of the officers, they have found way to appropriate the last cent of the poor soldier for a glass of rum. The disbanded soldiers will scatter anew through the length and breadth of the land the prolific seeds of intemperance.

ness.

The violent passions and the reckless feelings enraged by war naturally find their vent in the most horrible profaneThis vice is as congenial to fleets and armies, as birds to the air, or fishes to the sea. It is spoken of in history as a wonderful triumph that Cromwell was able to banish it from his Puritan troops. But most generals have taken no pains, and had no desire to have the third commandment observed by their men; indeed, as an almost universal rule, they have been themselves grossly addicted to this practice, which is neither "brave, polite, nor wise." From the camp, from the man-of-war, more curses than blessings, more oaths than prayers go up before high heaven. If you wish to initiate a young man in a short time into this soul-destroying habit, you could not do better than to send him to the battlefield, where human nature is wrought up to the highest pitch of maddened,-defiant, ferocious, blood-thirsty passion (and must be so in order to do the awful work which is to be done there), and pours out volleys of profaneness against heaven while discharging volleys of death at heaven's children. He who wishes to see the doom of a profane and God-insulting people averted from his country, will hold up both hands to vote against war.

Licentiousness is another vice which is diffused by war. The habits of the camp in this particular are too well known to need description. Indeed, multitudes flock to the standard of war because they know that they shall thus find means to gratify their passions. A chaste army would be as novel a thing in the world as a sober one. The camp is the resort of hordes of abandoned females.

When a besieged city is taken, it is sometimes the premium on the bravery of the soldiers to deliver it up to lust and plunder.

Such is the licentiousness of war.

will be the friend of peace.

The friend of purity

Indeed, when we consider the morals of war, and the late war, as we have demonstrated in the preceding pages, has been not an exception, but the fulfilment of the general rule, we would “wreak” our thoughts on some such words as these, O war, what shall we say of thee, thou dark spirit, thou fearful minister of wrath, thou flaming angel of swift destruction? When thou art let loose, there is a shudder in heaven, and the angels veil their faces in horror. The sound of thy trumpet strikes terror to the mother's heart, and makes the sister turn pale with fear and foreboding. Wives shrink from the sound of thy coming, and children flee from the thunder and havoc of thy train as from the whirlwind. Is there purity? Thou dishonorest it. Is there temperance? Thou debauchest it. Is there mercy? Thou turnest it to stone. Is there love? Thou curdlest the milk of human kindness to hatred. Is there prosperity? Thou cuttest off its resources, thou multipliest taxes. Is there home? Thou layest Thou layest it waste with fire and sword. Is there religion? Thou repealest every law of the decalogue, every precept of Christ. Is there patriotism? Thou puttest in place of the true a vile substitute, current neither among gods nor men. Is there honor? Thou cheatest the world with a base compound, that bears the same relation to true honor that pewter coin does to pure silver. Is there freedom? Thou draggest her a bound captive at thy chariot wheels. Is there commerce? Thou chasest her from the seas. Is there agriculture? Thou tramplest her harvests under the hoofs of thy coursers, and riotest in her plenty. Is there art, practical or ideal? Thou burnest her workshops, thou plunderest her galleries. Is there any good thing on earth, which heaven has given, or which man has made? Thou art the curse and destruction of all. here thou movest, a garden is before thee, and a

desert behind thee. Thou art hell let loose upon the world; and when we see thy banner in the sky, all the good angels of heaven seem to have taken flight, and left us to ourselves and to our own worst passions. Thine attendant spirits are pain, and woe, and despair, and sickness, and licentiousness, and intemperance, and profaneness, and Sabbath-breaking, and murder, and robbery, and cruelty. Thy victories are the defeats of humanity. Thy conquests are the losses of liberty. Thy rejoicings are the wailings of the poor and suffering. Thy glories are the shame of immortals, and the trophies of tigers and hyenas. Thy laurels are red with blood, and thy hosannas are the shrieks of the wounded, the yells of the dying, the sobs of widows, the cries of orphans, and the lamentations of nations.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.

"The depravity occasioned by war is not confined to the army. Every species of vice gains ground in a nation during war. And when a war is brought to a close, seldom perhaps does a community return to its former standard of morals." - NOAH WORcester.

"What distinguishes war is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man. The evil is moral evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust." ---CHANNING.

We devote this chapter to what we regard as the chief evils of the Mexican war. The moral and spiritual facul

ties are at the head of the human constitution, and the interests resulting from them and involving their development and welfare, are the leading interests of human society. Whatever reverses this order, and puts last what should be first, and first what should be last, destroys the true perspective of human life. War, perhaps more than any other single cause, works this stupendous wrong. It discredits and dwarfs the moral man. It supplies undue excitements and gratifications to all the animal passions. It obscures the true end of our existence, and substitutes, in place of the honor and dignity of serving God and man, the gorgeous mockery of military glory.

Had the war now in question been instrumental of the loss of not one dollar or one life, and yet had it laid waste the great moral and religious interests of the United States and Mexico, and left a deep wound upon the cause of Christ, we should assign it a foremost place among the foes of our laws, our liberties, and every social, material, and political interest. For every part of our complicated life is connected with every other part, as joint with joint, and limb with limb in the body. If one suffer, all the others suffer with it. When the moral interests of society are thrown into disorder, the evil extends through every department of thought and action. We have by an enumeration of separate evils demonstrated that, if every other argument failed, the immoralities of this invasion stamp it with the darkest colors of guilt, and cover it with the deepest abhorrence of the feeling heart and the tender conscience. We have examined its leger, and looked into its hospitals, and recited its horrors, but we will now consider its spirit. Space will compel us to be brief, where a volume only could do full justice to the subject.

It is sometimes alleged, that those who fight have no enmity, one towards another, and that it is not that they hate their enemies, or wish them evil; but they contend at

the call of their country, and are just as good friends when they stop firing as any men in the world. Witness, it is said, the kind acts they do each other, and the relief they give to the wounded and dying foeman. So be it. Let all possible palliations relieve the horrid picture of the field of blood. It does us good to think that what is best in man sometimes appears even amid such scenes. But we propose to record some indications of the war-spirit, and to show that where there is such a spirit, the spirit of revenge, hardheartedness, cruelty, delight in the sufferings of others, or cold-blooded indifference to them, there cannot be the spirit of him, who said, "Love your enemies." And certainly we are not allowed to repeal his laws of love, mutual good will, intercessory prayers for our enemies, and returning them good for evil; no, not even for an hour, though that hour be the period of battle. How then can war and Christianity agree together? If it be possible to love our enemies at the moment we are pouring vollies of grape into their dense ranks, and to pray for them at the time we are meditating a charge with naked bayonets, then we can conceive of a war conducted on Christian principles and sentiments, but not otherwise. "War must be," as Robert Hall says,

a temporary repeal of the principles of virtue." The truth is, that men cannot be brought up to the point of fighting except by the stress of most powerful motives, and those motives in general are drawn. from the animal passions. Generals have usually deprecated a strong religious influence in the camp.* Some have gone so far as to declare, the worse man, the better soldier. There is a species of morality in war, but it is of a very abject nature. Far are we from denying that there are many good men engaged in

* The examining committee of the Military Academy at West Point state the significant fact in their report, 1849, that the chapter or section on War in Wayland's Moral Science, a text book in the institution, is not admitted in the course of studies!