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THE NEW YORK BRARY

NOX AND

FOUNDATIONS

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Che Preservation of Peace.

GREATER than the divinity that doth hedge a king, is the divinity that encompasses the righteous man, and the righteous people. The flowers of prosperity smiled in the blessed footprints of William Penn. His people were unmolested and happy, while, (sad but true contrast!) those of other colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, building forts, and showing themselves in arms, not after receiving provocation, but merely in the anticipation, or from the fear of insults or danger,—were harrassed by perpetual alarms, and pierced by the sharp arrows of savage war. This pattern of a Christian Commonwealth never fails to arrest the admiration of all who contemplate its beauties. It drew an epigram of eulogy from the caustic pen of Voltaire, and has been fondly painted by many virtuous historians. Every ingenuous soul, in our day, offers his willing tribute to those celestial graces of justice and humanity, by the side of which the flinty hardness of the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, seems earthly and coarse. But let us not confine ourselves to barren words, in recognition of virtue. While we see the right and approve it, too, let us dare to pursue it. Let us now, in this age of civilization, surrounded by Christian. nations, be willing to follow the succesful example of William Penn, surrounded by savages. Let us, while we recognise those transcendant ordinances of God, the law of Right and the law of Love,—the double suns which illuminate the moral universe, aspire to the true glory, and, what is higher than glory, the great good of taking the lead in the disarming of the nations. Let us abandon the system of preparation for war, in time of peace, as irrational, unchristian, vainly prodigal of expense, and having a direct tendency to excite the very evil against which it professes to guard. Let the enormous means thus released from iron hands, be devoted to labours beneficent.

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