of each profits all; the inhabitant of the north drinks the fragrant herb of China; the peasant's child wears the webs of Hindostan.

The lame, the blind, and the aged repose in hospitals; the rich, softened by prosperity, pity the poor; the poor, disciplined into order, respect the rich.

Justice is dispensed to all. Law sits steady on her throne, and the sword is her servant.

WAR.

They have rushed through like a hurricane; like an army of locusts they have devoured the earth; the war has fallen like a water-spout, and deluged the land with blood.

The smoke rises not through the trees, for the honors of the grove are fallen, and the hearth of the cottager is cold; but it rises from villages burned with fire, and from warm ruins spread over the now naked plain.

The ear is filled with the confused bellowing of oxen, and sad bleating of overdriven sheep; they are swept from their peaceful plains; with shouting and goading are they driven away: the peasant folds his arms, and resigns his faithful fellow-laborers.

The farmer weeps over his barns consumed by fire, and his demolished roof, and anticipates the driving of the winter snows.

On that rising ground, where the green turf looks black with fire, yesterday stood a noble mansion; the owner had said in his heart: "Here will I spend the evening of my days, and enjoy the fruit of my years of toil; my name shall descend with mine inheritance, and my children's children shall sport under the trees which I have planted." The fruit of his years of toil is swept away in

a moment; wasted, not enjoyed; and the evening of his days is left desolate.

The temples are profaned; the soldier's curse resounds. in the house of God; the marble pavement is trampled by iron hoofs; horses neigh beside the altar.

Law and order are forgotten; violence and rapine are abroad; the golden cords of society are loosed.

Here are the shriek of woe and the cry of anguish; and there is suppressed indignation bursting the heart with silent despair.

The groans of the wounded are in the hospitals, and by the roadside, and in every thicket; and the housewife's web, whiter than snow, is scarcely sufficient to stanch the blood of her husband and children. Look at that youth, the first-born of her strength; yesterday he bounded as the roebuck; was glowing as the summer fruits; active in sports, strong to labor: he has passed in one moment from youth to age; his comeliness has departed; helplessness is his portion for the days of future years. He is more decrepit than his grandsire, on whose head are the snows of eighty winters; but those were the snows of nature; this is the desolation of man.

Everything unholy and unclean comes abroad from its lurking-place, and deeds of darkness are done beneath the eye of day. The villagers no longer start at horrible sights; the soothing rites of burial are denied, and human bones are tossed by human hands.

No one careth for another; every one, hardened by misery, careth for himself alone.

Lo, these are what God has set before thee, child of reason! son of woman! Unto which does thine heart incline ?

VIII. THE MISERIES OF WAR.

HALL.

ROBERT HALL was born in Arnsby, Leicestershire, England, May 2, 1764, and died in Bristol, February 21, 1831. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, became a clergyman of the Baptist persuasion, and was settled first at Bristol, next at Cambridge, then at Leicester, and lastly at Bristol again. He was a very eloquent and popular preacher, and hardly less remarkable for conversational power. He was of robust figure, but of feeble health, with a countenance expressive of self-reliance and intellectual strength. His works, edited, with a memoir, by Olinthus Gregory, and with an estimate of his character as a preacher, by John Foster, have been published in England and America. They consist of sermons, occasional productions, and contributions to periodical literature. Their style is rich, animated, and pure.

THO

HOUGH the whole race of man is doomed to dissolution, and we are all hastening to our long home, yet at each successive moment life and death seem to divide between them the dominion of mankind, and life to have the larger share. It is otherwise in war; death reigns there without a rival, and without control. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph, of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here they are the vigorous and the strong.

It is remarked by the most ancient of poets,* that in peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely, indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children. with the bitterness of despair; the aged parent, the widowed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children,

* Homer.

everything but the capacity of suffering: her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.

But to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger, or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment; every other emotion gives way to pity and terror.

In these last extremities we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene, then, must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth, amidst the trampling of horses and the insults of an enraged foe!

If they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in illprepared receptacles for the wounded and the sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife or mother or sister is near to soothe their sorrows, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death! Unhappy

man! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust?

We must remember, however, that as a very small proportion of a military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be ascribed to this source. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword; confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms, their life is a continual scene of hardships and dangers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold, and watchfulness. Crowded into hospitals and prisons, contagion spreads amongst their ranks till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy.

We have hitherto only adverted to the sufferings of those who are engaged in the profession of arms, without taking into our account the situation of the countries which are the scenes of hostilities. How dreadful to hold everything at the mercy of an enemy, and to receive life itself as a boon dependent on the sword! How boundless the fears which such a situation must inspire, where the issues of life and death are determined by no known laws, principles, or customs, and no conjecture can be formed of our destiny, except as far as it is dimly deciphered in characters of blood, in the dictates of revenge, and the caprices of power!

Conceive but for a moment the consternation which the approach of an invading army would impress on the peaceful villages in our own neighborhood. When you have placed yourselves for an instant in that situation, you will learn to sympathize with those unhappy countries which have sustained the ravages of arms. But how is it possible to give you an idea of these horrors? Here you behold