selves, and become well acquainted with its import and bearing on the good of mankind. We wish you not to sanction the pageantry of War-teach your children to love peace and to abhor the war system;-spread these views around you in society, and pray constantly to God for the entire abolition of war."

The reader may see, that the same sentiments which are proclaimed by the friends of peace in this country, are re-echoed back from Great Britain; and not only so, but their peace society is much more active and efficient than our own, though founded at the same time. They have almost fifty auxiliaries-they have more funds-they stereotype their tracts-they translate them into foreign languages and disperse them all over the world. They go further also than we in another particular. They condemn all war, in every form, whereas we have left the subject of defensive war untouched-convinced that when offensive war is abolished, defensive wars will cease of course.

If this able writer calls on "humble and obscure individuals," to interest themselves

in this important concern, in a country where they have no vote, how much more important is it, to call on such, in a country where the vote of an humble and obscure individual counts as much as a nabob's!

The best method, to teach our children to love peace and abhor the war system-to spread these views around society is, for all, whose minds are enlightened, to become members of peace societies to purchase and read their tracts to put them into the hands of their children, and distribute them abroad. How those who are friendly to our cause, and yet fold their arms and do nothing to assist us, can reconcile their conduct to their consciences, I am at a loss to conceive.

NO. 26.

THE SENTIMENTS OF VOLTAIRE ON WAR.

The Frenchman, whose name stands at the head of this paper, was a man of rare talents and great intellectual acquriements. But with the heart man believeth unto right

eousness, and, had his heart been right before God, he would not have incurred the execration of all good men; nor would his deathbed have been haunted with those agonizing reflections, which accompanied the flight of his reluctant spirit, from its frail tene

ment.

Voltaire was no worse, by nature, than others; and if any think themselves better, let them thank God who hath made them to differ. He was born amid the mummery of the papal superstition, and had strength of mind enough to despise it-and, as men are prone to go from one extreme to the other, he became an infidel. Had he been born in this country, he might have graced a pulpit. While we shun his scepticism, let us profit by his acute observations. The reproaches of an enemy are wholesome applications, though mixed with gall-and they make us smart, only where the skin is off. He ob

serves

"Famine, the plague, and war, are the three most famous ingredients in this lower world. Under famine may be classed all the noxious foods, which want obliges us to have

recourse to, thus shortening our life, while we hope to support it. In the plague are included all contagious distempers, and these are not less than two or three thousand. These two gifts we hold from Providence: but War, in which all those gifts are concentrated, we owe to the fancy of two or three hundred persons, scattered over the surface of the globe, under the name of princes and ministers. The most hardened flatterer will allow, that war is ever attended with plague and famine, especially, if he has seen the military hospitals of Germany, or passed through some villages, where some notable feat of arms has been performed."

Our author then mentions some of the ancient wars, most of which were without even a pretext; and proceeds to modern wars, and exposes the frivolous causes of most of them, in which a sovereign arms his whole kingdom against another, and then he continues:

"He instantly picks up a multitude of men, who have nothing to do, nor nothing to lose; clothes them with coarse blue cloth, puts on them hats bound with coarse white.

worsted; makes them turn to the right and left, and thus marches them away to glory! Other princes, on this armament, take part in it, to the best of their ability, and soon cover a small extent of country, with more hireling murderers, than Gengis-Kan, Tamerlane, and Bajazet had at their heels. People, at no small distance, on hearing that fighting is going forward, and that if they would make one, there are five or six sous a day for them, immediately divide into two. bands, like reapers, and go and sell their services, to the first bidder. These multitudes furiously butcher one another, not only without having any concern in the quarrel, but without so much as knowing what it is about.

"An odd circumstance, in this infernal enterprise, is, that every chief of those ruffians has his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God, before he goes to destroy his neighbour. If the slain in battle do not exceed two or three thousand, the fortunate commander does not think it worth thanking God for, but if, beside killing ten or twelve thousand men, he has been so far