poning for a whole generation those reforms which, late in the eighteenth century, the progress of affairs rendered indispensable.

What distinguishes this sanguinary contest from all preceding ones, and what gives to it its worst feature, is, that it was eminently a war of opinions, a war which we carried on, not with a view to territorial acquisitions, but with the object of repressing that desire for reforms of every kind, which had now become the marked characteristic of the leading countries of Europe. As soon, therefore, as hostilities began, the English government had a twofold duty to perform; it had to destroy a republic abroad, and it had to prevent improvement at home. The first of these duties it fulfilled by squandering the blood and the treasure of England, till it had thrown nearly every family into mourning, and reduced the country to the verge of national bankruptcy. The other duty it attempted to execute by enacting a series of laws intended to put an end to the free discussion of political questions, and stifle that spirit of inquiry which was every year becoming more active. These laws were so comprehensive, and so well calculated to effect their purpose, that if the energy of the nation had not prevented their being properly enforced, they would either have destroyed every vestige of popular liberty, or else would have provoked a general rebellion. Indeed, during several years the danger was so imminent, that in the opinion of some high authorities, nothing could have averted it, but the bold spirit with which our English juries, by their hostile verdicts, resisted the proceedings of government, and refused to sanction laws which the crown had proposed, and to which a timid and servile legislature had willingly consented.-Buckle's Hist. of Civilization.

THE SOLDIER REPEATING THE LORD'S PRAYER.

Let us imagine we hear a soldier among fighting Christians saying the Lord's Prayer just before battle. OUR FATHER! says the hardened wretch! O can you call God Father, when you are just going to cut your brother's throat? Hallowed be thy name. How can the name of God be more impious. ly un-hallowed than by mutual bloody murder among his sons?—Thy kingdom come. Do you pray for the coming of his kingdom, while you are endeavoring to establish an earthly despotism by spilling the blood of God's sons and subjects ?-Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven. His will in heaven is for PEACE; but you are now meditating WAR.-Give us this day our daily bread. How dare you say this to your Father in heaven at the moment you are going to burn your brother's corn-fields, and would rather lose the benefit of them yourself than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested?-Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. With what face can you pray thus when, so far from forgiving your brother. you are going, with all the haste you can, to murder him in cold blood for an alleged trespass which, after all, is but imaginary ?-Lead us not into temptation. And do you presume to deprecate temptation or danger-you who are not only rushing into it yourself, but doing all you can to force your brother into it?-Deliver us from evil. You pray to be delivered from evil, that is, from the evil being, Satan, to whose impulses you are now submitting yourself, and by whose spirit you are guided in contriving the greatest possible evil to your brother?

THE COST OF WAR.

If the cost of war be compared with the advantages which nations gain in exchange, we fear that the balance will be a very formidable one on the wrong side of the account. As far as our own country (England) is concerned, the annual expenditure has become a very serious item. The great problem to be solved is, how can it be reduced consistently with our national safety? If we are to take any active part in the war now commenced in Europe (July, 1859), it is perfectly certain that no reduction will be made; and even should we maintain an armed neutrality there is almost an equal certainty that the financial demands for the ensuing year will be considerably increased.

At the close of the French war in 1816, the total cost of the Army, Ordinance and Navy amounted to £26,593,128. The number of men voted in that year for the Army, Ordnance and Navy, and the expenditure, were as follows:

Expenditure.

.£13,047,583

2,661,711

10,883,834

26,283,128.

Total.......180,253

At the end of the subsequent five years, namely in 1821, the total number of men voted was 122,960, and the total expenditure was £16,468,696, or in the ratio of £133 per head. From this period there was a decrease in the total expenditure, which remained almost stationary until the commencement of the Crimean war in 1854, which more than doubled the amount in the three following years. In order to show more clearly the progress of military and naval expenditure since 1816, we shall divide the years into quinquennial periods, showing the number of men voted, the total expenditure, and the ratio of cost per man.

Here ends the last quinquennial period previously to the Crimean war. During a period of thirty-five years, ending 1851, the highest amount of expenditure for the army, ordnance and commissariat was £15,709,294 in 1816; and the lowest was £7,558,057 in 1835. For the navy the highest amount of expenditure was £10,883,834 in 1816, and the lowest amount was £4,148,146 in 1835, exclusive of the civil establishments.

During the next quinquennial period, the amounts have so far surpassed those of former years, that we shall give them for each year—

During the three years that the Crimean war lasted, this country spent on its army and navy, no less than £109,966,441, or an average sum of £36.655,480 per annum, exclusive of the cost of the civil departments. During the same period it added £29,000,000 to the funded debt of the country. This enormous expenditure must be changed, or we shall be changed as a nation; there must be a limit to the amonnt of pressure which war and its tendencies can be borne by the people.

At the rate of outlay we have given, the interest upon the Public Debt, added to our military and naval expenditure, are becoming frightful in amount, and, if continued at the same ratio, they must ultimately undermine the foundation of our commercial supremacy. We are not alarmists in calling the attention of the public to the progressive increase in the cost of war, and its necessary accompaniments; but we place before our readers facts which cannot be disputed. The two great obstacles to the advancement of civilization, even amongst the most enlightened nations of Europe, are War and Debt. They are, in short, the scourge of the human race wherever they exist. The great and paramount duty of England, therefore, is, to enter her protest against them both in her Parliament and amongst her people. We have only to cast our eyes upon the most powerful nations in Europe, and we find that war and debt have bound them in fetters of iron; and, whilst this state of things remains, the people that live under such Governments cannot be free.

Before we close this subject, we shall present a statement of the claims which war and debt have made upon this country during the last five years::

Thus the war and debt of this country during a period of hostilities absorbed the whole of the ordinary income of the State. The following statement gives the actual proportion which the military and naval expenditure, and public debt, bear to the total ordinary income of the country in each of the above years:

The above sums are so formidable in their proportions that we need not urge any other argument to show the necessity of avoiding the expenditure which war and debt bring in their train. It may be estimated almost to a certainty, that England could not engage in a war with any of the great Powers of Europe without expending in her military and naval departments from sixty to eighty millions a year, and probably adding to her public debt some twenty or thirty millions more. We do not infer from this that war can, in all cases, be avoided; but we say this, that to spend such vast amounts in the destruction of human life is one of the remnants of barbarism, which every stateman is bound, in justice to his country, and to the cause of freedom and civilization, to avert to the utmost of his power.

This expose, taken from a recent number of the London Monetary Times and Bankers' Circular, and showing how shrewd, cautious capitalis ts view the pecuniary bearings of the present war-system, presents some startling points for reflection :

1. Mark the cost of warriors and their accompaniments. In thirty years, from 1821 to 1852, it was $565 on an average each, and, in portions of this time, varying from $450 to $645 and $840. Surely these civilized, Christian fighters are very costly.

2. Note, likewise, the proportion of public expenses devoted to warpurposes. In three years, (1854-5,) including the Crimean War, they absorbed nearly the whole income, which amounted for five years, (1853-8,) to $337,000,000 a year. In three years the army and navy alone, cost an average of $183,000,000.

3. Observe, also, the steady increase of war expenses. In 1835, they were less than $60,000,000, while in 1854-6 they varied from $139,000,000 to 240,000,000. Instead of less than sixty millions in 1835, they have averaged, for the last five years, more than $150,000,000 a year. The tendency is clear, stsong, irresistible to a constant increase until the whole system shall be changed; nor can we foresee any limits except the ability of the people to pay. What a vast and fearful incubus!

INFLUENCE OF STANDING ARMIES.

Let our readers reflect on the supreme folly of these armies, whereby the flower of the youth and manhood of Christian nations in Europe, the strength and sinew of society, are being more and more withdrawn from all the occupations of productive industry, to be maintained in coerced idleness at the expense of the toiling remnant, in order that they may be trained skilfully in the art of mutual murder. And with what results as regards themselves and the relations they sustain to the people by the sweat of whose brow they are sustained? What is the position of the men devoted to this trade of blood? They are separated and kept apart from the rest of the community, subjected to an exceptional code of laws which deprives them of many of the rights of free citizenship, and are, in fact, reduced to a condition which, in all essential respects, differs nothing from slavery, except that it is not hereditary. They are taught to regard themselves as having interests distinct from the other elements of society. Military obedience is substituted, as the first principle of their life, in place of patriotism, and the esprit du corps triumphs over all the instincts and obligations of liberty.

Hence it is that these men have been in every age, and still are, and by the very necessities of their existence ever must be, the most formidable instruments of despotism, willingly lending their trained skill in the use of murderous weapons for the purpose of enthroning tyrants on the necks of the groaning millions of their fellow-men. Look over the face of Europe at this moment. What is it that props up all the worst forms of civil and political and spiritual oppression, which arrests the progress of nations, and dooms them to perpetual childhood, instead of accomplishing the destinies to which they are invoked by the voice of nature and providence? What but these teeming myriads of the armed myrmidoms of power, which the governments of the world seduce the people into sup

porting, on the pretence of defending them from the attacks of other nations, who would never dream of disturbing them but for the restless and wicked ambition of these very rulers themselves.

Let us remember, however, that little of the blame is due to the men who constitute the bulk of these enormous armaments. They are themselves the miserable victims of a power which they cannot resist or control. In all countries but our own, "the services are recruited by conscription, by which the state lays violent hands upon free citizens, and forces them into military servitude, from which there is no escape but at the peril of their lives. In this country, it is not much better, for threefourths of our recruits are either enlisted after the little reason they possess has been drowned in the ale-cup, or are seduced to accept the shilling under the influence of the grossest falsehood and fraud. And when once in the toils, the condition of the negro in the southern states of America is not one of more humiliating and helpless slavery than theirs, while their term of military service lasts. They must surrender their freedom of action, their will, their conscience, their affections, their sense of religion, (if they have any,) in short, every attribute which constitutes them men in contra-distinction from mere brute beasts, into the absolute control of another. The effect upon their own moral character is generally disastrous. Withdrawn from the blessed and purifying influences of domestic life, subjected to a discipline the very object of which is to render them reckless and hardened, shut out, during all the best years of their manhood, from "the precious possibilities" of existence which are open to other men, and inured to thoughts, in connection with their calling, which cannot fail to degrade and embrute their natures they are made to pass through a process of demoralization which it is appalling to contemplate, so that when they are at length liberated, many of them (though not without honorable exceptions, which are worthy of all the more esteem and admiration from the extremity of temptation through which they pass) are returned into the bosom of society, if not mutilated in body, utterly corrupted in mind, and admirably qualified to corrupt others.

We hold very cheap the affected indignation against "those who calumniate the character of our brave soldiers," by which it is sometimes attempted to turn the edge of such representations as the above. We say "affected" indignation; because those who pretend to display it know perfectly well that the picture we have drawn of the moral effects of a military life in the ranks, is strictly correct. From no lips has such emphatic testimony issued on this subject, as from those of naval and military officers. This is also amply confirmed by notorious facts, and by the powerful instinct of terror and disgust by which all decent and respectable, and especially religious families shrink from the idea of seeing one of their children enter the army, and mourn over him when he has entered, with a sense of sorrow and bitter degradation, as of one doomed to all but irretrievable ruin. Is not the appearance of a regiment of soldiers in any of our small towns regarded, by all who are concerned for the moral weal of the population, as the approach of a pestilence? Where is there vice so gross, where scenes of intemperance and profligacy so open, as in the neighborhoods of barracks, the purlieus of camps, or the ports frequented by our men-of-war? And surely this is a solemn question of itself, how far society is entitled to sustain a system which compells so many of its members to surrender all the chances which their own industry and virtue may open before them in other directions, and to pass through a discipline having such perilous tendency to demoralize and degrade their whole being, and consign them to an almost inevitable oral perdition.-Herald of Peace.