became incapable of moving. In spite of these difficulties, some who were on foot saved themselves by their perseverance; but about eight o'clock in the morning, the bridge reserved for the carriages having broken down, the baggage and artillery advanced to the other, and attempted to force a passage. Then began a frightful contest between the infantry and the cavalry, in which many of them perished by the hands of their comrades; and a still greater number were suffocated at the foot of the bridge, where the carcasses of men and horses obstructed the road to such a degree, that to approach the river, it was necessary to climb over the bodies of those who had been crushed. Some of them were still alive, and struggling in the agonies of death. In order to extricate themselves, they caught hold of those who were marching over them; but the latter disengaged themselves with violence, and trampled them under their feet. Whilst they contended with so much fury, the following multitude, like a raging wave, incessantly overwhelmed fresh victims.

"In the midst of this dreadful confusion, the Russians made a furious attack on the rear-guard; and in the heat of the engagement, many balls fell on the miserable crowd that for three days had been pressing round the bridge, and even some shells burst in the midst of them. Terror and despair then took possession of every heart anxious for self-preservation; women and children, who had escaped so many disasters, seemed to have been preserved to experience a death still more deplorable. Leaving their carriages, they ran to embrace the knees of the first person they met, and implored him with tears to take them to the other side. The sick and wounded seated on the trunk of a tree, or supported on crutches, looked eagerly for some friend that could assist them; but their cries were lost in the air, every one thought only of his own safety."

But it may be said that these extracts are unfair and onesided, and that occasional instances may be cited of noble and romantic generosity displayed both towards vanquished enemies and suffering comrades, on the part of those engaged in war. Gladly and thankfully do we acknowledge this. Instances do occur of the triumphant power of human affection, gleaming forth amid the actual hell of horrors, which the battle-field presents, like the passing ray of light which for a moment gilds the howling wilderness of waters in the wildest climax of the hurricane-instances which lead us to exclaim with the poet, while the heart was almost sinking into the sickness of despair

"Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers;

From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air.”

But we confidently affirm, that the examples we have given, and not these casual exceptions, are the characteristic illustrations of the effects which war produces upon human feelings. These latter stand forth so conspicuously, and so strongly excite our admiration, precisely because they are so rare, so broadly in contrast with the scenes in the midst of which they are exhibited, and so utterly at variance with all that we expect to witness on such an occasion.

Indeed the whole of this cant about the corrupting influences of peace, and the elevating and purifying effects of war, is pointedly contradicted by the whole tenor of history, as regards both individuals and communities. Was it during a time of prolonged and profound peace, or amid the loud tumult of incessant warfare at home and abroad, that Rome attained that frightful pitch of social profligacy and corruption so hideously delineated by the too graphic pencil of Juvenal? Sismondi remarks, that the victories gained by the Swiss republics, and the military habits they acquired during the war, in which they repelled the assaults made on their liberty and independence, were the means of introducing into those primitive communities an amount of immorality and vice, to which they had previously been utter strangers. 'Where," remarks Dr. Spiess, in his admirable pamphlet, to which we advert elsewhere, noticing the same argument in favour of

war, "where are the traces of a high moral purity and civilization, which the French derived from the long warlike reign. of Louis XIV., or from the illustrious wars of Napoleon's administration? Do we not see the direct reverse in the continually increasing demoralization which, for the most part, was the consequence of this long warlike life, urging the nation with giant steps to a precipice from which it can only be saved by far other means than war." And in regard to our own country, will any man dare to affirm, that the time of the last war, was a period distinguished for more virtue, more moral progress and improvement, a higher tone of social and commercial integrity, than the thirty years' peace which have ensued? In fact, so far are Mr. Alison's antitheses from being correct, that the very vices which he accuses peace of nourishing, are found to break forth with a far ranker luxuriance during the excitements of war. Is it not notorious, that all the bonds of moral obligation become relaxed, not only among those who are actually engaged in fighting, but among all who are in any way brought within the reach of its influence? Where was there cupidity more gross, where peculation more shameless, where a selfish regard for private interest, at the expense of their country's claims more open and extortionate than among the contractors and commissaries employed in furnishing the munitions of war to our own troops during the last war? Where are so many "profligate husbands and shameless wives" to be found as in the focus of an army? Where does the "subtle poison of human corruption spread with such fatal rapidity" as in the neighbourhood of a camp or a barracks? Where is there such gross profligacy, where

such hideous and abominable licentiousness as is exhibited in our sea-port towns when visited by a vessel of war, when our "brave tars" return from their conflicts with the enemies of their country?

Here we must part for the present with Mr. Alison. But we shall return to the subject in our next number, and examine some other portions of his statement.

HOW ENGLAND TEACHES THE NATIONS.

Ir has always been the ambition of England "to teach the nations." We have deemed ourselves so far advanced in all that is enlightened, just and humane, as to be entitled to assume the august office of moral censors to the rest of mankind. Accordingly, when any act of peculiar atrocity or barbarism, is perpetrated by other states, our leading statesmen, not unfrequently get up in their places in Parliament, to pronounce upon the offenders, a stern and dignified rebuke, in the name and for the vindication of outraged humanity. Still more frequently do we as a people, when such events occur, express in no measured terms, our reprobation and contempt for the semi-barbarian condition of those among whom such acts of brutality can be tolerated, and devoutly thank God that "we are not as other men are. But in the art of "teaching" nations as well as individuals, example is more powerful than precept, with whatever amount of lofty assumption it may be uttered. Most of our readers will have seen the melancholy account of the summary execution of fifty Americans at the Havannah, by the Cuban government, accompanied, it is said, by great insults to them while living, and shameful indignities inflicted on their bodies when dead. But one opinion can be entertained as to the character and objects of these men. They were to all intents and purposes pirates, carrying fire and blood into the territories of a power with which their own government was in perfect peace. And yet, notwithstanding the acknowledged guilt of the victims, public opinion in this country is almost unanimous in condemning, as barbarous and brutal the sanguinary revenge adopted by the Cuban authorities and populace. And as usual we hold up our hands in holy horror at the blood-thirsty disposition of the Spaniards. But alas! our virtuous indignation is stopped short, by the rebuke, "out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee." For what right have we to be virtuously indignant at such an act, just after our own legislature has deliberately adopted as its own, amid exulting cheers of approbation on the

perpetrator, the far more extensive and frightful butcheries committed by Sir James Brooke in the Chinese seas, butcheries which were followed by head-roasting, and other gross and indecent outrages on the dead bodies, that surely have not been exceeded by the populace at the Havannah, even if we believe that all the accounts given are not exaggerated. As might be expected this example is so pat to the purpose, that the Spaniards are citing it triumphantly, as an abundant vindication of their own recent severities in Cuba. Oh! it is an honourable thing for England to have other nations justifying their barbarities by our example, and fathering their sins upon us, in the following fashion. Signor Isturitz, the Spanish Minister, thus writes in a letter to the Times of September 9th, respecting the transactions in Cuba :

"And if historical precedents are consulted where is to be found a more lenient and clement Government than that of Spain? The English annals themselves-do they not furnish us with many examples of more numerous and harsher punishments? What has England recently done with the pirates of the Chinese seas? Can the number of the adventurers that were shot in Harannah be compared with that of those so justly exterminated by the naval forces of Great Britain? And yet those Chinese pirates went not in search of England within her own possessions; they did not go deliberately to spill the blood of her soldiers and her subjects, nor to rob them of their property. "Guided by these principles, Spain is determined to follow the same course. At peace with the Government of the United States, and respecting as she does all the rights of American subjects, she will treat and punish as pirates those adventurers who may invade her territory, without inquiring whence they come from or what country they belong to."

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
JOHN FOSTER.

IN the Herald for April we introduced to the attention of our readers the prince of British Divines, John Home;—it is with equal gratification that we present to their notice in this month's number the prince of British Essayists, John Foster. In the leading particulars of their intellectual character these eminent men bore a striking resemblance to each other, and it may be safely affirmed that for comprehensiveness, profundity, and power, they stand unrivalled in their respective spheres. The celebrated Robert Hall, who was the personal friend of John Foster, says of him in an admirable Review of his essays, which first appeared in the Eclectic, that "The scale on which he thinks is so vast, and the excursions of his imagination are so extended, that they frequently carry him into the most unbeaten track, and among objects where a ray of light glances in an angle only, without diffusing itself over the whole. On ordinary topics his conceptions are luminous in the highest degree. He places the idea which he wishes to present in such a flood of light, that it is not merely visible itself, but it seems to illumine all around it. But what pleases us most, and affords us the highest satisfaction, is to find such talents enlisted on the side of true Christianity; nor can we help indulging a benevolent triumph at the accession of powers to the cause of evangelical piety, which its most distinguished opponent would be proud to possess."

We unite in the satisfaction of this eminent Reviewer, at the consecration of such superior powers to the interests of piety, but we have an additional gratification in the fact, that those powers were employed also in the cause of universal peace. With the eye of a philosopher and the heart of a Christian, Foster took a comprehensive view of war, and the enormities which his keen glance detected and his spirit abhorred, his powerful pen exposed to public execration. In estimating the value of his services in this great cause, the period in which he wrote should be carefully remembered, for like Dr. Bogue he was bold and faithful enough to attack the idol when the whole nation was prostrate before it in an act of worship. He did not wait for "a more convenient season," in which to discharge his duty, but in the very heat of the French War, when with few exceptions, the entire nation was intoxicated with the "glory" of that murderous and disgraceful conflict, and when even his eloquent friend Hall fell in with the unworthy enthu

siasm of the day, he poured out his denunciations on the object of their adulation, and smote the high priest of their ceremonies in the temple of his glory. He did not take up with vague generalities nor spend his strength in pointless declamation, but he boldly assailed the evil in a most vital part, by attacking the chief of the classic bards, and exposing the pernicious tendency of the Iliad of Homer. With what power and success he performed his part, the following quotations will abundantly prove they are however but a small portion of what might have been selected had our space permitted more lengthened

extracts.

"Among the poets, I shall notice only the two or three preeminent ones of the Epic class. Homer, you know, is the favourite of the whole civilized world; and it is many centuries since there needed one additional word of homage to the amazing genius displayed in the Iliad. The object of inquiry is, what kind of predisposition will be formed toward Christianity in a young and animated spirit, that learns to glow with enthusiasm at the scenes created by Homer, and to indulge an ardent wish, which that enthusiasm will probably awaken, for the possibility of emulating some of the principal characters. Let this susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in imagination among our heroes, whose valour and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven; let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his disciples, as displayed by the Evangelists, with whose narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquainted before. What must he, what can he, do with his feelings in this transition? He will find himself flung as far as 'from the centre to the utmost pole ;' and one of these two opposite exhibitions of character will inevitably excite his aversion. Which of them is that likely to be, if he is become thoroughly possessed with the Homeric passions?

Or if, on the other hand, you will suppose a person to have first become profoundly interested by the New Testament, and to have acquired the spirit of the Saviour of the world, while studying the evangelical history; with what sentiments will he come forth from conversing with heavenly mildness, weeping benevolence, sacred purity, and the eloquence of divine wisdom, to enter into a scene of such actions and characters, and to hear such maxims of merit and glory, as those of Homer? He would be still more confounded by the transition, had it been possible for him to have entirely escaped that deep depravation of feeling which can think of crimes and miseries with little emotion, and which we have all acquired from viewing the whole history of the world composed of scarcely anything else. He would find the mightiest strain of poetry employed to represent ferocious courage as the greatest of virtues, and those who do not possess it as worthy of their fate, to be trodden in the dust. He will be taught, at least it will not be the fault of the poet if he is not taught, to forgive a heroic spirit for finding the sweetest luxury in insulting dying pangs, and imagining the tears and despair of distant parents or wives. He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison of which the Thunderer of Olympus is but a despicable pretender to power. He will be taught that the most glorious and enviable life is that to which the greatest number of other lives are made a sacrifice; and that it is noble in a hero to prefer even a short life attended by this felicity, to a long one which should permit a longer life also to others. The dire Achilles, a being whom, if he really existed, it had deserved a conspiracy of the tribes called nations to chain or to suffocate, is rendered interesting even amidst the horrors of revenge and destruction, by the intensity of his affection for his friend, by the melancholy sublimity with which he appears in the funeral scene of that friend, by one momentary instance of compassion, and by the solemn references to his own approaching death. A reader who has even passed beyond the juvenile ardour of life, feels himself interested, in a manner that excites at intervals his own surprise, in the fate of this stern destroyer; and he wonders, and he wishes to doubt, whether the moral that he is learning be, after all, exactly no other than that the grandest employment of a great spirit is the destruction of human creatures, so long as revenge, ambition, or even caprice, may choose to regard them under an artificial distinction, and call them enemies. But this is the real and effective moral of the Iliad, after all that critics have so gravely written about lessons of union, or any other subordinate

moral instructions, which they discover or imagine in the work. Who but critics ever thought or cared about these instructions? Whatever is the chief and grand impression made by the whole work on the ardent minds which are most susceptible of the influence of poetry, that is the real moral; and Alexander, and, by reflection from him, Charles XII. correctly received the genuine inspiration."

I therefore ask again, how it would be possible for a man whose mind was first completely assimilated to the spirit of Jesus Christ, to read such a work without a most vivid antipathy to what he perceived to be the moral spirit of the poet? And if it were not too strange a supposition, that the most characteristic parts of the Iliad had been read in the presence and hearing of our Lord, and by a person animated by a fervid sympathy with the work-do you not instantly imagine Him expressing the most emphatical condemnation ? Would not the reader have been made to know, that in the spirit of that book he could never become a disciple and a friend of the Messiah? To show how impossible it would be, I wish I may be pardoned for making another strange and indeed a most monstrous supposition, namely, that Achilles, Diomede, Ulysses, and Ajax, had been real persons, living in the time of our Lord, and had become his disciples, and yet, (excepting the mere exchange of the notions of mythology for Christian opinions) had retained entire the state of mind with which the poet has exhibited them. It is instantly perceived that Satan, Beelzebub, and Moloch, might as consistently have been retained in heaven. But here the question comes to a point: if these great examples of glorious character pretending to coalesce with the transcendent Sovereign of virtues, would have been probably the most enormous incongruity existing, or that ever had existed, in the whole universe; what harmony can there be between a man who has acquired a considerable degree of congeniality with the spirit of these heroes, and that paramount Teacher and Pattern of excellence? And who will assure me that the enthusiast for heroic poetry does not acquire a degree of this congeniality? But unless I can be so assured, I persist in asserting the noxiousness of such poetry.

"Yet the work of Homer is, notwithstanding, the book which Christian poets have translated, which Christian divines have edited and commented on with pride, at which Christian ladies have been delighted to see their sons kindle into rapture, and which forms an essential part of the course of a liberal education, over all those countries on which the gospel shines. And who can tell how much that passion for war which, from the universality of its prevalence, might seem inseparable from the nature of man, may, in the civilized world, have been reinforced by the enthusiastic admiration with which young men have read Homer, and similar poets, whose genius transforms what is, and ought always to appear, purely horrid, into an aspect of grandeur? Should it be asked, And what ought to be the practical consequence of such observations? I may surely answer that I cannot justly be required to assign that consequence. I cannot be required to do more than exhibit in a simple light an important point of truth. If such works do really impart their own genuine spirit to the mind of an admiring reader, in proportion to the degree in which he admires, and if this spirit is totally hostile to that of Christianity, and if Christianity ought really and in good faith to be the supreme regent of all moral feeling, then it is evident that the Iliad, and all books which combine the same tendency with great poetical excellence, are among the most mischievous things on earth."-From the Essay on the causes that have rendered Evangelical Religion less acceptable to persons of taste.

Reviews.

The Cape and the Kafirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffrland. By HARRIET WARD. London: H. G. BOHN. pp. 238: 1851.

THE authoress of this work is the lady of a British officer, who, with his regiment, was ordered out to the Cape Colony in 1842. They remained in the colony, enduring all the vicissitudes of a military life, until after the terrible campaign of 1847 and the arrival of "the hero of Aliwal," Sir Harry Smith; and the lady, to fill up the vacant hours that hung heavily on her hands, has noted in these pages, and in the form of a diary, the results of her observations during those years of her sojourn in a foreign land.

Whoever expects to find in this work a full or an impartial

account of our transactions with the Kaffirs, will be greviously disappointed. The information of the writer is not equal to the one, while her position, as the wife of a military man, naturally forbids the other. She surveys the whole struggle with the prejudices peculiar to a camp; and as she regards her own party as always right, she concludes, with a most remarkable facility, that the Kaffirs are always wrong.

We affirm that her information is seriously defective; and, as a proof of this, we have only to refer to the culpable omission of all allusions to the disastrous policy of 1811, in which, by acting out the arbitrary and unjust measures of Plattenburg, we enlarged the colonial boundary to the Great Fish River, driving over it 30,000 Kaffirs at the point of the bayonet, refusing to listen to their intreaty to be allowed to cut their crops of maize and millet, then nearly ripe, and so laid the foundation for all the revenge and hatred which the Kaffirs have evinced to this very hour. In truth this is the cause-the remote and distant, but most certain cause of all the subsequent conflicts at the Cape; and to this, almost exclusively, are to be attributed, in the language of the Parliamentary Report of 1837, "a succession of new wars not less expensive and more sanguinary than the former.”

Yet this disgraceful and cruel deed, to which we owe all the subsequent wars, as remote effects from this primary cause, is never once alluded to by Mrs. Ward. She devotes one whole chapter (the third) to the "History of the Cape Colony," and there professes to describe the successive steps by which we have acquired our extensive territories in the African Peninsula ; but with an unaccountable negligence, omits this encroachment altogether. We will not, having to do with the production of a lady, employ stronger language than to affirm of this omission, that it is both discreditable and delusive.

Nor is the work before us more commendable on the score of impartiality than on that of accuracy. In almost every page the animus of the writer appcars, sometimes in insinuations for which there is no justification, and on other occasions in charges for which there is no ground. If the Kaffirs have cattle, “no doubt they are stolen;" if they are at war, they are "murderous savages;" if they sue for peace, their humility is "affected," and they are not to be trusted;" if they are quietly cultivating their grounds, then there are "plots concocting between the parties;" and if they roam and are restless, then they intend an invasion of the colony."

66

We often regret that so large a part of our information respecting our colonies and the aboriginal tribes is derived from accounts written by military partisans. To those whose sole rule of action is might, conquest is always a virtue; and the attempt of the savage to retain his native grounds is always a crime. It is considered a sufficient reason for attack that the native proprietor disputes the right of the white man to eject him from his inheritance; and when, in maintaining that right, the white aggressor proceeds to bloodshed and death, he has never yet been without his military panegyrist. But much and deservedly as we have ever regretted this, we never before felt so keenly the sense of shame at such an advocacy, for we never before had the misfortune to encounter its apologist in the person of a lady.

Memoir of the Rev. Henry Möwes, late Pastor of Altenhausen and Ivenrode, Prussia. With an Introduction by the Rev. JOHN DAVIS, B.D., Rector of Gateshead, Durham. (Religious Tract Society.)

THE influence of the Religious Tract Society for good is so great and so extensive, that it is painful to express disapprobation of any thing proceeding from so excellent an institution. But as in proportion to its extensive usefulness, it is important that every sentiment which it disseminates should be in accordance with Christian truth, we are induced to point out a few passages in the Memoir of Henry Möwes, which being calculated to foster the military spirit, are therefore at variance with the precepts of the Gospel. The memoir mentions, that Henry Möwes received his early education at the Cathedral School of Magdeburg, having been adopted by an uncle who resided near that city. His biographer says "The support his relative afforded him was scanty. He frequently feared he should, on that account, be compelled to relinquish his plan of studying theology. He at one time had resolved to enter the army, and was only prevented by the sudden removal of an officer to whom he was much attached, and who had promised to obtain his speedy promotion. How entirely

different might the whole course of his life have been, had the determination been carried into effect! But it was itself characteristic of him. There was something heroic in the constitution of his mind; an almost invincible valour was conspicuous in many events of his life. Had he not been a pastor, there was no character he could so well have sustained as that of the Christian warrior. He gave proof of this during the short time he was a volunteer in his country's service." Now, if the terms Christian warrior meant one who would fight with invincible valour in the Lamb's warfare with spiritual weapons only, no objection could be made to it. But the next sentence makes it evident, that the writer had carnal weapons in view for the Christian warrior. We must therefore understand Christian warrior here to mean a physical force soldier; and invincible valour, that brute ferocity so highly esteemed in the army for its power to "kill, burn, and destroy" everything opposed to it-a character and quality utterly at variance with the description of the Christian soldier and his accoutrements, in the New Testament. To suppose that the same talents and the same dispositions of mind, are suitable for an officer of the army and a minister of the gospel of peace and salvation, implies a very incorrect estimate of the character of the latter. It is true that it is not uncommon for the juniors of aristocratic families to consider the church, the army, and the law, as affording the only respectable means of obtaining a livelihood; and that the choice of the one or the other has often little reference to religious views or feelings. But this does not alter the nature of things. The army, and the church of Christ, remain as essentially different as black and white; and he who is capable of practising all the vices and crimes which are necessary to success in warfare, is no more fit for a minister of the Gospel, than a wolf is for a shepherd. For this assertion we have the authority of the two great generals of modern times, in their well-known sayings on the incompatibility of soldiership and religion.

In the short narrative of Möwes' heroic deeds, given by his biographer, are the following passages:-"The history of Möwes' campaign is rich in instances of heroic courage and self-sacrifice, of the tenderness of his heart under the most fearful difficulties. It bears the stamp of an extraordinarily distinguished and noble character. He fought at Belle Alliance, and exhibited admirable energy, both in the privations he endured and in his active service. "He would willingly recount the events of the great struggle. The manner in which he threw himself into his subject, the interest, the actual share he seemed to have in every occurrence, the richness of his own personal tale, in stirring incident, rivetted attention. We cannot refrain from giving one event of this period, though feeling the evident difference between a cold written tale, and the glowing narrative of one who had been an actor in the scenes he described."

We refrain from following the writer through the narrative of stirring incident, lest we commit the fault we are condemning, that of exciting the martial spirit in the minds of any of our young readers. His style of conveying the account is certainly (and in such a work gratuitously) calculated to do so. This is the more to be regretted, as the occasion afforded a fine opportunity for inculcating just the opposite sentiment. We know that a truthful relation of the facts would exhibit an aggregate of misery and vice, overwhelming the mind with pity, disgust, and horror.

When the ministers of religion and religious writers treat these subjects on Gospel principles, then may we expect the near approach of the day when the nations shall learn war no more. They stand in a fearfully responsible position with reference to this subject; it is our part to call on them to perform their duty in it. W. N.

AN ANCIENT INCIDENT WITH A MODERN

APPLICATION.

A TRIBUTE TO PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD.

THE fountains burst, the waters boil,

And all that human art and toil
Within two thousand years have reared,
In hungry waves has disappeared
From earth's corrupted soil.
The forge-fires lit by Tubal-Cain
Are quenched in sheets of roaring rain ;
And all the flames of human life,
That burned with lurid rage and strife
Smoulder and fastly burn.

The deluge conquers :-only eight,
From the vast multitude, that late
Breathed vital air and ruled the earth,
Remain !-a melancholy dearth
Of human life!-a precious freight
Enclosed and sealed, in one huge bark,
Sailing upon a world all dark

With God's black frown; and frighted skies
Resound and quake as Nature dies-

Alone survives the ark!

A year has run its dismal round-
At length a resting-place is found;
A raven soars on sable plume,

And, croaking, skims the wat'ry gloom :
But yet undried the lower ground,

A gentle dove, not finding rest,

With throbbing heart seeks Noah's breast,
And waits, till, from the altered scene,
She plucks a branch of olive green,
And takes it to her nest!

And there how welcome is it made!-
A sign of woe and terror stayed-
A smiling sign of peace renewed,
Peace waited for and daily wooed,
And won at last, though long delayed.
How fondled is that darling Dove !-
How much endeared!-a thing to love
By pining hearts, to whom it gives
A token sure that Concord lives
Again-descended from above!

Another Dove, unseen, now flies;
Flectly her silken wings she plies:
To no one ark her course is bent-
To man's whole family she's sent,
To tell that devastation dies!-
That war's fierce tempests hush,
That slackens much the hostile rush
Of national jealousies and hates.
Glory to God !-the flood abates
That would our highest welfare crush.

See in her mouth an olive-leaf,—
Symbol significant, though brief,-
A pledge of goodwill sent to be,
And promise both to bond and free
That heaven extends relief!
From Calvary 'tis borne, where bled
The Holy Lamb, who dying, shed
His blood for human happiness,
And blooms a "Plant Renowned," to bless
With life and healing all the dead!

These sacred leaves, sweet Dove, convey
Nor in thy angel-course delay,
Till to all men thou art, O Dove,
The messenger of Jesus' love,
Teaching his universal sway!—
That no more murder, rapine, woe,
May land and ocean overflow,
But love yoke men to one another
And bid them see a friend and brother
Where once an alien and a foe!

THE CLOSE OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

THE Great Exhibition has closed without "plague, pestilence, or famine," without "battle or murder," without "sedition, privy conspiracy, or rebellion," all of them evils which were literally and confidently prognosticated by some prophets of woe, as the result of this gathering of the nations. The foreign Papists have not set fire to London, and massacred the Protestants. The red Republicans have not formed plots for the overthrow of the monarchy. The English and French. have not rushed into furious combats with each other in the streets of the metropolis. The people of this country have The people of this country have not suddenly fallen into infidelity and Sabbath desecration. The maiden population of England has not been thinned to any alarming extent by the mustachioed foreigners running away with them. In short, none of the horrors which these nervous worthies apprehended have come to pass. It is one of the results of that policy of brute force, which has hitherto so disastrously prevailed among mankind, that men can hardly conceive it possible, how large masses of human beings can come together, without straightway falling to quarrel and cut each other's throats. Gentlemen of the military profession especially, cleave with wonderful tenacity to this superstition. Whenever multitudes congregate for whatever purpose, they seem to think there can be no safety unless they are present to drill them into obedience, and overawe them into order by musket and bayonet. A curious instance of this was afforded in connection with the great festival of industry just closed. Our readers generally may not be aware, that just before the Exhibition, regiments of soldiers were brought up and quartered all round London, in order to keep the peace. And the only instance so far as we have heard, that any attempt was made to disturb the peace, was on the part of an officer of one of these very regiments, who assaulted a policeman in the execution of his duty, and was very properly committed to prison for seven days, to cool his military ardour. Happily the public generally were not aware of this insulting measure; and the red-coated gentlemen, who were thus summoned to keep ward over London, were pretty carefully kept out of sight. We say happily, for it is our firm conviction that their appearance and intervention, would have done more than anything else, to excite danger and disturbance. Indeed one of the happiest lessons which the great Exhibition has taught England and the world, is how far better mankind can get on, without soldiers than with them. From the opening to the close of the Crystal Palace everything military has been at a discount, and this great event of 1851, will we doubt not be long remembered as "a heavy blow and a great discouragement" to the war system. And most happy are we to find that when the awards of merit came to be distributed among the Exhi

bitors, not one prize was given for instruments of war, though ledged excellence. The explanation of so remarkable an omissome of them were, we understand, of conspicuous and acknowsion is thus suggested in the Times :

:

"As neither the beautiful French gunnery, nor the Prussian, not the COLT revolvers, nor any other arms are rewarded with the council medal, we can only suppose that the moral principle of peace entered into the question, and that the jurors felt it the object of the Exhibition to save life rather than destroy it. Why Mr. COLT's revolvers are not even mentioned in the award, we cannot understand."

Some of our readers will doubtless remember that before the opening of the Exhibition, the Committee of the Peace Society addressed a Memorial to the Royal Commission, which

closed as follows:

"Your Memorialists therefore venture respectfully to express their hope that the Honourable Commissioners will feel it right to exclude all warlike weapons from the Exhibition, and especially to abstain from bestowing such prizes, as may apply a stimulus to the production of works adapted only to enable and incite the nations of the world, to inflict upon each other, mutual injury and destruction."

We were given to understand, on the presentation of this memorial, that however strongly some members of the Commission sympathised with us, it was impracticable to exclude instruments of war as a part of the productions of industry. But it would seem that the last part of our prayer has been absolutely granted; and we trust it is only the first indication of an improved tone of public feeling in regard to such deadly inventions.

Very noble were the concluding words of Prince Albert, in the address he delivered on the day of the closing ceremony.

"In now taking leave of all those who have so materially aided us in their respective characters of jurors and associates, foreign and local commissioners, members and secretaries of local and sectional committees, members of the Society of Arts, and exhibitors, I cannot refrain from remarking, with heartfelt pleasure, the singular harmony which has prevailed amongst the eminent men representing so many national interests-a harmony which cannot end with the event which produced it. Let us receive it as an auspicious omen for the future; and while we return our humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God for the blessing He has vouchsafed to our labours, let us all earnestly pray that that Divine Providence which has so benignantly watched over and shielded this illustration of nature's productions, conceived by human intellect and fashioned by human skill, may still protect us, and may grant that this interchange of knowledge, resulting from the meeting of enlightened people in friendly rivalry, may be dispersed far and wide over distant lands; and thus, by showing our mutual dependence upon each other, be a happy means of promoting unity among nations, and peace and goodwill among the various races of mankind."