which never saw a battle, returned at the close of the war with less than four hundred in its wasted ranks. When General Childs took command of the garrison at Jalapa, eighteen hundred men lay sick in our hospitals in that city. At the city of Mexico, the deaths among our troops were much of the time one thousand monthly. On a parade when a certain company was called which had numbered over one hundred men, a single private answered to the call, its sole living representative. Around the castle of Perote alone, are three thousand graves of soldiers who perished by disease. They lie in that great burial place. Some in the excitement of battle fell instantly dead by some almost unfelt blow; others perished under a multitude of wounds; others still expired after hours, or days, or weeks of agonizing torment. Many thousands thirsting for distinction, who had left their homes with high hopes of glory on the battle field, sunk under the malignant pestilence, while thousands more dragged home their disfigured bodies, or returned to carry with them through life shattered constitutions and disease, or to hasten to their graves.

If there is a time above all others when the heart yearns for the presence of affection, when its voice falls like music on the ear, when the tender ministry of those we love is felt to be O! how precious, and when its absence wrings the heart with the bitter pang of desolation, it is when we lie on the bed of suffering and feel the approach of death.

While we mourn for our own countrymen who fell victims to conquest, let us not forget those who fought against us, sacrificed by our wickedness. Even defenceless women and children did not always escape the horrors of the war. At the storming of Monterey, a young Mexican girl was seen carrying water to the wounded of both armies. The battle thickened around her, but with a heroic devotion she continued her pious ministry. As she hastened from one to another, binding up their wounds and allaying their intolerable thirst, she seemed some angel of mercy amid the scene of carnage, when a cannon ball snatched away her gentle spirit, and her life-blood flowed mingling with the water she had brought.

But who shall paint the agony of those who mourn a son, a father, a husband, a brother,

who can never return? To how many did the news of peace bring a joyful anticipation, doomed to darken into disappointment and despair. Where is the indemnity that shall atone for crushed affections? What price can pay for the lost treasures of the heart? It is a terrible responsibility to have added a mite to human suffering. By what great necessity can this war be justified?

CHAPTER XIII.

THE Duty of the United States toward other nations enhanced by her position. Her duty to Mexico in particular. These duties violated by this War.

We shall now examine the duty and true ambition and glory of the United States, and show the consequences of this violation of that duty upon the character of our people, and on the cause of religion and of freedom in our own land, and throughout the world.

It is a matter of doubt among many, whether impartial justice ought ever to be expected from a state, seeking its own interest and amenable to no law This doubt appears well warranted by history, but no sound distinction can be drawn in morals between public and private obligation. A state is an ideal being. It does not act, it possesses no responsibility. It exists only in contemplation. What are

commonly called acts of the state are the acts of individuals.

The law of right and wrong is the ultima ratio of human action. It is the duty of man to do whatever the moral law declares to be right, and to refrain from doing what it declares to be wrong; and this for the single reason that one is right and the other wrong. To whatever office in the vast machinery of government a man may be called, whether it be to legislate or to administer the laws, he is bound to obey in that, as in every other situation, the same law of right. An individual accountability inseparable from his existence rests upon him still.

Is one a legislator, and through prejudice or passion or excitement, fails to raise his voice against injustice and wrong, or seeks not with an enlarged humanity the welfare of his race; is he a minister, and do selfishness and ambition mark his counsels; does he hold the highest authority of the land and direct in any respect the conduct of his country, and is not the good of all mankind his supreme desire-do not justice, mercy and peace guide his stepsdoes resentment ever drive away forgiveness