THAT, then, was to be our work. Alas! what work have we set ourselves upon instead! How have we ravaged the garden instead of kept it-feeding our war horses with its flowers, and splintering its trees into spear-shafts! 'And at the East a flaming sword.' Is its flame quenchless? and are those gates that keep the way indeed passable no more? or is it not rather that we no more desire to enter? For what can we conceive of that first Eden, which we might not yet win back if we chose ! It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well, the flowers are always striving to grow wherever we suffer them; and the fairer, the closer. There may, indeed, have been a Fall of Flowers, as a Fall of Man; but, assuredly, creatures such as we are can now fancy nothing lovelier than roses and lilies, which would grow for us side by side, leaf overlapping leaf, till the earth was white and red with them-if we cared to have it so. And Paradise was full of pleasant shades and fruitful avenues. Well, what hinders us from covering as much of the world as we like with pleasant shade, and pure blossom, and goodly fruit? Who forbids its valleys to be covered over with corn till they laugh and sing? Who prevents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabitable, from being changed into infinite orchards, wreathing the hills with frail floretted snow, far away to the half-lighted horizon of April, and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with glow of clustered food? But Paradise was a place of peace, we say, and all the animals were gentle servants to us. Well, the earth would yet be a place of peace, if we were all peacemakers; and gentle service should we have of its creatures if we gave them gentle mastery. But so long as we make sport of slaying bird and beast-so long as we choose to contend rather with our fellows than our faults, and make battle-field of our meadows instead of pasture-so long, truly, the flaming sword will still turn every way, and the gates of Eden remain barred close enough, till we have sheathed the sharper flame of our own passions, and broken down the closer gates of our own hearts." Such is Mr. Ruskin's glowing tribute alike to the beauty and possibilities of Peace. How much more honourable is such a passage to Mr. Ruskin's genius and to his heart than the passionate eulogium upon the Russian war on which we felt it our duty to animadvert in a recent number of the Bond. Mr. Ruskin may indeed become a mighty peacemaker through the matchless power of his pen, and we rejoice to find him now taking up the glad song of the Gospel, and shouting, "Peace on earth-good will towards man!" instead of trumpeting forth the praises of the warrior, and making melody over the crimson crimes of the battle-field of the Crimea. E. F. The Dying Catholic. A SECESSION Soldier-a member of the 10th (Irish) Tennessee Regiment, I believe--was lying just inside of the fortifications. His glazing eyes gave assurance that life was embraced in minutes. He held a rosary and crucifix in his hand, and his moving lips were doubtless offering a prayer. He had evidently endeavoured to kneel but was too weak. One of our soldiers saw and hurried to him, to assist him in his attitude of prayer; and, while engaged in this kind office, a shot from the rebel cannon struck and killed them both. *From "Modern Painters," vol. 5, by John Ruskin. "Great is Truth, and it will prevail." "The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."-Mat. xiii., 31, 32. TRUTH may be despised-may be opposed; but it contains an imperishable germ of greatness and of empire. The acorn falls upon the ground, vegetates in the soil, and presently a seedling plant appears, liable to destruction from every blast; but notwithstanding frosts and storms, its roots infix themselves more deeply in the earth, its branches extend, its head towards the sky, every revolving year adds to its magnificence, till, venerable in the growth of centuries, it stand the father of the forest. So religious truth may be accounted contemptible--may be slow in its progress-may be often threatened with annihilation from the sophistries of error, and rage of persecutors; but, nurtured by an unseen and almighty influence, its grasp of the human intellect extends-its attributes of grandeur and beauty are unfolded-its head rises in triumph over all its rivals-and, ultimately, it appears enthroned the universally confessed monarch of the globe.-Speech of Rev. W. Urwick at the Easky Bible Discussion. The Rebel Sharpshooters. GREAT numbers lay in heaps, just as the fire of the artillery mowed them down, mangling their forms into an almost undistinguishable mass. Many of our men had evidently fallen victims to the rebel sharpshooters, for they were pierced through the head by rifle bullets, some in the forehead, some in the eyes, others on the bridge of the nose, in the cheeks, and in the mouth. This circumstance verified a statement made to me by a rebel officer among the prisoners, that their men were trained to shoot low and aim for the face, while ours, as a general thing, fired at random, and shot over their heads. The enemy, in their retreat, carried off their wounded, and a great many of their dead, so that ours far outnumbered them on the field. The scene of action had been mostly in the woods, although there were two open places of an acre or two where the fight had raged furiously, and the ground was covered with dead. All the way up to their retrenchments the same scene of death was presented. There were two miles of dead, strewn thickly, mingled with fire-arms, artillery, dead horses, and the paraphernalia of the battle-field. It was a scene never to be forgotten--never to be described. The Pomps and Glory of War. POOR fellows lay upon the ground with their eyes and nose carried away, their brains oozing from their crania, their mouths shot into horrible disfiguration, making a hideous spectacle that must haunt those who saw it for many future days, and rise in horror through many distempered dreams. I saw an old, grey-haired man mortally wounded, endeavouring to stop with a strip of his coat, the life-tide flowing from the bosom of his son, a youth of twenty years. The boy told his father that it was useless; that he could not live; and, while the devoted parent was still striving feebly to save him who was perhaps his first-born, a shudder passed through the frame of the wouldbe preserver, his head fell upon the bosom of the youth, and his grey_hairs were bathed in death with the expiring blood of his misguided son. I saw the twain, half an hour after, and youth and age were locked lifeless in one another's arms. 78, CANNON STREET WEST, AND QUEEN STREET, LONDON. Capital, £250,000. CHAIRMAN-Ebenezer Clarke, Esq., Walthamstow. The Quarterly Life and Fire Receipts are now ready for delivery at the Head Office, and by the Agents throughout the United Kingdom.-Policies issued for large or small premiums, and premiums payable half-yearly or quarterly, if preferred.-A rapidly increasing business, 2,217 Life Policies having been issued during the past year.-Seventy per cent. of the profits given to the Assured.Policies made payable during the lifetime of the Assured, without extra premiums.-Quarterly payments for a sum payable at death, or if living, at a given age: £50. 4s. gd. 5s. 3d. Age 21 25 30 6s. 9d. £100. 9s. 6d. 10s. 6d. lls. 11d. £500. £2 7s. 6d. £2 19s. 7d. Claims paid to the Policy-holder within fourteen days after proof of death.-Stamps and Medical Fees paid by the office.-Loans granted on real and personal security.-Fire Insurance at the usual rates. Prospectuses and Proposal Forms forwarded on application to Agents wanted in districts not already represented. EBENEZER CLARKE, Jun., Sec. ONDON HOMOEOPATHIC INSTITUTION. (Originally founded 1837, 1837, by William Leap, Esq.) WEST-END BRANCH, 335, STRAND, W.C. The First Homœopathic Institution in Great Britain. Physician-Dr. DIXON, L.S.A., &c., Author of the "Thirty-two Papers on Homœopathy," "Investigations into the Laws of Health and Disease," &c. (Assistant Medical Officer to the London Homœopathic Hospital.) Attendance daily, Sundays excepted, from One till Two. Fee, 2s. per week, including Medicine. N.B.-Patients may have a week's Medicine forwarded by post on receipt of 2s. 2d. in postage stamps. A blank form to fill up, describing case, will be sent on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope and two stamps. Address-Homoeopathic Institution, 335, Strand, W.C. Homœopathie Globule Cases of Medicine, 1s. each (any sort), post free, from Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.C. STRAND PRINTING OFFICE, 335, STRAND, (Opposite Somerset House.) Letter-press, Copper-plate, and Lithographic Printing. Estimates for Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals, Sermons, Circulars, Show-cards, Invoices, Gummed and Fancy Labels, Hand-bills, Chancery Bills, Auctioneers' Catalogues, Posters, Address and Visiting Cards, &c., sent per return of post. TURKISH BATHS, 335, STRAND, (opposite Somerset House.)—These Baths are constructed on an improved principle, so as to restore health and prevent disease. Prices: From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 2s.; from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m, 1s. For Ladies, Tuesday and Friday, after One o'clock. An experienced Female in attendance. Ready on the 26th of the month, HE WORKING MAN: a Political and Social Advocate of the Rights of pence Monthly. Contains Articles on the above questions from the best Writers of the day. Order early from all Booksellers and Newsvendors. London: Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.C. THE WORKING MAN'S CO-OPERATIVE AND LABOUR TRACTS. Co-operative Societies can be supplied with these Tracts, and have their name, address, &c., printed at the back, without extra charge. Apply to the Editor of the "Working Man." Tract No. 1, "Annals of Labour." To be followed by No. 2, "UNION IS STRENGTH," and others. Price 6d. per 100, or 4s. per 1000. London: Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.c. THE HERALD OF PEACE. (New Series, Demy 4to.) A monthly Periodical, being the official organ of the Peace Society; containing Original Essays, Foreign Intelligence, Reviews, Reports of Meetings, &c., connected with the Peace Movement at Home and Abroad. Price 2d.; stamped for post, 3d. Sold at the Office and Depository, 19, New Broad-street, London. IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PURCHASERS OF BOOKS. ANY Book sent post free on receipt of the published price in stamps, or Post-office Order on the Strand Office, by THE JOB CAUDWELL, 335, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. CHEAP EDITION. THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS: Its Strength and its Weakness. By EDMUND FRY. Price Sixpence, post free. London: Job Caudwell, 335, Strand, W.C. Printed at the Strand Printing Office, 335, Strand, W.C. SED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS; FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE CHIL BOND OF CONDUCTED BY New Series, No. 146.] SEPTEMBER, 1862. [Price One Penny. After the Battle before Richmond Thankfulness. Only Once "Righteousness Exalteth a Nation" The Higher Law. UNEXAMPLED are the penalties which America is now paying for the needless and cruel war into which she plunged with such reckless folly and infatuation, Never, in so short a time, have the evils and wickedness of war been more conspicuously displayed. It is difficult to say which feeling predominatessadness or surprise-as we watch the headlong pace at which this great and noble nation pursues its mad career along this high road to ruin. If the Peace Society needed a single additional illustration to prove, or to confirm, all that it alleges against the principles and practice of war, it has only to point to the inexorable logic of facts now transpiring on the other side of the Atlantic. And what do these facts teach? They speak trumpet-tongued to the world; and proclaim how great and how lamentable is the delusion under which a nation acts when it deliberately adopts, as the basis of its policy, a principle of expediency, and rejects the guidance and government of that higher law which Christianity embodies and enjoins. It is but fair to say that America, in this respect, has followed the example of all other professedly Christian States. England's offspring-she adopts only too eagerly the maxims of the mother country, and copies her traditional policy of arms with a fidelity as fatal as it is foolish. The same practical infidelity which led England to Walcheren, Waterloo, and Bunker's Hill, has impelled America to precipitate herself upon the treacherous hazards of Bull's Run, Pittsburgh, and Richmond. The plea set up in both countries in defence of war, is, that under certain circumstances they needs must fight. "The honour of the country demands it;" "The interests of the nation require it;" ;" "The aggressions of our enemies, or the outrage of rebellion, drive us to it ;" The conduct of other States leave us no alternative." These are the excuses with which professedly Christian people attempt to justify their deeds of carnage and revenge. When a voice of remonstrance is raised, when the higher law is appealed to, when men are asked whether God has not forbidden London: JOB CAUDWELL, 335, Strand. war-whether the Decalogue does not declare, "Thou shalt do no murder," and the Gospels require that Christians shall "render evil for evil to no man,' the question is flouted as impertinent and inapplicable, or an assumption is set up that Christ's precepts are to regulate the conduct of men individually but not as a nation. Thus men deny the authority, and insult the dignity of that higher law, which they call their national religion, and bring upon themselves all the dismal calamities of war; not because those calamities were unavoidable, but because the risk of incurring them was preferred to the risk of obeying God's Law. 66 It is worth while to examine with some care whether nations have come to a wise decision in preferring to base their policy of self-protection upon a system of armed defence, rather than upon strict obedience to the higher law which their religion lays down. The only plea in favour of a policy of war, which has even the appearance of plausibility to recommend it, is, that obedience to the higher law, viz., refusal to fight, would expose a nation to the most imminent hazard of loss, injury, and dishonour; and that true patriotism demands that the terrible evils of war must be incurred to preserve the country from dangers, imagined to be greater than even war itself. Of course the question of duty to God ought to settle the whole matter. God's law is supreme, immutable, eternal. It can no more be annulled or suspended at the bidding of men's fear or caprice, than can the law of storms at the fear or caprice of the mariner. There stands the law. "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." Very hard to understand that law! still harder to try it! Nevertheless it is the higher law, high above every emergency which the weakness or passion of man can suggest-equal to every difficulty with which he may be beset. He cannot, by breaking that law, avoid danger. He has to choose between two dangers-the danger of breaking God's law, and rushing into war, and the danger of obeying that law, and acting the part of a true Christian. A clergyman, attempting once to argue this question with a member of the Peace Society, observed, Well, but selfpreservation is the tirst law of nature." "Yes," was the reply, "but not the first law of Grace." That is just it. Which is to be the higher law, the law of self or the law of the Gospel? Men secure for their own laws, by every possible provision, an inviolable authority. No human government permits its subjects to exercise their individual judgment; how far they will obey its laws; at what point of supposed inconvenience or loss their obedience shall cease. Are we to imagine that God is less jealous of the honour of his law than men are of the honour of their own? Americans pride themselves especially upon the estimate they attach to the authority of law. The plea they set up in the Northern States, on behalf of the war, is that it has been undertaken solely to maintain law and order. One of their public men has gone so far as to advocate a war of extermination against the South unless the latter will return to its allegiance to the laws of the United States. Now it is really wonderful that men who are ready to go such lengths in order to vindicate the authority of human laws, and to punish those who refuse to obey, should so easily overlook the fact that God may be determined to vindicate the authority of his statutes, and that rebellion against him may deserve and incur far sorer punishments than rebellion against the authority of Congress. In the frightful calamities that already afflict the whole American people, and in the dark foreboding of troubles and burdens yet in store, may be learnt the great lesson which nations are so slow to receive, that no policy, however flattering to their pride, or gratifying to their passion of hatred and revenge, can be otherwise than ruinous to their best interests, which is in flagrant contradiction to the spirit of the Gospel, and subversive of all its precepts. There will come a time, of course, when the Americans must cease to fight. Negotiation must, sooner or later, be appealed to, to do that which the sword has |