the vision of Christ; and it shall one day be the Kingdom of God on earth.

If this be our strength and glory to raise money, and expend it in wicked and wasteful wars, tormenting our neighbors and ourselves, then is our strength weakness, and our glory shame. If a whole nation will expend without reluctance their kingly treasures, (that might constitute the moral lever to raise the earth,) in the arts of human butchery and misery, in conquest and invasion, what title has it to be called a Christian nation? It has none. It is a heathen people with a Christian cloak; heathen in spirit, and heathen in practice. We may cry, "Lord, Lord," but the use of holy words cannot save the workers of iniquity from the condemnation of the Judge of all.

In concluding this chapter, a practical question suggests itself; how shall the masses of a nation be made to feel the abomination of spending hundreds of millions in war? and how shall the future be exempted from the grinding injustice of having its labor and property mortgaged in advance, and forever crippled by the war-debts of the past? In one way, and we believe in one way only. Let these untold millions be paid at once by a direct tax. Pay as you go, should be the rule of nations as well as of individuals. We have no right to make our children settle with their toil and tears the debts of our folly. Now the war-expenses are not felt, because they come obliquely and stealthily, and are so mixed up with tariffs and indirect taxes, and the consumption of the proceeds of the public lands, that few understand their operation. But apply the principle of a direct tax, and every man in the community would inquire into the merits and demerits of a war, and would not fail to clamor loudly and

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effectually against all wars of aggression, invasion, conquest, and slavery. We are happy to strengthen our position by the opinion of one of the ablest Judges on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.* "All wars should be accomplished by a system of direct and internal taxation. Nothing short of this can show, in addition to sacrifice of life, what we pay for military glory. This was the policy in the better days of the Republic."

"Food for powder, food for powder."- SHAKSPEARE.

PHYSICIANS are accustomed to make an examination, after the disease has proved fatal, in order to ascertain more clearly its seat, causes, and diagnosis. It is not a grateful task to enter into the bloody chambers, where life was mysteriously hidden; but they do it for the sake of the living, and to prevent the repetition of like effects. The moralist and Christian, too, are sometimes obliged to make, so to speak, post mortem examinations, for however painful it may be to live over again scenes of violence and wrong, and to follow the track of armies, yet they feel it to be a duty if they can by this means obtain powerful evidences in behalf of the cause they advocate. They wish thus to call the surgeon, as well as the financier, to testify to the evils of war, and to invoke

* Judge McLean.