UNTIL

NTIL within a couple years the Christian world has, for a quarter of a century, been indulging the hope that the progress of civilization, and especially the new and multiplied ties of commerce and navigation, had about rendered any great or general war impossible in Christendom-that international amity had at last been placed on such a basis of mutual and material interests as could not be shaken by the caprices or passions of kings. Europe has, however, just learned the fallacy of this hope by one of the most terrible conflicts recorded in the history of human barbarities. The improved instruments of war seem only to give it increased horrors, and the hope of the world for a permanent reign of peace is made again dependent upon the hope of a permanent reign of justice-the

moral sentiment, in other words, of mankind.

Mackay, in his "Salamandrine," depicts war in its successive scenes of the Morning Gathering, the Battle Slaughter,

the Night Campfire and Sentinel Guard, the Reveille, the Return, and the Home of the Soldier. We give these pictures, more effectively delineated by the artist than the bard.

We sat one evening within the plain white walls of a quiet building, a customary place of the silent worship of Friends. A few score of people-placid matrons, respectable elders, and earnest youth-were calmly meeting for a testimony against war. Some persons, whose character and services to mankind are such as to obtain our reverence, in turn addressed them. With speech impressive because of the great interests it involved, the more convincing through their grave sincerity, they demanded the recognition, in national policy, of the Christian spirit, the Christian law of mutual love. They laid bare the revolting horrors of multitudinous slaughter; they exhibited, from historical examples, the uselessness, the political inexpe

And the snow where pass'd those angry So virgin white before, [hosts, Was trodden black by prancing horse,

Or dyed with human gore.

And now 't is night,—and chill and bleak
The wind goes moaning forth;
Cold, bitter cold, the stars shine out

From the clear and frosty North;
And crisp and brittle to the tread

Is the weary waste of snow :

diency, of warlike operations; and calculated, in money and wasted labor, their ruinous cost. With sarcastic ridicule, they depreciated the delusive renown of military prowess, and protested against having society demoralized by a process which, to mold the mechanical servility of the soldier, crushes the virtue of the citizen. They unanimously adopted the report of the committee, and expressed a hopeful confidence that, in a future age, war shall be altogether abolished.

We have faith in the anticipation, that war shall some time or other cease. The Author of our race has pledged his universe to the fulfillment of that promise. The prayer for the speedy securing of final peace is echoed in the

Poor sad survivors of the fight!
How shall they pass this wintry night,
And brave the blasts that blow ?

From hour to hour the sentries pace Their round, with blue, cold, shrunken face, And pray that morn would come

Before its customary time;

Or ere their tongues grow stiff and dumb,
Or ere their very eyes congeal :
For the sharp winds pierce into their flesh,
Like javelins of steel.

The forest-trees, at break of morn,
Stood proudly every one;
The hoar-frost on their leafless boughs
Shone brightly in the sun.

hearts of all just men, as it is incessantly repeated from all places of the lamenting earth. The violence done by man to man affects us with a sorrow that craves immeasurable utterance; it would count the dropping blood with its own tears.

Comparing the splendid exhibition of martial state, "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war," with the modest agency of retiring be