SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,
AND
OCCASIONAL SERMONS,

BY

THEODORE PARKER,

MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

BOSTON:
HORACE B. FULLER,
(Successor to Walker, Fuller, and Company,)
245, WASHINGTON STREET.
1867.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
THEODORE PARKER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

TO
FRANCIS JACKSON,
THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG,
THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE,
WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS
FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST
HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE;
IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED;
GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,—
WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,—
AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE
READY TO PERISH:
WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY,
HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES,
AND HIS TRUE RELIGION
THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND,
THEODORE PARKER.

PREFACE.

I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency: only two papers, that on "The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages," and that on "Immortal Life," were written without reference to some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the sermon "Of General Taylor," and the address on "The American Scholar;" some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern.

THEODORE PARKER.
August 24, 1851.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

I.
The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages.—A
Sermon preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston,
December 26, 1844 PAGE [1]
II.
The True Idea of a Christian Church.—A Discourse
at the Installation of Theodore Parker as Minister of the
Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, on Sunday,
January 4, 1846 [23]
III.
A Sermon of War.—Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
June 7, 1846 [63]
IV.
A Speech Delivered at the Anti-War Meeting in
Fanueil Hall, February 4, 1847 [113]
V.
A Sermon of the Mexican War.—Preached at the
Melodeon, on Sunday, June 25, 1848 [127]
VI.
A Sermon of the Perishing Classes in Boston.—Preached
at the Melodeon on Sunday, August 30, 1846 [185]
VII.
A Sermon of Merchants.—Preached at the Melodeon,
on Sunday, November 22, 1846 [227]
VIII.
A Sermon of the Dangerous Classes in Society.—Preached
at the Melodeon, on Sunday, January 31, 1847 [279]
IX.
A Sermon of Poverty.—Preached at the Melodeon, on
Sunday, January 14, 1849 [333]
X.
A Sermon of the Moral Condition of Boston.—Preached
at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 11, 1849 [364]
:

I.

THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.—A SERMON PREACHED AT THE THURSDAY LECTURE, IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 26, 1844.

JOHN VII. 48.

"Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on him?"

In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet; let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he comes, the real, great man that God has been preparing,—men are disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries anew fresh granite and marble.

There are two classes of great men. Now and then some arise whom all acknowledge to be great, soon as they appear. Such men have what is true in relation to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say, what many men wished but had not words for; they translate into thought what, as a dim sentiment, lay a burning in many a heart, but could not get entirely written out into consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody misunderstands them. The world follows at their chariot-wheels, and flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas,—for the world is loyal, and follows its king when it sees and knows him. The good part of the world follows the highest man it comprehends; the bad, whoever serves its turn.

But there is another class of men so great, that all cannot see their greatness. They are in advance of men's conjectures, higher than their dreams; too good to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there must be some mistake; this man is not so great as he seems; nay, he is no great man at all, but an impostor. These men have what is true not merely in relation to the wants and expectations of men here and to-day; but what is true in relation to the Universe, to Eternity, to God. They do not speak what you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but what we shall one day years hence, wish to say, after we have improved and grown up to man's estate.

Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class, when they come, can never meet the approbation of the censors and guides of public opinion. Such as wished for a new great man had a superstition of the last one in their minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, but he is altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste any thing. So there are never two great men very strongly similar. Nay, this new great man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old one built up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and defects of the former great man; calls in question his authority. He refuses all masters; bows not to tradition; and with seeming irreverence, laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the "respectable men," the men of a few good rules and those derived from their fathers "the best of men and the wisest,"—how will they regard this new great man? They will see nothing remarkable in him except that he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He disturbs their notions of order; he shows that the institutions of society are not perfect; that their imperfections are not of granite or marble, but only of words written on soft wax, which may be erased and others written thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institutions are less than one great man. The guides and censors of public opinion will not honor such a man, they will hate him. Why not? Some others not half so well bred, nor well furnished with precedents, welcome the new great man; welcome his ideas; welcome his person. They say, "Behold a Prophet."

When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife of Joseph the carpenter, in the little town of Nazareth, when he "began to be about thirty years old," and began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and the highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, as it seems. "Who are you?" said the guardians of public opinion. He found men expecting a great man. This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great man was to arise, and save the Church, and save the State. They looked back to Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life had passed into the world, and to whom men had done honor, in various ways; amongst others, by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that none could be so great again; none get so near to God. They looked back also to the prophets, a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less than the awful Moses; his stature was far above the nation, who hid themselves in his shadow. Now the well-instructed children of Abraham thought the next great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be healed by the medicine which helped them the last time; at least, by the customary drugs which are popular.

In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly marked. There were the Conservatives,—they represented the church, tradition, ecclesiastical or theocratical authority. They adhered to the words of the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders. "Nobody but a Jew can be saved," said they; "he only by circumcision, and the keeping of the old formal law; God likes that, He accepts nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their servants the Scribes. Of this class were the Priests and the Levites in the main, the National party, the Native-Hebrew party of that time. They had tradition, Moses and the prophets; they believed in tradition, Moses and the prophets, at least in public; what they believed in private God knew, and so did they. I know nothing of that.

Then there was the indifferent party; the Sadducees, the State. They had wealth, and they believed in it, both in public and private too. They had a more generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. They had intercourse with foreigners, and understood the writers of Ionia and Athens which the Pharisee held in abhorrence. These were sleek respectable men, who, in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you have a positive faith in God to take up your affections. The Sadducee believed neither in angel nor resurrection—not at all in the immortality of the soul. He believed in the state, in the laws, the constables, the prisons and the axe. In religious matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive belief, only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In religious matters the Sadducee had no positive belief at all; not even in an error: at least, some think so. His distinctive affirmation was but a denial. He believed what he saw with his eyes, touched with his fingers, tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life; he had no belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, "My right arm is my God!"

There was likewise a party of Come-outers. They despaired of the State and the Church too, and turned off into the wilderness, "where the wild asses quench their thirst," building up their organizations free, as they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says nothing directly of these men in its canonical books. It is a curious omission; but two Jews, each acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an account of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile to marriage, at least, many of them, who lived in a sort of association by themselves, and had all things in common.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living and ruling ideas; none I mean which represented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his aspirations and power of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps, you will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have no such ideas, but they had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas. They seemed to have no faith in man, in his divine nature, his power of improvement. The Essenes had ideas; had a positive belief; had faith in man, but it was weakened in a great measure by their machinery. They, like the Pharisee and the Sadducee, were imprisoned in their organization, and probably saw no good out of their own party lines.

It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties would accept, acknowledge, or even perceive the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His ideas were not their notions. He was not the man they were looking for; not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which they wanted. The Sadducee expected no new great man unless it was a Roman quæstor, or procurator; the Pharisees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel; the Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if Jesus were to come back to the earth, he would preach Unitarian sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and prove his divine mission and the everlasting truths, the truths of necessity that he taught, in the Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought eighteen hundred years ago; that he would prove the immortality of the soul by the fact of his own corporeal resurrection. Others seem to think that he would deliver homilies of a severer character; would rate men roundly about total depravity, and tell of unconditional election, salvation without works, and imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women and children fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trembling. Perhaps both would be mistaken.

So it was then. All these three classes of men, imprisoned in their prejudices and superstitions, were hostile. The Pharisees said, "We know that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets; yea, he hath a devil, and is mad, why hear him?" The Sadducees complained that "he stirred up the people;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he was "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Tried by these three standards, the judgment was true; what could he do to please these three parties? Nothing! nothing that he would do. So they hated him; all hated him, and sought to destroy him. The cause is plain. He was so deep they could not see his profoundness; too high for their comprehension; too far before them for their sympathy. He was not the great man of the day. He found all organizations against him; Church and State. Even John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet, doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus had spoken for the Pharisees, they would have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had he favored the Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have satisfied the carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he praised the Essenes, uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid him his price, have made him the head of their association perhaps, at least, have honored him in their way. He spoke for none of these. Why should they honor or even tolerate him? It were strange had they done so. Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus, that these men refused him? quite the reverse. The rain falls and the sun shines on the evil and the good; the work of infinite power, wisdom and goodness is before all men, revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said, ay, said in his heart, "There is no God!"

Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and therefore they rejected him. But as he spoke truths for man, truths from God, truths adapted to man's condition there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, their lips curling with scorn; when they gnashed on one another with their teeth, there were noble men and humble women, who had long awaited the consolation of Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, they left all to follow him. Him! no, it was not him they followed; it was God in him they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love.

There were men not counted in the organized sects; men weary of absurdities; thirsting for the truth; sick, they knew not why nor of what, yet none the less sick, and waiting for the angel who should heal them, though by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men had not the prejudices of a straightly organized and narrow sect. Perhaps they had not its knowledge, or its good manners. They were "unlearned and ignorant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus himself had no extraordinary culture, as the world judges of such things. His townsmen wondered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to read. He knew little of theologies, it would seem; the better for him, perhaps. No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He knew they were not religion. The men of Galilee did not need theology. The youngest scribe in the humblest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing were in those days, could have furnished theology enough to believe in a life-time. They did need religion; they did see it as Jesus unfolded its loveliness; they did welcome it when they saw; welcome it in their hearts.

If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to paint with words what shall stand out as real, to live before the eye, and then dwell in the affectionate memory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard the Sermon on the mount, which listened to the parables, the rebukes, the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and humble women; many of them foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But they all had hearts; had souls, all of them—hearts made to love, souls expectant of truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, "That is a new thing, that The true worshipper shall worship in spirit and in truth, as well here as in Jerusalem, now as well as any time; that also is a hard saying, Love your enemies; forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite and offend you; that notion that the law and the prophets are contained, all that is essentially religious thereof, in one precept, Love men as yourself, and God with all your might. This differs a good deal from the Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is a bold thing, presumptuous and revolutionary to say, I am greater than the temple, wiser than Solomon, a better symbol of God than both." But there was something deeper than Jewish orthodoxy in their hearts; something that Jewish orthodoxy could not satisfy, and what was yet more troublesome to ecclesiastical guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his reproof. They felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his pictures of sin and sinners too, were any thing but flattering. There was small comfort in them. Still it was not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on the place where their hearts should be, saying, "You hurt our feelings," and "we can't bear you!" Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He showed them their sin; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To them he came as a Saviour, and they said, "Thou art well-come," those penitent Magdalens weeping at his feet.

It would be curious could we know the mingled emotions that swayed the crowd which rolled up around Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the moon, wherever he went; curious to see how faces looked doubtful at first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth, Capernaum or Gischala, then how the countenance of some lowered and grew black with thunder suppressed but cherished, while the face of others shone as a branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of fitful storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It were curious to see how gradually many discordant feelings, passion, prejudice and pride were hushed before the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him, baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, into one brotherhood of a common soul, into one immortal service of the universal God; to see how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic, self-renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with clustering affections just purpling into ripeness,—how she seized, first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous bosom confidingly embraced it too; how that old man, gray-bearded, with baldness on his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating, distrustful, remembering much and fearing much, but hoping little, confiding only in the fixed, his reverence for the old deepening as he himself became of less use,—to see how he received the glad inspirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations, long ago forgot, and then the crimson tide of early hope come gushing, tingling on through every limb; to see how the young man halting between principle and passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, uncertain, half reluctant, with those two serpents, Custom and Desire, that beautifully twined about his arms and breast and neck, their wormy folds, concealing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's awful strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth caressing their snaky crests, and toying with their tongues of flame—to see how he slowly, reluctantly, amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words of truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes of sand, that hideous coil and trod the serpents underneath his feet. All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, could we but see.

They heard him with welcome various as their life. The old men said, "It is Moses or Elias; it is Jeremiah, one of the old prophets arisen from the dead, for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it was that said, "This is the Christ; the desire of the nations; the hope of the world, the great new prophet; the Son of David; the Son of Man; yes, the Son of God. He shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as it knows him. Poor lost sheep! the children of men look always for their guide, though so often they look in vain.

How he spoke, words deep and piercing; rebukes for the wicked, doubly rebuking, because felt to have come out from a great, deep, loving heart. His first word was, perhaps, "Repent," but with the assurance that the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. How his doctrines, those great truths of nature, commended themselves to the heart of each, of all simple-souled men looking for the truth! He spoke out of his experience; of course into theirs. He spoke great doctrines, truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged with beauty from the loveliness of his own life. Had he spoken for the Jews alone, his words had perished with that people; for that time barely, the echo of his name had died away in his native hamlet; for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essence, you and I had heard of him but as a Rabbi; nay, had never been blest by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, are of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But as he spoke for eternity, his truths ride on the wings of time; as he spoke for man, they are welcome, beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so must be till man and time shall cease.

He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustrations and examples. He looked forward for his direction. He looked around for his work. There it lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is always so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word to speak; as little for their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wisdom, strength, and as water in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the Hebrew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty stream of truth for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the promised land; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for the unclean.

But he met opposition; O, yes, enough of it. How could it be otherwise? It must be so. The very soul of peace, he brought a sword. His word was a consuming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, commended; to have their sect, their plans, their traditions praised and flattered. His word to them was, "Repent;" of them, to the people, "Such righteousness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven; they are a deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites; not sons of Abraham, but children of the devil." They could not bear him; no wonder at it. He was the aggressor; had carried the war into the very heart of their system. They turned out of their company a man whose blindness he healed, because he confessed that fact. They made a law that all who believed on him, should also be cast out. Well they might hate him, those old Pharisees. His existence was their reproach; his preaching their trial; his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, was their condemnation. The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cunning can see their own danger, but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of heart, that can see their real, permanent safety and defence; never the cunning, neither then, neither now.

Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines not his own, private, personal, depending on his idiosyncracies, and therefore only subjectively true,—but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute religion. I do not know that he did not teach some errors also, along with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I know him, the absolute religion he taught and lived; by his highest sentiments that he is to be appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God; hence his inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater endowment, moral and religious, which God gave him, great likewise in proportion to his perfect obedience. He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had faith in God that had none in man? I know not. Surely no inspired prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in the wide world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a noble life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul answered to the call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees could not understand by what authority he taught. Poor Pharisees! how could they? His phylacteries were no broader than those of another man; nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-bordered garment. Men did not salute him in the market-place, sandals in hand, with their "Rabbi! Rabbi!" Could such men understand by what authority he taught? no more than they dared answer his questions. They that knew him, felt he had authority quite other than that claimed by the Scribes; the authority of true words, the authority of a noble life; yes, the authority which God gives a great moral and religious man. God delegates authority to men just in proportion to their power of truth, and their power of goodness; to their being and their life. So God spoke in Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, developed, but never yet transcended.

This then was the relation of Jesus to his age: the sectarians cursed him; cursed him by their gods; rejected him, abused him, persecuted him; sought his life. Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All evil says the proverb, begins in that name; much continues to claim it. The religionists, the sects, the sectarian leaders rejected him, condemned and slew him at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul! they only stilled the body; that soul spoke with a thousand tongues. So in the times of old when the Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled that the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light, essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and so heaped Pelion upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pelion; but first the day sent up his crimson flush upon the cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair—and down the mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable day; meanwhile those triple hills, laboriously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with lumbering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants' grave. So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this people, that "knew not the Law," and were counted therefore accursed, they welcomed Jesus as they never welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee or the Scribe. Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt not so bright contrasted with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a James, and a John, men not free from faults no doubt, the record shows it, but with hearts in their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could light other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and Marys among that people who "knew not the law" and were cursed. They were the mothers of many a church.

The character of Jesus has not changed; his doctrines are still the same; but what a change in his relation to the age, nay to the ages. The stone that the builders rejected is indeed become the head of the corner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is the rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Christian world. It is no wonder. Good men worship the best thing they know, and call it God. What was taught to the mass of men, in those days, better than the character of Christ? Should they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah of the Jews? To me it seems the moral attainment of Jesus was above the hierarchical conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. Jesus was the prince of peace, the king of truth, praying for his enemies—"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" The Jehovah of the Old Testament, was awful and stern, a man of war, hating the wicked. The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens was lower yet. No wonder then, that men soon learned to honor Jesus as a God, and then as God himself. Apostolical and other legends tell of his divine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick, palsied and crippled, deaf and dumb and blind; created bread; turned water into wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, a power that raised the dead. They tell that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the day; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up their sainted dead, who trod once more the streets of Zion, the first fruits of them that slept; they tell too how disappointed Death gave back his prey, and spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed through the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before the face of men! Believe men of these things as they will. To me they are not truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry; the psalm of praise with which the world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King. It is for his truth and his life, his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he is honored in my heart; yes, in the world's heart. It is for this that in his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed; for this that the best things we know, we honor with his name.

He is the greatest person of the ages; the proudest achievement of the human race. He taught the absolute religion, love to God and man. That God has yet greater men in store I doubt not; to say this is not to detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest will be renewed, the living prophet stoned; the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there are duties he teaches us far different from those most commonly taught. He was the greatest fact in the whole history of man. Had he conformed to what was told him of men; had he counselled only with flesh and blood; he had been nothing but a poor Jew—the world had lost that rich endowment of religious genius, that richest treasure of religious life, the glad tidings of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had said, as others, "None can be greater than Moses, none so great?" He had been a dwarf; the spirit of God had faded from his soul! But he conferred with God, not men; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears. Working for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure as truth, he was not scared at the little din of church or state, and trembled not, though Pilate and Herod were made friends only to crucify him that was a born King of the world. Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to you or me, poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The goodness actual in me is possible for all. God is near thee now as then to me; rich as ever in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly He showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes to see, thy heart to live. Lo, God is here.:

II.

THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.—A DISCOURSE AT THE INSTALLATION OF THEODORE PARKER AS MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON, JANUARY 4, 1846.

For nearly a year we have assembled within these walls from week to week,—I think not idly; I know you have not come for any trivial end. You have recently made a formal organization of yourselves for religious action. To-day, at your request, I enter regularly on a ministry in the midst of you. What are we doing; what do we design to do? We are here to establish a Christian church; and a Christian church, as I understand it, is a body of men and women united together in a common desire of religious excellence and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion,—as the model, therefore, in this respect for us. Such a church may have many rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but few rites, as our Protestant brothers, or no rites at all, as our brothers, the Friends. It may be, nevertheless, a Christian church; for the essential of substance, which makes it a religious body, is the union for the purpose of cultivating love to God and man; and the essential of form, which makes it a Christian body, is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the highest representative of God that we know. It is not the form, either of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit which constitutes a Christian church. A staff may sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though the man have no staff for ornament or support. A Christian spirit may exist under rituals and doctrines the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not a Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, or the Pope, while Jesus taught no such doctrine; foolish to say one is no Christian because he denies the existence of a Devil, though Jesus believed it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a belief of all that is related by the numerous writers in the Bible, is as absurd as to make that depend on a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or St. Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not theoretically a Christian because he believes that Slavery is a Divine and Christian institution; that War is grateful to God—saying, with the Old Testament, that God himself "is a man of war," who teaches men to fight, and curses such as refuse;—or because he believes that all men are born totally depraved, and the greater part of them are to be damned everlastingly by "a jealous God," who is "angry with the wicked every day," and that the few are to be "saved" only because God unjustly punished an innocent man for their sake. I will not say a man is not a Christian though he believe all the melancholy things related of God in some parts of the Old Testament, yet I know few doctrines so hostile to real religion as these have proved themselves. In our day it has strangely come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at and called "Infidels" by the rest of Christendom, deny the name of Christian to such as publicly reject the miracles of the Bible. Time will doubtless correct this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what we may; each will work after its kind. Now if Christianity be the absolute religion, it must allow all beliefs that are true, and it may exist and be developed in connection with all forms consistent with the absolute religion, and the degree thereof represented by Jesus.

The action of a Christian church seems to be twofold: first on its own members, and then, through their means, on others out of its pale. Let a word be said of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you came here to-day; why you have often come to this house hitherto?—the serious amongst you would say: That we might become better; more manly; upright before God and downright before men; that we might be Christians, men good and pious after the fashion Jesus spoke of. The first design of such a church then is to help ourselves become Christians. Now the substance of Christianity is Piety—Love to God, and Goodness—Love to men. It is a religion, the germs whereof are born in your heart, appearing in your earliest childhood; which are developed just in proportion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at the bottom of the sea and appears at the top of the loftiest mountains, so in a finished character religion underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the development of the whole man, mind, conscience, heart and soul. It aims not to destroy the sacred peculiarities of individual character. It cherishes and develops them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not Peter, and John to be John, not Jude nor James. We are born different, into a world where unlike things are gathered together, that there may be a special work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in men, aiming not to undo but further God's will; not fashioning all men after one pattern, to think alike, act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is something far other than Christianity which demands that. A Christian church then should put no fetters on the man; it should have unity of purpose, but with the most entire freedom for the individual. When you sacrifice the man to the mass in church or state, church or state becomes an offence, a stumbling-block in the way of progress, and must end or mend. The greater the variety of individualities in church or state, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, humane and accordant. A church must needs be partial, not catholic, where all men think alike, narrow and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the skilful artist destroys none, but tunes them all to harmony; if otherwise, he does not understand his work. In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men; nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. It were unchristian to love Christianity better than the truth, or Christ better than man.

But Christianity is not only the absolute religion; it has also the ideal-man. In Jesus of Nazareth it gives us, in a certain sense, the model of religious excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect idea of religion; to have also that idea made real, satisfactory to the wants of any age, were a yet further greatness. A Christian church should aim to have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; sons of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. To be that it is not needful to observe all the forms he complied with, only such forms as help you; not needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only such thoughts as are true. If Jesus were ever mistaken, as the Evangelists make it appear, then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes as well as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian church to teach men so; to stop at no man's limitations; to prize no word so high as truth; no man so dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free them.

Jesus is a model-man in this respect: that he stands in a true relation to men, that of forgiveness for their ill-treatment, service for their needs, trust in their nature, and constant love towards them,—towards even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation to God, that of entire obedience to Him, of perfect trust in Him, of love towards Him with the whole mind, heart and soul; and love of God is also love of truth, goodness, usefulness, love of Love itself. Obedience to God and trust in God is obedience to these things, and trust in them. If Jesus had loved any opinion better than truth, then had he lost that relation to God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had he allowed any partial feeling to overcome the spirit of universal love, then also he had sundered himself from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with the Infinite.

If Jesus be the model-man, then should a Christian church teach its members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with God, and an incarnation thereof, a manifestation of God in the flesh. It is Christian to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with truth, love, life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by partial exceptions. Each point of spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of Deity. But all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men will be no more alike than all wicked men. It is the same light which is blue in the sky and golden in the sun. "All nature's difference makes all nature's peace."

We can attain this relation to man and God only on condition that we are free. If a church cannot allow freedom it were better not to allow itself, but cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom for the individual, should be the motto. It is only free men that can find the truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much freedom as you shut out, so much falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to purchase unity of church-action at the cost of individual freedom. The Catholic church tried it, and you see what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it a den of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of iniquity, and religion herself protested against it, as the mother of abominations. The Protestant churches are trying the same thing, and see whither they tend and what foes rise up against them,—Philosophy with its Bible of nature, and Religion with its Bible of man, both the hand-writing of God. The great problem of church and state is this: To produce unity of action and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to balance into harmonious proportions the mass and the man, the centripetal and centrifugal powers, as, by God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are balanced in the worlds above. In the state we have done this more wisely than any nation heretofore. In the churches it remains yet to do. But man is equal to all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The strong cry of the nations for liberty, a craving as of hungry men for bread and water, shows what liberty is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow freedom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, and we shall have heroic works; freedom to live and be, and we shall have love to men and love to God. The world's history proves that, and our own history. Jesus, our model-man, was the freest the world ever saw!

Let it be remembered that every truth is of God, and will lead to good and good only. Truth is the seed whereof welfare is the fruit; for every grain thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest of welfare. A lie is "of the Devil," and must lead to want and woe and death, ending at last in a storm where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have freedom, and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfaction; submit to thraldom, and you sow lies to reap the death they bear. A Christian church should be the home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of the sons of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be free. Christ is the liberator; he came not to drive slaves, but to set men free. The churches of old did their greatest work, when there was most freedom in those churches.

Here too should the spirit of devotion be encouraged; the soul of man communing with his God in aspirations after purity and truth, in resolutions for goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in common, great truths and universal; that unitedly they lift up their souls to God seeking instruction of Him, this will prove the strongest bond between man and man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have not fully done justice to the sentiment of worship; that in taking care of the head we have forgotten the heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; to do noble works of usefulness and charity the worship of the will; to feel love and trust in man and God, is the glad worship of the heart. A Christian church should be broad enough for all; should seek truth and promote piety, that both together might toil in good works.

Here should be had the best instruction which can be commanded; the freest, truest, and most manly voice; the mind most conversant with truth; the eloquence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; a faith in God, whose charity is living love to men, even the sinful and the base. Teaching is the breathing of one man's inspiration into another, a most real thing amongst real men. In a church there should be instruction for the young. God appoints the father and mother the natural teachers of children; above all is it so in their religious culture. But there are some who cannot, many who will not fulfil this trust. Hence it has been found necessary for wise and good men to offer their instruction to such. In this matter it is religion we need more than theology, and of this it is not mere traditions and mythologies we are to teach, the anile tales of a rude people in a dark age, things our pupils will do well to forget soon as they are men, and which they will have small reason to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but it is the great, everlasting truths of religion which should be taught, enforced by examples of noble men, which tradition tells of, or the present age affords, all this to be suited to the tender years of the child. Christianity should be represented as human, as man's nature in its true greatness; religion shown to be beautiful, a real duty corresponding to man's deepest desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ should be shown to men as he was, the manliest of men, the most divine because the most human. Children should be taught to respect their nature; to consider it as the noblest of all God's works; to know that perfect truth and goodness are demanded of them, and by that only can they be worthy men; taught to feel that God is present in Boston and to-day, as much as ever in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They should be taught to abhor the public sins of our times, but to love and imitate its great examples of nobleness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the mob of worldly pretenders in this day.

Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy ways, is it not the duty of some one to speak with him, not as with authority to command, but with affection to persuade? Did any one of you ever address an erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly tenderness, and try to charm him back, and find a cold repulse? If a man is in error he will be grateful to one that tells him so; will learn most from men who make him ashamed of his littleness of life. In this matter it seems many a good man comes short of his duty.

There is yet another way in which a church should act on its own household, and that is by direct material help in time of need. There is the eternal distinction of the strong and the weak, which cannot be changed. But as things now go there is another inequality not of God's appointment, but of man's perversity, the distinction of rich and poor—of men bloated by superfluous wealth and men starving and freezing from want. You know and I know how often the strong abuse their strength, exerting it solely for themselves and to the ruin of the weak; we all know that such are reckoned great in the world, though they may have grown rich solely by clutching at what others earned. In Christianity, and before the God of justice, all men are brothers; the strong are so that they may help the weak. As a nation chooses its wisest men to manage its affairs for the nation's good, and not barely their own, so God endows Charles or Samuel with great gifts that they may also bless all men thereby. If they use those powers solely for their pleasure then are they false before men; false before God. It is said of the church of the Friends that no one of their number has ever received the charity of an almshouse, or for a civil offence been shut up in a jail. If the poor forsake a church, be sure that the church forsook God long before.

But the church must have an action on others out of its pale. If a man or a society of men have a truth, they hold it not for themselves alone, but for all men. The solitary thinker, who in a moment of ecstatic action in his closet at midnight discovers a truth, discovers it for all the world and for eternity. A Christian church ought to love to see its truths extend; so it should put them in contact with the opinions of the world, not with excess of zeal or lack of charity.

A Christian church should be a means of reforming the world, of forming it after the pattern of Christian ideas. It should therefore bring up the sentiments of the times, the ideas of the times, and the actions of the times, to judge them by the universal standard. In this way it will learn much and be a living church, that grows with the advance of men's sentiments, ideas and actions, and while it keeps the good of the past will lose no brave spirit of the present day. It can teach much; now moderating the fury of men, then quickening their sluggish steps. We expect the sins of commerce to be winked at in the street; the sins of the state to be applauded on election days and in a Congress, or on the fourth of July; we are used to hear them called the righteousness of the nation. There they are often measured by the avarice or the ambition of greedy men. You expect them to be tried by passion, which looks only to immediate results and partial ends. Here they are to be measured by Conscience and Reason, which look to permanent results and universal ends; to be looked at with reference to the Laws of God, the everlasting ideas on which alone is based the welfare of the world. Here they are to be examined in the light of Christianity itself. If the church be true, many things which seem gainful in the street and expedient in the senate-house, will here be set down as wrong, and all gain which comes therefrom seen to be but a loss. If there be a public sin in the land, if a lie invade the state, it is for the church to give the alarm; it is here that it may war on lies and sins; the more widely they are believed in and practised, the more are they deadly, the more to be opposed. Here let no false idea or false action of the public go without exposure and rebuke. But let no noble heroism of the times, no noble man pass by without due honor. If it is a good thing to honor dead saints and the heroism of our fathers; it is a better thing to honor the saints of to-day, the live heroism of men who do the battle, when that battle is all around us. I know a few such saints; here and there a hero of that stamp, and I will not wait till they are dead and classic before I call them so and honor them as such, for

"To side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they once denied;
For Humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn."

Do you not see that if a man have a new truth, it must be reformatory and so create an outcry? It will seem destructive as the farmer's plough; like that, it is so to tares and thistles, but the herald of the harvest none the less. In this way a Christian church should be a society for promoting true sentiments and ideas. If it would lead, it must go before men; if it would be looked up to, it must stand high.

That is not all: it should be a society for the promotion of good works. We are all beneath our idea, and therefore transgressors before God. Yet He gives us the rain, the snow and the sun. It falls on me as well as on the field of my neighbor, who is a far juster man. How can we repent, cast our own sins behind us, outgrow and forget them better, than by helping others to work out their salvation? We are all brothers before God. Mutually needful we must be; mutually helpful we should be. Here are the ignorant that ask our instruction, not with words only, but with the prayer of their darkness, far more suppliant than speech. I never see an ignorant man younger than myself, without a feeling of self-reproach, for I ask: "What have I been doing to suffer him to grow up in nakedness of mind?" Every man, born in New England, who does not share the culture of this age, is a reproach to more than himself, and will at last actively curse those who began by deserting him. The Christian church should lead the movement for the public education of the people.

Here are the needy who ask not so much your gold, your bread, or your cloth, as they ask also your sympathy, respect and counsel; that you assist them to help themselves, that they may have gold won by their industry, not begged out of your benevolence. It is justice more than charity they ask. Every beggar, every pauper, born and bred amongst us, is a reproach to us, and condemns our civilization. For how has it come to pass that in a land of abundance here are men, for no fault of their own, born into want, living in want, and dying of want? and that, while we pretend to a religion which says all men are brothers! There is a horrid wrong somewhere.

Here too are the drunkard, the criminal, the abandoned person, sometimes the foe of society, but far oftener the victim of society. Whence come the tenants of our almshouses, jails, the victims of vice in all our towns? Why, from the lowest rank of the people; from the poorest and most ignorant! Say rather from the most neglected, and the public sin is confessed, and the remedy hinted at. What have the strong been doing all this while, that the weak have come to such a state? Let them answer for themselves.

Now for all these ought a Christian church to toil. It should be a church of good works; if it is a church of good faith it will be so. Does not Christianity say the strong should help the weak? Does not that mean something? It once did. Has the Christian fire faded out from those words, once so marvellously bright? Look round you, in the streets of your own Boston! See the ignorant, men and women with scarce more than the stature of men and women; boys and girls growing up in ignorance and the low civilization which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. Their character will one day be a blot and a curse to the nation, and who is to blame? Why, the ablest and best men, who might have had it otherwise if they would. Look at the poor, men of small ability, weak by nature, born into a weak position, therefore doubly weak; men whom the strong use for their purpose, and then cast them off as we throw away the rind of an orange after we have drunk its generous juice. Behold the wicked, so we call the weak men that are publicly caught in the cobweb of the law; ask why they became wicked; how we have aimed to reform them; what we have done to make them respect themselves, to believe in goodness, in man and God? and then say if there is not something for Christian men to do, something for a Christian church to do! Every almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not done their duty, that the Christians lie lies when they call Jesus "master" and men "brothers!" Every jail is a monument, on which it is writ in letters of iron that we are still heathens, and the gallows, black and hideous, the embodiment of death, the last argument a "Christian" State offers to the poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, stands there, a sign of our infamy, and while it lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some miserable man, whose blood cries to God against Cain in the nineteenth century, it lifts that same arm as an index of our shame.

Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist not evil—with evil? Is not war the worst form of that evil; and is there on earth a nation so greedy of war; a nation more reckless of provoking it; one where the war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame and power? The "Heathen" Chinese might send their missionaries to America, and teach us to love men! Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ say, whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them; and are there not three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the hopeless sufferers of a savage doom; debarred from the civilization of our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century; shut out from the pretended religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian land; chained down from the liberty unalienable in man, the slaves of a Christian republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring out from every legislature in the North; does not the press war with its million throats, and a voice of indignation go up from East and West, out from the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. There is none of that cry against the mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the feet which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, provokes no more voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of the West. The few that speak a manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market! Great God! and has it come to this, that men are silent over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then it must be that every church which dares assume the name of Christ, that dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on this hideous wrong! That is not so. The church is dumb, while the state is only silent; while the servants of the people are only asleep, "God's ministers" are dead!

In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes of men, society and the state, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime, and war, and slavery too—is the church to say nothing, do nothing; nothing for the good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong? Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is "safe!" If I thought so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship of God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of man; in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name of God.

It seems to me that a church which dares name itself Christian, the Church of the Redeemer, which aspires to be a true church, must set itself about all this business, and be not merely a church of theology, but of religion; not of faith only, but of works; a just church by its faith bringing works into life. It should not be a church termagant, which only peevishly scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church militant against every form of evil, which not only censures, but writes out on the walls of the world the brave example of a Christian life, that all may take pattern therefrom. Thus only can it become the church triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in building its palaces of theological speculation, palaces mainly of straw, and based upon the chaff, erecting air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces of straw, it would surely have more time to use in the practical good works of the day. If it thus made a city free from want and ignorance and crime, I know I vent a heresy, I think it would be quite as Christian an enterprise, as though it restored all the theology of the dark ages; quite as pleasing to God. A good sermon is a good thing, no doubt, but its end is not answered by its being preached; even by its being listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a deeper life in the hearers. But in the multitude of sermons there is danger lest the bare hearing thereof be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an end, and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if every Sunday afternoon the most pious and manly of our number, who saw fit, resolved themselves into a committee of the whole for practical religion, and held not a formal meeting, but one more free, sometimes for the purpose of devotion, the practical work of making ourselves better Christians, nearer to one another, and sometimes that we might find means to help such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the intemperate and the wicked? Would it not be a work profitable to ourselves, and useful to others weaker than we? For my own part I think there are no ordinances of religion like good works; no day too sacred to help my brother in; no Christianity like a practical love of God shown by a practical love of men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift to the very altar, and there remembered our brother had cause of complaint against us, we must leave the divine service, and pay the human service first! If my brother be in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, and I can aid him and do not, he has much against me, and God can better wait for my prayer than my brother for my help!

The saints of olden time perished at the stake; they hung on gibbets; they agonized upon the rack; they died under the steel of the tormentor. It was the heroism of our fathers' day that swam the unknown seas; froze in the woods; starved with want and cold; fought battles with the red right hand. It is the sainthood and heroism of our day that toils for the ignorant, the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the wicked. Yes, it is our saints and heroes who fight fighting; who contend for the slave, and his master too, for the drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or the weak in all their forms. It is they that with weapons of heavenly proof fight the great battle for the souls of men. Though I detest war in each particular fibre of my heart, yet I honor the heroes among our fathers who fought with bloody hand; peace-makers in a savage way, they were faithful to the light; the most inspired can be no more, and we, with greater light, do, it may be, far less. I love and venerate the saints of old; men who dared step in front of their age; accepted Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian, because it meant something; they applied Christianity, so far as they knew it, to the lies and sins of their times, and won a sudden and a fiery death. But the saints and the heroes of this day, who draw no sword, whose right hand is never bloody, who burn in no fires of wood or sulphur, nor languish briefly on the hasty cross; the saints and heroes who, in a worldly world, dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfishness, speak for Truth and Man, living for noble aims; men who will swear to no lies howsoever popular; who will honor no sins, though never so profitable, respected and ancient; men who count Christ not their master, but teacher, friend, brother, and strive like him to practise all they pray; to incarnate and make real the Word of God, these men I honor far more than the saints of old. I know their trials, I see their dangers, I appreciate their sufferings, and since the day when the man on Calvary bowed his head, bidding persecution farewell with his "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," I find no such saints and heroes as live now! They win hard fare, and hard toil. They lay up shame and obloquy. Theirs is the most painful of martyrdoms. Racks and fagots soon waft the soul of God, stern messengers but swift. A boy could bear that passage, the martyrdom of death. But the temptation of a long life of neglect, and scorn, and obloquy, and shame, and want, and desertion by false friends; to live blameless though blamed, cut off from human sympathy, that is the martyrdom of to-day. I shed no tears for such martyrs. I shout when I see one; I take courage and thank God for the real saints, prophets and heroes of to-day. In another age, men shall be proud of these puritans and pilgrims of this day. Churches shall glory in their names and celebrate their praise in sermon and in song. Yea, though now men would steal the rusty sword from underneath the bones of a saint or hero long deceased, to smite off therewith the head of a new prophet, that ancient hero's son; though they would gladly crush the heart out of him with the tomb-stones they piled up for great men, dead and honored now, yet in some future day, that mob, penitent, baptized with a new spirit, like drunken men returned to sanity once more, shall search through all this land for marble white enough to build a monument to that prophet whom their fathers slew; they shall seek through all the world for gold of fineness fit to chronicle such names! I cannot wait; but I will honor such men now, not adjourn the warning of their voice, and the glory of their example, till another age! The church may cast out such men; burn them with the torments of an age too refined in its cruelty to use coarse fagots and the vulgar axe! It is no less to these men; but the ruin of the church. I say the Christian church of the nineteenth century must honor such men, if it would do a church's work; must take pains to make such men as these, or it is a dead church, with no claim on us, except that we bury it. A true church will always be the church of martyrs. The ancients commenced every great work with a victim! We do not call it so; but the sacrifice is demanded, got ready, and offered by unconscious priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did not Christianity begin with a martyrdom?

In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in thought or action, by trying public opinions with its own brave ideas, by promoting good works, applying a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular righteousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian church should lead the civilization of the age. The leader looks before, goes before, and knows where he is going; knows the way thither. It is only on this condition that he leads at all. If the church by looking after truth, and receiving it when it comes, be in unison with God, it will be in unison with all science, which is only the thought of God translated from the facts of nature into the words of men. In such a case, the church will not fear philosophy, nor in the face of modern science aim to reëstablish the dreams and fables of a ruder day. It will not lack new truth, daring only to quote, nor be obliged to sneak behind the inspired words of old saints as its only fortress, for it will have words just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths of saints and prophets now. For leaders it will look not back, but forth; will fan the first faint sparkles of that noble fire just newly kindled from the skies; not smother them in the ashes of fires long spent; not quench them with holy water from Jordan or the Nile. A church truly Christian, professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a time when the Christian churches, as a whole, held that rank. Do they now? Not even the Quakers—perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet, filled with love of man and love of God, is not therein at home. I speak a sad truth, and I say it in sorrow. But look at the churches of this city: do they lead the Christian movements of this city—the temperance movement, the peace movement, the movement for the freedom of men, for education, the movement to make society more just, more wise and good, the great religious movement of these times—for, hold down our eyelids as we will, there is a religious movement at this day on foot, such as even New England never saw before;—do they lead in these things? Oh, no, not at all. That great Christian orator, one of the noblest men New England has seen in this century, whose word has even now gone forth to the nations beyond the sea, while his spirit has gone home to his Father, when he turned his attention to the practical evils of our time and our land, and our civilization, vigorously applying Christianity to life, why he lost favor in his own little sect! They feared him, soon as his spirit looked over their narrow walls, aspiring to lead men to a better work. I know men can now make sectarian capital out of the great name of Channing, so he is praised; perhaps praised loudest by the very men who then cursed him by their gods. Ay, by their gods he was accursed! The churches lead the Christian movements of these times?—why, has there not just been driven out of this city, and out of this State, a man conspicuous in all these movements, after five and twenty years of noble toil; driven out because he was conspicuous in them! You know it is so, and you know how and by whom he is thus driven out![1]

Christianity is humanity; Christ is the Son of man; the manliest of men; humane as a woman; pious and hopeful as a prayer; but brave as man's most daring thought. He has led the world in morals and religion for eighteen hundred years, only because he was the manliest man in it; the humanest and bravest man in it, and hence the divinest. He may lead it eighteen hundred years more, for we are bid believe that God can never make again a greater man; no, none so great. But the churches do not lead men therein, for they have not his spirit; neither that womanliness which wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness which drew down fire enough from heaven to light the world's altars for well-nigh two thousand years.

There are many ways in which Christ may be denied:—one is that of the bold blasphemer, who, out of a base and haughty heart mocks, scoffing at that manly man, and spits upon the nobleness of Christ! There are few such deniers: my heart mourns for them. But they do little harm. Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can silence that, and the brave soul of this young Nazarene has made itself so deeply felt that scorn and mockery of him are but an icicle held up against the summer's sun. There is another way to deny him, and that is:—to call him Lord, and never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with his words; and with the authority of his name to cloak, to mantle, screen and consecrate the follies, errors, sins of men! From this we have much to fear.

The church that is to lead this century will not be a church creeping on all fours; mewling and whining, its face turned down, its eyes turned back. It must be full of the brave, manly spirit of the day, keeping also the good of times past. There is a terrific energy in this age, for man was never so much developed, so much the master of himself before. Great truths, moral and political, have come to light. They fly quickly. The iron prophet of types publishes his visions, of weal or woe, to the near and far. This marvellous age has invented steam, and the magnetic telegraph, apt symbols of itself, before which the miracles of fable are but an idle tale. It demands, as never before, freedom for itself, usefulness in its institutions; truth in its teachings, and beauty in its deeds. Let a church have that freedom, that usefulness, truth, and beauty, and the energy of this age will be on its side. But the church which did for the fifth century, or the fifteenth, will not do for this. What is well enough at Rome, Oxford or Berlin, is not well enough for Boston. It must have our ideas, the smell of our ground, and have grown out of the religion in our soul. The freedom of America must be there before this energy will come; the wisdom of the nineteenth century before its science will be on the churches' side, else that science will go over to the "infidels."

Our churches are not in harmony with what is best in the present age. Men call their temples after their old heroes and saints—John, Paul, Peter, and the like. But we call nothing else after the old names; a school of philosophy would be condemned if called Aristotelian, Platonic, or even Baconian. We out-travel the past in all but this. In the church it seems taught there is no progress unless we have all the past on our back; so we despair of having men fit to call churches by. We look back and not forward. We think the next saint must talk Hebrew like the old ones, and repeat the same mythology. So when a new prophet comes we only stone him.

A church that believes only in past inspiration will appeal to old books as the standard of truth and source of light; will be antiquarian in its habits; will call its children by the old names; and war on the new age, not understanding the man-child born to rule the world. A church that believes in inspiration now will appeal to God; try things by reason and conscience; aim to surpass the old heroes; baptize its children with a new spirit, and using the present age will lead public opinion, and not follow it. Had Christ looked back for counsel, he might have founded a church fit for Abraham or Isaac to worship in, not for the ages to come, or the age then. He that feels he is near to God, does not fear to be far from men; if before, he helps lead them on; if above, to lift them up. Let us get all we can from the Hebrews and others of old time, and that is much; but still let us be God's free men, not the Gibeonites of the past.

Let us have a church that dares imitate the heroism of Jesus; seek inspiration as he sought it; judge the past as he; act on the present like him; pray as he prayed; work as he wrought; live as he lived. Let our doctrines and our forms fit the soul, as the limbs fit the body, growing out of it, growing with it. Let us have a church for the whole man: truth for the mind; good works for the hands; love for the heart; and for the soul, that aspiring after perfection, that unfaltering faith in God which, like lightning in the clouds, shines brightest, when elsewhere it is most dark. Let our church fit man, as the heavens fit the earth!

In our day men have made great advances in science, commerce, manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need, therefore, a development of religion corresponding thereto. The leading minds of the age ask freedom to inquire; not merely to believe, but to know; to rest on facts. A great spiritual movement goes swiftly forward. The best men see that religion is religion; theology is theology, and not religion; that true religion is a very simple affair, and the popular theology a very foolish one; that the Christianity of Christ is not the Christianity of the street, or the state, or the churches; that Christ is not their model-man, only "imputed" as such. These men wish to apply good sense to matters connected with religion; to apply Christianity to life, and make the world a better place, men and women fitter to live in it. In this way they wish to get a theology that is true; a mode of religion that works, and works well. If a church can answer these demands, it will be a live church; leading the civilization of the times, living with all the mighty life of this age, and nation. Its prayers will be a lifting up of the hearts in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness, piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, institutions for the comfort and the culture of men. Let us have a church in which religion, goodness towards men, and piety towards God, shall be the main thing; let us have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands of this age. In the middle ages, men had erroneous conceptions of religion, no doubt; yet the church led the world. When she wrestled with the state, the state came undermost to the ground. See the results of that supremacy—all over Europe there arose the cloister, halls of learning for the chosen few, minster, dome, cathedral, miracles of art, each costing the wealth of a province. Such was the embodiment of their ideas of religion, the prayers of a pious age done in stone, a psalm petrified as it rose from the world's mouth; a poor sacrifice, no doubt, but the best they knew how to offer. Now if men were to engage in religion as in politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and freedom in the people; a state where there was honorable work for every hand, bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth would be our sermon, drawn from the oldest of Scriptures, God's writing there in nature, here in man; works of daily duty would be our sacrament; prophets inspired of God would minister the word, and piety send up her psalm of prayer, sweet in its notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people, where all are well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, pious, wise and good.

Some of you may now remember, how ten months and more ago, I first came to this house to speak. I shall remember it forever. In those rainy Sundays the very skies looked dark. Some came doubtingly, uncertain, looking around, and hoping to find courage in another's hope. Others came with clear glad face; openly, joyfully, certain they were right; not fearing to meet the issue; not afraid to be seen meeting it. Some came, perhaps, not used to worship in a church, but not the less welcome here; some mistaking me for a destroyer, a doubter, a denier of all truth, a scoffer, an enemy to man and God! I wonder not at that. Misguided men had told you so, in sermon and in song; in words publicly printed and published without shame; in the covert calumny, slyly whispered in the dark! Need I tell you my feelings; how I felt at coming to the town made famous by great men, Mayhew, Chauncy, Buckminster, Kirkland, Holley, Pierpont, Channing, Ware—names dear and honored in my boyish heart! Need I tell you how I felt at sight of the work which stretched out before me? Do you wonder that I asked: Who is sufficient for these things? and said: Alas, not I, Thou knowest, Lord! But some of you told me you asked not the wisdom of a wiser man, the ability of one stronger, but only that I should do what I could. I came, not doubting that I had some truths to say; not distrusting God, nor man, nor you; distrustful only of myself. I feared I had not the power, amid the dust and noises of the day, to help you see and hear the great realities of religion as they appeared to me; to help you feel the life of real religion, as in my better moments I have felt its truth! But let that pass. As I came here from Sunday to Sunday, when I began to feel your spirits prayed with mine a prayer for truth and life; as I looked down into your faces, thoughtful and almost breathless, I forgot my self-distrust; I saw the time was come; that, feebly as I know I speak, my best thoughts were ever the most welcome! I saw that the harvest was plenteous indeed: but the preacher, I feel it still, was all unworthy of his work!

Brothers and Sisters: let us be true to our sentiments and ideas. Let us not imitate another's form unless it symbolize a truth to us. We must not affect to be singular, but not fear to be alone. Let us not foolishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is yet before us, not only springing up out of the manly words of this Bible, but out of the ground; out of the heavens; out of man and God. Whole firmaments of truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic eye of the true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, in form, thought or sentiment, wherever she may call. God's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus turned back only the day before he saw the land, the adventure had been worse than lost.

We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion always demands that, but never more than when our brothers separate from us, and we stand alone. By our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand strong. With zeal for our common work, let us have charity for such as dislike us, such as oppose and would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for such as despitefully use us. Let us overcome their evil speech with our own goodness. If others have treated us ill, called us unholy names, and mocked at us, let us forgive it all, here and now, and help them also to forget and outgrow that temper which bade them treat us so. A kind answer is fittest rebuke to an unkind word.

If we have any truth it will not be kept hid. It will run over the brim of our urn and water our brother's field. Were any truth to come down to us in advance from God, it were not that we might forestall the light, but shed it forth for all His children to walk by and rejoice in. "One candle will light a thousand" if it be itself lighted. Let our light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds, and themselves praise God by a manly life. This we owe to them as to ourselves. A noble thought and a mean man make a sorry union. Let our idea show itself in our life—that is preaching, right eloquent. Do this, we begin to do good to men, and though they should oppose us, and our work should fail, we shall have yet the approval of our own heart, the approval of God, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him.

Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered that a youthful ardor should have brought you here. Your silvery heads have seemed a benediction to my work. But most of you are young. I know it is no aping of a fashion that has brought you here. I have no eloquence to charm or please you with; I only speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad name in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seeking after truth. Give a great idea to an old man, and he carries it to his grave; give it to a young man, and he carries it to his life. It will bear both young and old through the grave and into eternal Heaven beyond.

Young men and women, the duties of the world fall eminently on you. God confides to your hands the ark which holds the treasures of the age. On young shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the period of passion; the period of enterprise and of work. It is by successive generations that mankind goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable graves, leave their places and the results they won to you. But departing they seem to say, as they linger and look back: Do ye greater than we have done! The young just coming into your homes seem to say: Instruct us to be nobler than yourselves! Your life is the answer to your children and your sires. The next generation will be as you make it. It is not the schools but the people's character that educates the child. Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion alone can guide you. It is not the world's eye that is on you, but God's; it is not the world's religion that will suffice you, but the religion of a Man, which unites you with truth, justice, piety, goodness; yes, which makes you one with God!

Young men and women—you can make this church a fountain of life to thousands of fainting souls. Yes, you can make this city nobler than city ever was before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave mankind; that can be copied forever. Architects of your own weal or woe, your destiny is mainly in your own hands. It is no great thing to reject the popular falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real religion, the Christianity of Christ; to love them, to live them in your business and your home, that is the greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the spirit and nature of God; you achieve the true destiny for yourself; you help your brothers do the same.

When my own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, I know how little I deserve the name of Christian; none knows that fact so well as I. But you have been denied the name of Christian because you came here, asking me to come. Let men see that you have the reality, though they withhold the name. Your words are the least part of what you say to men. The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise men by the general tenor of your life. Let your religion appear in your work and your play. Pray in your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the great work of helping others while you help yourself, let your life prove a worship. These are the real sacraments and Christian communion with God, to which water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world not by censure only, but by the example of a great life. Shame men out of their littleness, not by making mouths, but by walking great and beautiful amongst them. You love God best when you love men most. Let your prayers be an uplifting of the soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light thereof shall shine through the darkest hour of trouble. Have not the Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's Christianity there. Be noble men, then your works must needs be great and manly.

This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an hour for resolutions; what a moment for prayer! If you have sins in your bosom, cast them behind you now. In the last year, God has blessed us; blessed us all. On some his angels waited, robed in white, and brought new joys; here a wife, to bind men closer yet to Providence; and there a child, a new Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels came clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance with unpropitious wings, and bore away child, father, sister, wife, or friend. Still were they angels of good Providence, all God's own; and he who looks aright finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, and left it, though they spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother shall find that gift and wear it as a diamond on his breast.

The hours are passing over us, and with them the day. What shall the future Sundays be, and what the year? What we make them both. God gives us time. We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear it as we will. Age slowly rots away the gold we are set in, but the adamantine soul lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming down from God. The genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, and gives us one more year, bidding us fill that golden cup with water as we can or will. There stand the dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and mantled, film-covered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they shine there, in the slanting light of new-born day. Around them stand the sons of earth and cry: Come hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy golden cup! There you may seek to fill your urn; to stay your thirst. The deceitful element, roping in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is water only to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half-blind. But there, hard by, runs down the stream of life, its waters never frozen, never dry; fed by perennial dews falling unseen from God. Fill there thine urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil and heat of day; wash there, and the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall off, and thou be clean for ever. Kneel there and pray; God shall inspire thy heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never-ending joy![2]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Rev. John Pierpont.

[2] See note at the end of this volume.

III.

A SERMON OF WAR, PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1846.

EXODUS XV. 3.

"The Lord is a Man of War."

1 JOHN IV. 8.

"God is Love."

I ask your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should assume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly and with knowledge of the facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present war. Besides, I have waited for others, in the churches, of more experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my counsel; but I have thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of new wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good and bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away from you or me, and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the last Sunday I only sketched the back-ground of the picture, to-day intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that "Presence of Beauty in Nature," to which with its "Meanings" and its "Lessons," I then asked you to attend.

It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their own image. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of power in Nature, conceives of God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him as a God of power. Such, though not without beautiful exceptions, is the character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament. "The Lord is a man of war." He is "the Lord of Hosts." He kills men, and their cattle. If there is trouble in the enemies' city, it is the Lord who hath caused it. He will "whet his glittering sword and render vengeance to his enemies. He will make his arrows drunk with blood, and his sword shall devour flesh!" It is with the sword that God pleads with all men. He encourages men to fight, and says, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." He sends blood into the streets; he waters the land with blood, and in blood he dissolves the mountains. He brandishes his sword before kings, and they tremble at every moment. He treads nations as grapes in a wine-press, and his garments are stained with their life's blood.[3]

A man who has grown up to read the Older Testament of God revealed in the beauty of the universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set forth, sees him not as force only, or in chief, but as love. He worships in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except in the book of "Revelation." He is the "God of love and peace;" "our Father," "kind to the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is love. He loves us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of priceless value in His sight. He is no God of battles; no Lord of hosts; no man of war. He has no sword, nor arrows; He does not water the earth nor melt the mountains in blood, but "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." He has no garments dyed in blood; curses no man for refusing to fight. He is spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and in truth! The commandment is: Love one another; resist not evil with evil; forgive seventy times seven; overcome evil with good; 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.[4] There is no nation to shut its ports against another, all are men; no caste to curl its lip at inferiors, all are brothers, members of one body, united in the Christ, the ideal man and head of all. The most useful is the greatest. No man is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, for God is our Father.

These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. Equally plain is it that they are the dictates of man's nature, only developed and active; a part of God's universal revelation; His law writ on the soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into spiritual things sees and knows them to be true.

Do not believe it the part of a coward to think so. I have known many cowards; yes, a great many; some very cowardly, pusillanimous and faint-hearted cowards; but never one who thought so, or pretended to think so. It requires very little courage to fight with sword and musket, and that of a cheap kind. Men of that stamp are plenty as grass in June. Beat your drum, and they will follow; offer them but eight dollars a month, and they will come—fifty thousand of them, to smite and kill.[5] Every male animal, or reptile, will fight. It requires little courage to kill; but it takes much to resist evil with good, holding obstinately out, active or passive, till you overcome it. Call that non-resistance, if you will; it is the stoutest kind of combat, demanding all the manhood of a man.

I will not deny that war is inseparable from a low stage of civilization; so is polygamy, slavery, cannibalism. Taking men as they were, savage and violent, there have been times when war was unavoidable. I will not deny that it has helped forward the civilization of the race, for God often makes the folly and the sin of men contribute to the progress of mankind. It is none the less a folly or a sin. In a civilized nation like ourselves, it is far more heinous than in the Ojibeways or the Camanches.

War is in utter violation of Christianity. If war be right, then Christianity is wrong, false, a lie. But if Christianity be true, if reason, conscience, the religious sense, the highest faculties of man, are to be trusted, then war is the wrong, the falsehood, the lie. I maintain that aggressive war is a sin; that it is national infidelity, a denial of Christianity and of God. Every man who understands Christianity by heart, in its relations to man, to society, the nation, the world, knows that war is a wrong. At this day, with all the enlightenment of our age, after the long peace of the nations, war is easily avoided. Whenever it occurs, the very fact of its occurrence convicts the rulers of a nation either of entire incapacity as statesmen, or else of the worst form of treason; treason to the people, to mankind, to God! There is no other alternative. The very fact of an aggressive war shows that the men who cause it must be either fools or traitors. I think lightly of what is called treason against a government. That may be your duty to-day, or mine. Certainly it was our fathers' duty not long ago; now it is our boast and their title to honor. But treason against the people, against mankind, against God, is a great sin, not lightly to be spoken of. The political authors of the war on this continent, and at this day, are either utterly incapable of a statesman's work, or else guilty of that sin. Fools they are, or traitors they must be.

Let me speak, and in detail, of the Evils of War. I wish this were not necessary. But we have found ourselves in a war; the Congress has voted our money and our men to carry it on; the Governors call for volunteers; the volunteers come when they are called for. No voice of indignation goes forth from the heart of the eight hundred thousand souls of Massachusetts; of the seventeen million freemen of the land how few complain; only a man here and there! The Press is well-nigh silent. And the Church, so far from protesting against this infidelity in the name of Christ, is little better than dead. The man of blood shelters himself behind its wall, silent, dark, dead and emblematic. These facts show that it is necessary to speak of the evils of war. I am speaking in a city, whose fairest, firmest, most costly buildings are warehouses and banks; a city whose most popular Idol is Mammon, the God of Gold; whose Trinity is a Trinity of Coin! I shall speak intelligibly, therefore, if I begin by considering war as a waste of property. It paralyzes industry. The very fear of it is a mildew upon commerce. Though the present war is but a skirmish, only a few random shots between a squad of regulars and some strolling battalions, a quarrel which in Europe would scarcely frighten even the Pope; yet see the effect of it upon trade. Though the fighting be thousands of miles from Boston, your stocks fall in the market; the rate of insurance is altered; your dealer in wood piles his boards and his timber on his wharf, not finding a market. There are few ships in the great Southern mart to take the freight of many; exchange is disturbed. The clergyman is afraid to buy a book, lest his children want bread. It is so with all departments of industry and trade. In war the capitalist is uncertain and slow to venture, so the laborer's hand will be still, and his child ill-clad and hungry.

In the late war with England, many of you remember the condition of your fisheries, of your commerce; how the ships lay rotting at the wharf. The dearness of cloth, of provisions, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, salt, the comparative lowness of wages, the stagnation of business, the scarcity of money, the universal sullenness and gloom—all this is well remembered now. So is the ruin it brought on many a man.

Yet but few weeks ago some men talked boastingly of a war with England. There are some men who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth; whose chief function is talk. Of their talk I will say nothing; we look for dust in dry places. But some men thus talked of war, and seemed desirous to provoke it, who can scarce plead ignorance, and I fear not folly, for their excuse. I leave such to the just resentment sure to fall on them from sober, serious men, who dare to be so unpopular as to think before they speak, and then say what comes of thinking. Perhaps such a war was never likely to take place, and now, thanks to a few wise men, all danger thereof seems at an end. But suppose it had happened—what would become of your commerce, of your fishing smacks on the Banks or along the shore? what of your coasting vessels, doubling the headlands all the way from the St. John's to the Nueces? what of your whale ships in the Pacific? what of your Indiamen, deep freighted with oriental wealth? what of that fleet which crowds across the Atlantic sea, trading with east and west and north and south? I know some men care little for the rich, but when the owners keep their craft in port, where can the "hands" find work or their mouths find bread? The shipping of the United States amounts nearly to 2,500,000 tons. At $40 a ton, its value is nearly $100,000,000. This is the value only of those sea-carriages; their cargoes I cannot compute. Allowing one sailor for every twenty tons burden, here will be 125,000 seamen. They and their families amount to 500,000 souls. In war, what will become of them? A capital of more than $13,000,000 is invested in the fisheries of Massachusetts alone. More than 19,000 men find profitable employment therein. If each man have but four others in his family, a small number for that class, here are more than 95,000 persons in this State alone, whose daily bread depends on this business. They cannot fish in troubled waters, for they are fishermen, not politicians. Where could they find bread or cloth in time of war? In Dartmoor prison? Ask that of your demagogues who courted war!

Then, too, the positive destruction of property in war is monstrous. A ship of the line costs from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The loss of a fleet by capture, by fire, or by decay, is a great loss. You know at what cost a fort is built, if you have counted the sums successively voted for Fort Adams in Rhode Island, or those in our own harbor. The destruction of forts is another item in the cost of war. The capture or destruction of merchant ships with their freight, creates a most formidable loss. In 1812 the whole tonnage of the United States was scarce half what it is now. Yet the loss of ships and their freight, in "the late war," brief as it was, is estimated at $100,000,000. Then the loss by plunder and military occupation is monstrous. The soldier, like the savage, cuts down the tree to gather its fruit. I cannot calculate the loss by burning towns and cities. But suppose Boston were bombarded and laid in ashes. Calculate the loss if you can. You may say "This could not be," for it is as easy to say No, as Yes. But remember what befell us in the last war; remember how recently the best defended capitals of Europe, Vienna, Paris, Antwerp, have fallen into hostile hands. Consider how often a strong place, like Coblentz, Mentz, Malta, Gibraltar, St. Juan d'Ulloa, has been declared impregnable, and then been taken; calculate the force which might be brought against this town, and you will see that in eight and forty hours, or half that time, it might be left nothing but a heap of ruins smoking in the sun! I doubt not the valor of American soldiers, the skill of their engineers, nor the ability of their commanders. I am ready to believe all this is greater than we are told. Still, such are the contingencies of war. If some not very ignorant men had their way, this would be a probability and perhaps a fact. If we should burn every town from the Tweed to the Thames, it would not rebuild our own city.

But on the supposition that nothing is destroyed, see the loss which comes from the misdirection of productive industry. Your fleets, forts, dock-yards, arsenals, cannons, muskets, swords and the like, are provided at great cost, and yet are unprofitable. They do not pay. They weave no cloth; they bake no bread; they produce nothing. Yet from 1791 to 1832, in forty-two years we expended in these things, $303,242,576, namely, for the navy, etc., $112,703,933; for the army, etc., 190,538,643. For the same time, all other expenses of the nation came to but $37,158,047. More than eight ninths of the whole revenue of the nation was spent for purposes of war. In four years, from 1812 to 1815, we paid in this way, $92,350,519.37. In six years, from 1835 to 1840, we paid annually on the average $21,328,903; in all $127,973,418. Our Congress has just voted $17,000,000, as a special grant for the army alone. The 175,118 muskets at Springfield, are valued at $3,000,000; we pay annually $200,000 to support that arsenal. The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its stores, etc., has cost $4,741,000. And, for all profitable returns, this money might as well be sunk in the bottom of the sea. In some countries it is yet worse. There are towns and cities in which the fortifications have cost more than all the houses, churches, shops, and other property therein. This happens not among the Sacs and Foxes, but in "Christian" Europe.

Then your soldier is the most unprofitable animal you can keep. He makes no railroads; clears no land; raises no corn. No, he can make neither cloth nor clocks! He does not raise his own bread, mend his own shoes, make his shoulder-knot of glory, nor hammer out his own sword. Yet he is a costly animal, though useless. If the President gets his fifty thousand volunteers, a thing likely to happen—for though Irish lumpers and hod-men want a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, your free American of Boston will enlist for twenty-seven cents, only having his livery, his feathers, and his "glory" thrown in—then at $8 a month, their wages amount to $400,000 a month. Suppose the present Government shall actually make advantageous contracts, and the subsistence of the soldier cost no more than in England, or $17 a month, this amounts to $850,000. Here are $1,250,000 a month to begin with. Then, if each man would be worth a dollar a day at any productive work, and there are 26 work days in the month, here are $1,300,000 more to be added, making $2,550,000 a month for the new army of occupation. This is only for the rank and file of the army. The officers, the surgeons, and the chaplains, who teach the soldiers to wad their muskets with the leaves of the Bible, will perhaps cost as much more; or, in all, something more than $5,000,000 a month. This of course does not include the cost of their arms, tents, ammunition, baggage, horses, and hospital stores, nor the 65,000 gallons of whiskey which the government has just advertised for! What do they give in return? They will give us three things, valor, glory, and—talk; which, as they are not in the price current, I must estimate as I can, and set them all down in one figure = 0; not worth the whiskey they cost.

New England is quite a new country. Seven generations ago it was a wilderness; now it contains about 2,500,000 souls. If you were to pay all the public debts of these States, and then, in fancy, divide all the property therein by the population, young as we are, I think you would find a larger amount of value for each man than in any other country in the world, not excepting England. The civilization of Europe is old; the nations old, England, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Greece; but they have wasted their time, their labor and their wealth in war, and so are poorer than we upstarts of a wilderness. We have fewer fleets, forts, cannon and soldiers for the population, than any other "Christian" country in the world. This is one main reason why we have no national debt; why the women need not toil in the hardest labor of the fields, the quarries and the mines; this is the reason that we are well fed, well clad, well housed; this is the reason that Massachusetts can afford to spend $1,000,000 a year for her public schools! War, wasting a nation's wealth, depresses the great mass of the people, but serves to elevate a few to opulence and power. Every despotism is established and sustained by war. This is the foundation of all the aristocracies of the old world, aristocracies of blood. Our famous men are often ashamed that their wealth was honestly got by working, or peddling, and foolishly copy the savage and bloody emblems of ancient heraldry in their assumed coats of arms, industrious men seeking to have a griffin on their seal! Nothing is so hostile to a true democracy as war. It elevates a few, often bold, bad men, at the expense of the many, who pay the money and furnish the blood for war.

War is a most expensive folly. The revolutionary war cost the General Government directly and in specie $135,000,000. It is safe to estimate the direct cost to the individual States also at the same sum, $135,000,000; making a total of $270,000,000. Considering the interruption of business, the waste of time, property and life, it is plain that this could not have been a fourth part of the whole. But suppose it was a third, then the whole pecuniary cost of the war would be $810,000,000. At the beginning of the Revolution the population was about 3,000,000; so that war, lasting about eight years, cost $270 for each person. To meet the expenses of the war each year there would have been required a tax of $33.75 on each man, woman and child!

In the Florida war we spent between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000, as an eminent statesman once said, in fighting five hundred invisible Indians! It is estimated that the fortifications of the city of Paris, when completely furnished, will cost more than the whole taxable property of Massachusetts, with her 800,000 souls. Why, this year our own grant for the army is $17,000,000. The estimate for the navy is $6,000,000 more; in all $23,000,000. Suppose, which is most unlikely, that we should pay no more, why, that sum alone would support public schools, as good and as costly as those of Massachusetts, all over the United States, offering each boy and girl, bond or free, as good a culture as they get here in Boston, and then leave a balance of $3,000,000 in our hands! We pay more for ignorance than we need for education! But $23,000,000 is not all we must pay this year. A great statesman has said, in the Senate, that our war expenses at present are nearly $500,000 a day, and the President informs your Congress that $22,952,904 more will be wanted for the army and navy before next June!

For several years we spent directly more than $21,000,000 for war purposes, though in time of peace. If a railroad cost $30,000 a mile, then we might build 700 miles a year for that sum, and in five years could build a railroad therewith from Boston to the further side of Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-two years, we could have had more than 10,000 miles of railroad, and, with dividends at seven per cent., a yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and naval affairs, in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid $163,336,717. This alone would have made 5,444 miles of railroad, and would produce at seven per cent., an annual income of $11,433,569.19.

In Boston there are nineteen public grammar schools, a Latin and English High school. The buildings for these schools twenty in number, have cost $653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in as many houses or rooms. I know not their value, as I think they are not all owned by the city. But suppose them to be worth $150,000. Then all the school-houses of this city have cost $803,208. The cost of these 156 schools for this year is estimated at $172,000. The number of scholars in them is 16,479. Harvard University, the most expensive college in America, costs about $46,000 a year. Now the ship Ohio, lying here in our harbor, has cost $834,845, and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is, it has cost $31,637 more than these 155 school-houses of this city, and costs every year $2,000 more than Harvard University, and all the public schools of Boston!

The military academy at West Point contains two hundred and thirty-six cadets; the appropriation for it last year, was $138,000, a sum greater I think, than the cost of all the colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, with their 1,445 students.

The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance, stores, etc., cost $4,741,000. The cost of the 78 churches in Boston is $3,246,500; the whole property of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-houses of Boston are worth $803,208; in all $4,752,883. Thus the navy-yard at Charlestown has cost almost as much as the 78 churches and the 155 school-houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls, libraries, all its wealth thrown in. Yet what does it teach?

Our country is singularly destitute of public libraries. You must go across the ocean to read the history of the Church or State; all the public libraries in America cannot furnish the books referred to in Gibbon's Rome, or Gieseler's History of the Church. I think there is no public library in Europe which has cost three dollars a volume. There are six: the Vatican, at Rome; the Royal, at Paris; the British Museum, at London; the Bodleian, at Oxford; the University Libraries at Gottingen and Berlin—which contain, it is said, about 4,500,000 volumes. The recent grant of $17,000,000 for the army is $3,500,000 more than the cost of those magnificent collections!

There have been printed about 3,000,000 different volumes, great and little, within the last 400 years. If the Florida war cost but $30,000,000, it is ten times more than enough to have purchased one copy of each book ever printed, at one dollar a volume, which is more than the average cost.

Now all these sums are to be paid by the people, "the dear people," whom our republican demagogues love so well, and for whom they spend their lives, rising early, toiling late, those self-denying heroes, those sainted martyrs of the republic, eating the bread of carefulness for them alone! But how are they to be paid? By a direct tax levied on all the property of the nation, so that the poor man pays according to his little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, each knowing when he pays and what he pays for? No such thing; nothing like it. The people must pay and not know it; must be deceived a little, or they would not pay after this fashion! You pay for it in every pound of sugar, copper, coal, in every yard of cloth; and if the counsel of some lovers of the people be followed, you will soon pay for it in each pound of coffee and tea. In this way the rich man always pays relatively less than the poor; often a positively smaller sum. Even here I think that three-fourths of all the property is owned by one-fourth of the people, yet that three-fourths by no means pays a third of the national revenue. The tax is laid on things men cannot do without,—sugar, cloth, and the like. The consumption of these articles is not in proportion to wealth but persons. Now the poor man, as a general rule, has more children than the rich, and the tax being more in proportion to persons than property, the poor man pays more than the rich. So a tax is really laid on the poor man's children to pay for the war which makes him poor and keeps him poor. I think your captains and colonels, those sons of thunder and heirs of glory, will not tell you so. They tell you so! They know it! Poor brothers, how could they? I think your party newspapers, penny or pound, will not tell you so; nor the demagogues, all covered with glory and all forlorn, who tell the people when to hurrah and for what! But if you cipher the matter out for yourself you will find it so, and not otherwise. Tell the demagogues, whig or democrat, that. It was an old Roman maxim, "The people wished to be deceived; let them." Now it is only practised on; not repeated—in public.

Let us deal justly even with war, giving that its due. There is one class of men who find their pecuniary advantage in it. I mean army contractors, when they chance to be favorites of the party in power; men who let steamboats to lie idle at $500 a day. This class of men rejoice in a war. The country may become poor, they are sure to be rich. Yet another class turn war to account, get the "glory," and become important in song and sermon. I see it stated in a newspaper that the Duke of Wellington has received, as gratuities for his military services, $5,400,000, and $40,000 a year in pensions!

But the waste of property is the smallest part of the evil. The waste of life in war is yet more terrible. Human life is a sacred thing. Go out into the lowest street of Boston; take the vilest and most squalid man in that miserable lane, and he is dear to some one. He is called brother; perhaps husband; it may be father; at least, son. A human heart, sadly joyful, beat over him before he was born. He has been pressed fondly to his mother's arms. Her tears and her smiles have been for him; perhaps also her prayers. His blood may be counted mean and vile by the great men of the earth who love nothing so well as the dear people, for he has no "coat of arms," no liveried servant to attend him, but it has run down from the same first man. His family is ancient as that of the most long descended king. God made him; made this splendid universe to wait on him and teach him; sent his Christ to save him. He is an immortal soul. Needlessly to spill that man's blood is an awful sin. It will cry against you out of the ground—Cain! where is thy brother? Now in war you bring together 50,000 men like him on one side, and 50,000 of a different nation on the other. They have no natural quarrel with one another. The earth is wide enough for both; neither hinders the sun from the other. Many come unwillingly; many not knowing what they fight for. It is but accident that determines on which side the man shall fight. The cannons pour their shot—round, grape, canister; the howitzers scatter their bursting shells; the muskets rain their leaden death; the sword, the bayonet, the horses' iron hoof, the wheels of the artillery, grind the men down into trodden dust. There they lie, the two masses of burning valor, extinguished, quenched, and grimly dead, each covering with his body the spot he defended with his arms. They had no quarrel; yet they lie there, slain by a brother's hand. It is not old and decrepid men, but men of the productive age, full of lusty life.

But it is only the smallest part that perish in battle. Exposure to cold, wet, heat; unhealthy climates, unwholesome food, rum, and forced marches, bring on diseases which mow down the poor soldiers worse than musketry and grape. Others languish of wounds, and slowly procrastinate a dreadful and a tenfold death. Far away, there are widows, orphans, childless old fathers, who pore over the daily news to learn at random the fate of a son, a father, or a husband! They crowd disconsolate into the churches, seeking of God the comfort men took from them, praying in the bitterness of a broken heart, while the priest gives thanks for "a famous victory," and hangs up the bloody standard over his pulpit!

When ordinary disease cuts off a man, when he dies at his duty, there is some comfort in that loss. "It was the ordinance of God," you say. You minister to his wants; you smoothe down the pillow for the aching head; your love beguiles the torment of disease, and your own bosom gathers half the darts of death. He goes in his time and God takes him. But when he dies in such a war, in battle, it is man who has robbed him of life. It is a murderer that is butchered. Nothing alleviates that bitter, burning smart!

Others not slain are maimed for life. This has no eyes; that no hands; another no feet nor legs. This has been pierced by lances, and torn with the shot, till scarce any thing human is left. The wreck of a body is crazed with pains God never meant for man. The mother that bore him would not know her child. Count the orphan asylums in Germany and Holland; go into the hospital at Greenwich, that of the invalids in Paris, you see the "trophies" of Napoleon and Wellington. Go to the arsenal at Toulon, see the wooden legs piled up there for men now active and whole, and you will think a little of the physical horrors of war.

In Boston there are perhaps about 25,000 able-bodied men between 18 and 45. Suppose them all slain in battle, or mortally hurt, or mown down by the camp-fever, vomito, or other diseases of war, and then fancy the distress, the heart-sickness amid wives, mothers, daughters, sons and fathers, here! Yet 25,000 is a small number to be murdered in "a famous victory;" a trifle for a whole "glorious campaign" in a great war. The men of Boston are no better loved than the men of Tamaulipas. There is scarce an old family, of the middle class, in all New England, which did not thus smart in the Revolution; many, which have not, to this day, recovered from the bloody blow then falling on them. Think, wives, of the butchery of your husbands; think, mothers, of the murder of your sons!

Here, too, the burden of battle falls mainly on the humble class. They pay the great tribute of money; they pay also the horrid tax of blood. It was not your rich men who fought even the Revolution; not they. Your men of property and standing were leaguing with the British, or fitting out privateers when that offered a good investment, or buying up the estates of more consistent tories; making money out of the nation's dire distress! True, there were most honorable exceptions; but such, I think, was the general rule. Let this be distinctly remembered, that the burden of battle is borne by the humble classes of men; they pay the vast tribute of money; the awful tax of blood! The "glory" is got by a few; poverty, wounds, death, are for the people!

Military glory is the poorest kind of distinction, but the most dangerous passion. It is an honor to man to be able to mould iron; to be skilful at working in cloth, wood, clay, leather. It is man's vocation to raise corn, to subdue the rebellious fibre of cotton and convert it into beautiful robes, full of comfort for the body. They are the heroes of the race who abridge the time of human toil and multiply its results; they who win great truths from God, and send them to a people's heart; they who balance the many and the one into harmonious action, so that all are united and yet each left free. But the glory which comes of epaulets and feathers; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood—what shall we say of it? In this day it is not heroism; it is an imitation of barbarism long ago passed by. Yet it is marvellous how many men are taken with a red coat! You expect it in Europe, a land of soldiers and blood. You are disappointed to find that here the champions of force should be held in honor, and that even the lowest should voluntarily enroll themselves as butchers of men!

Yet more: aggressive war is a sin; a corruption of the public morals. It is a practical denial of Christianity; a violation of God's eternal law of love. This is so plain that I shall say little upon it to-day. Your savagest and most vulgar captain would confess he does not fight as a Christian—but as a soldier; your magistrate calls for volunteers—not as a man loving Christianity, and loyal to God; only as Governor, under oath to keep the Constitution, the tradition of the elders; not under oath to keep the commandment of God! In war the laws are suspended, violence and cunning rule everywhere. The battle of Yorktown was gained by a lie, though a Washington told it. As a soldier it was his duty. Men "emulate the tiger;" the hand is bloody, and the heart hard. Robbery and murder are the rule, the glory of men. "Good men look sad, but ruffians dance and leap." Men are systematically trained to burn towns, to murder fathers and sons; taught to consider it "glory" to do so. The Government collects ruffians and cut-throats. It compels better men to serve with these and become cut-throats. It appoints chaplains to blaspheme Christianity; teaching the ruffians how to pray for the destruction of the enemy, the burning of his towns; to do this in the name of Christ and God. I do not censure all the men who serve: some of them know no better; they have heard that a man would "perish everlastingly" if he did not believe the Athanasian creed; that if he questioned the story of Jonah, or the miraculous birth of Jesus, he was in danger of hell-fire, and if he doubted damnation was sure to be damned. They never heard that such a war was a sin; that to create a war was treason, and to fight in it wrong. They never thought of thinking for themselves; their thinking was to read a newspaper, or sleep through a sermon. They counted it their duty to obey the Government without thinking if that Government be right or wrong. I deny not the noble, manly character of many a soldier, his heroism, self-denial and personal sacrifice.

Still, after all proper allowance is made for a few individuals, the whole system of war is unchristian and sinful. It lives only by evil passions. It can be defended only by what is low, selfish, and animal. It absorbs the scum of the cities, pirates, robbers, murderers. It makes them worse, and better men like them. To take one man's life is murder; what is it to practise killing as an art, a trade; to do it by thousands? Yet I think better of the hands that do the butchering than of the ambitious heads, the cold, remorseless hearts, which plunge the nation into war.

In war the State teaches men to lie, to steal, to kill. It calls for privateers, who are commonly pirates with a national charter, and pirates are privateers with only a personal charter. Every camp is a school of profanity, violence, licentiousness, and crimes too foul to name. It is so without sixty-five thousand gallons of whiskey. This is unavoidable. It was so with Washington's army, with Cornwallis's, with that of Gustavus Adolphus, perhaps the most moral army the world ever saw. The soldier's life generally unfits a man for the citizen's! When he returns from a camp, from a war, back to his native village, he becomes a curse to society and a shame to the mother that bore him. Even the soldiers of the Revolution, who survived the war, were mostly ruined for life, debauched, intemperate, vicious and vile. What loathsome creatures so many of them were! They bore our burden, for such were the real martyrs of that war, not the men who fell under the shot! How many men of the rank and file in the late war have since become respectable citizens?

To show how incompatible are War and Christianity, suppose that he who is deemed the most Christian of Christ's disciples, the well-beloved John, were made a navy-chaplain, and some morning, when a battle is daily looked for, should stand on the gun-deck, amid lockers of shot, his Bible resting on a cannon, and expound Christianity to men with cutlasses by their side! Let him read for the morning lesson the Sermon on the Mount, and for text take words from his own Epistle, so sweet, so beautiful, so true: "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God, for God is love." Suppose he tells his strange audience that all men are brothers; that God is their common father; that Christ loved us all, showing us how to live the life of love; and then, when he had melted all those savage hearts by words so winsome and so true, let him conclude, "Blessed are the men-slayers! Seek first the glory which cometh of battle. Be fierce as tigers. Mar God's image in which your brothers are made. Be not like Christ, but Cain who slew his brother! When you meet the enemy, fire into their bosoms; kill them in the dear name of Christ; butcher them in the spirit of God. Give them no quarter, for we ought not to lay down our lives for the brethren; only the murderer hath eternal life!"

Yet great as are these three-fold evils, there are times when the soberest men and the best men have welcomed war, coolly and in their better moments. Sometimes a people, long oppressed, has "petitioned, remonstrated, cast itself at the feet of the throne," with only insult for answer to its prayer. Sometimes there is a contest between a falsehood and a great truth; a self-protecting war for freedom of mind, heart and soul; yes, a war for a man's body, his wife's and children's body, for what is dearer to men than life itself, for the unalienable rights of man, for the idea that all are born free and equal. It was so in the American Revolution; in the English, in the French Revolution. In such cases men say, "Let it come." They take down the firelock in sorrow; with a prayer they go forth to battle, asking that the Right may triumph. Much as I hate war I cannot but honor such men. Were they better, yet more heroic, even war of that character might be avoided. Still it is a colder heart than mine which does not honor such men, though it believes them mistaken. Especially do we honor them, when it is the few, the scattered, the feeble, contending with the many and the mighty; the noble fighting for a great idea, and against the base and tyrannical. Then most men think the gain, the triumph of a great idea, is worth the price it costs, the price of blood.

I will not stop to touch that question, If man may ever shed the blood of man. But it is plain that an aggressive war like this is wholly unchristian, and a reproach to the nation and the age.

Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to bring them home to your door, let us suppose there was war between the counties of Suffolk, on the one side, and Middlesex on the other—this army at Boston, that at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dispute was the boundary line between the two, Boston claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the ocean at low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this, Boston seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not its own. The rulers on one side are fools, and traitors on the other. The two commanders have issued their proclamations; the money is borrowed; the whiskey provided; the soldiers—Americans, Negroes, Irishmen, all the able-bodied men—are enlisted. Prayers are offered in all the churches, and sermons preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain his first saint, an early Christian, a Christian before Christ. The Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge, burn the houses, churches, college-halls, and plunder the library. The men of Cambridge wish to seize Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its wares and its goods. Martial law is proclaimed on both sides. The men of Cambridge cut asunder the bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam, planting cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts crown the hilltops, else so green. Men, madder than lunatics, are crowded into the Asylum. The Bostonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck; replace the forts on Beacon-hill, Fort-hill, Copps-hill, levelling houses to make room for redoubts and bastions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got ready; the furnaces and magazines are all prepared. The three hills are grim with war. From Copps-hill men look anxious to that memorable height the other side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston; no man may pass the lines; the aqueduct refuses its genial supply; children cry for their expected food. The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most willingly; some are brought by force of drink, some by force of arms. Some are in brilliant dresses, some in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated by solemn words.[6] Your church-towers are military posts of observation. There are Old Testament prayers to the "God of Hosts" in all the churches of Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of Cambridge, make their wives widows, their children fatherless, their houses a ruin, the men corpses, meat for the beast of the field and the bird of the air. Last night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking Charlestown, raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls from Copps-hill, till they have burnt a thousand houses, where the British burnt not half so many. Women and children fled screaming from the blazing rafters of their homes. The men of Middlesex crowd into Charlestown.

In the mean time the Bostonians hastily repair a bridge or two; some pass that way, some over the Neck; all stealthily by night, and while the foe expect them at Bunker's, amid the blazing town, they have stolen a march and rush upon Cambridge itself. The Cambridge men turn back. The battle is fiercely joined. You hear the cannon, the sharp report of musketry. You crowd the hills, the house-tops; you line the Common, you cover the shore, yet you see but little in the sulphurous cloud. Now the Bostonians yield a little, a reinforcement goes over. All the men are gone; even the gray-headed who can shoulder a firelock. They plunge into battle mad with rage, madder with rum. The chaplains loiter behind.

"Pious men, whom duty brought,
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead!"

The battle hangs long in even scale. At length it turns. The Cambridge men retreat, they run, they fly. The houses burn. You see the churches and the colleges go up, a stream of fire. That library—founded amid want and war and sad sectarian strife, slowly gathered by the saving of two centuries, the hope of the poor scholar, the boast of the rich one—is scattered to the winds and burnt with fire, for the solid granite is blasted by powder, and the turrets fall. Victory is ours. Ten thousand men of Cambridge lie dead; eight thousand of Boston. There writhe the wounded; men who but few hours before were poured over the battle-field a lava flood of fiery valor—fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. There they lie, torn and mangled; black with powder; red with blood; parched with thirst; cursing the load of life they now must bear with bruised frames and mutilated limbs. Gather them into hasty hospitals—let this man's daughter come to-morrow and sit by him, fanning away the flies; he shall linger out a life of wretched anguish unspoken and unspeakable, and when he dies his wife religiously will keep the shot which tore his limbs. There is the battle-field! Here the horse charged; there the howitzers scattered their shells, pregnant with death; here the murderous canister and grape mowed down the crowded ranks; there the huge artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged o'er heaps of men—wounded friends who just now held its ropes, men yet curling with anguish, like worms in the fire. Hostile and friendly, head and trunk are crushed beneath those dreadful wheels. Here the infantry showered their murdering shot. That ghastly face was beautiful the day before—a sabre hewed its half away.

"The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay must cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent."

Again it is night. Oh, what a night, and after what a day! Yet the pure tide of woman's love, which never ebbs since earth began, flows on in spite of war and battle. Stealthily, by the pale moonlight, a mother of Boston treads the weary miles to reach that bloody spot; a widow she—seeking among the slain her only son. The arm of power drove him forth reluctant to the fight. A friendly soldier guides her way. Now she turns over this face, whose mouth is full of purple dust, bit out of the ground in his extremest agony, the last sacrament offered him by Earth herself; now she raises that form, cold, stiff, stony and ghastly as a dream of hell. But, lo! another comes, she too a woman, younger and fairer, yet not less bold, a maiden from the hostile town to seek her lover. They meet, two women among the corpses; two angels come to Golgotha, seeking to raise a man. There he lies before them; they look. Yes it is he you seek; the same dress, form, features too; it is he, the son, the lover. Maid and mother could tell that face in any light. The grass is wet with his blood. The ground is muddy with the life of men. The mother's innocent robe is drabbled in the blood her bosom bore. Their kisses, groans, and tears, recall the wounded man. He knows the mother's voice; that voice yet more beloved. His lips move only, for they cannot speak. He dies! The waxing moon moves high in heaven, walking in beauty amid the clouds, and murmurs soft her cradle song unto the slumbering earth. The broken sword reflects her placid beams. A star looks down and is imaged back in a pool of blood. The cool night wind plays in the branches of the trees shivered with shot. Nature is beautiful—that lovely grass underneath their feet; those pendulous branches of the leafy elm; the stars and that romantic moon lining the clouds with silver light! A groan of agony, hopeless and prolonged, wails out from that bloody ground. But in yonder farm the whippoorwill sings to her lover all night long; the rising tide ripples melodious against the shores. So wears the night away,—Nature, all sinless, round that field of woe.

"The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contained no tomb,
And glowing into day."

What a scene that morning looks upon! I will not turn again. Let the dead bury their dead. But their blood cries out of the ground against the rulers who shed it,—"Cain! where are thy brothers?" What shall the fool answer; what the traitor say?

Then comes thanksgiving in all the churches of Boston. The consecrated banners, stiff with blood and "glory," are hung over the altar. The minister preaches and the singer sings: "The Lord hath been on our side. He treadeth the people under me. He teacheth my hands to war, my fingers to fight. Yea, He giveth me the necks of mine enemies; for the Lord is his name;" and "It was a famous victory!" Boston seizes miles square of land; but her houses are empty; her wives widows; her children fatherless. Rachel weeps for the murder of her innocents, yet dares not rebuke the rod.

I know there is no fighting across Charles River, as in this poor fiction; but there was once, and instead of Charles say Rio Grande; for Cambridge read Metamoras, and it is what your President recommended; what your Congress enacted; what your Governor issued his proclamation for; what your volunteers go to accomplish: yes, what they fired cannon for on Boston Common the other day. I wish that were a fiction of mine!

We are waging a most iniquitous war—so it seems to me. I know I may be wrong, but I am no partisan, and if I err, it is not wilfully, not rashly. I know the Mexicans are a wretched people; wretched in their origin, history, and character. I know but two good things of them as a people—they abolished negro slavery, not long ago; they do not covet the lands of their neighbors. True, they have not paid all their debts, but it is scarcely decent in a nation, with any repudiating States, to throw the first stone at Mexico for that!

I know the Mexicans cannot stand before this terrible Anglo-Saxon race, the most formidable and powerful the world ever saw; a race which has never turned back; which, though it number less than forty millions, yet holds the Indies, almost the whole of North America; which rules the commerce of the world; clutches at New Holland, China, New Zealand, Borneo, and seizes island after island in the furthest seas; the race which invented steam as its awful type. The poor, wretched Mexicans can never stand before us. How they perished in battle! They must melt away as the Indians before the white man. Considering how we acquired Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, I cannot forbear thinking that this people will possess the whole of the continent before many years; perhaps before the century ends. But this may be had fairly; with no injustice to any one; by the steady advance of a superior race, with superior ideas and a better civilization; by commerce, trade, arts, by being better than Mexico, wiser, humaner, more free and manly. Is it not better to acquire it by the schoolmaster than the cannon; by peddling cloth, tin, any thing rather than bullets? It may not all belong to this Government, and yet to this race. It would be a gain to mankind if we could spread over that country the Idea of America—that all men are born free and equal in rights, and establish there political, social, and individual freedom. But to do that, we must first make real these ideas at home.

In the general issue between this race and that, we are in the right. But in this special issue, and this particular war, it seems to me that we are wholly in the wrong; that our invasion of Mexico is as bad as the partition of Poland in the last century and in this. If I understand the matter, the whole movement, the settlement of Texas, the Texan revolution, the annexation of Texas, the invasion of Mexico, has been a movement hostile to the American idea, a movement to extend slavery. I do not say such was the design on the part of the people, but on the part of the politicians who pulled the strings. I think the papers of the Government and the debates of Congress prove that. The annexation has been declared unconstitutional in its mode, a virtual dissolution of the Union, and that by very high and well-known authority. It was expressly brought about for the purpose of extending slavery. An attempt is now made to throw the shame of this on the democrats. I think the democrats deserve the shame; but I could never see that the whigs, on the whole, deserved it any less; only they were not quite so open. Certainly, their leaders did not take ground against it, never as against a modification of the tariff! When we annexed Texas we of course took her for better or worse, debts and all, and annexed her war along with her. I take it everybody knew that; though now some seem to pretend a decent astonishment at the result. Now one party is ready to fight for it as the other! The North did not oppose the annexation of Texas. Why not? They knew they could make money by it. The eyes of the North are full of cotton; they see nothing else, for a web is before them; their ears are full of cotton, and they hear nothing but the buzz of their mills; their mouth is full of cotton, and they can speak audibly but two words—Tariff, Tariff, Dividends, Dividends. The talent of the North is blinded, deafened, gagged with its own cotton. The North clamored loudly when the nation's treasure was removed from the United States Bank; it is almost silent at the annexation of a slave territory big as the kingdom of France, encumbered with debts, loaded with the entailment of war! Northern Governors call for soldiers; our men volunteer to fight in a most infamous war for the extension of slavery! Tell it not in Boston, whisper it not in Faneuil Hall, lest you weaken the slumbers of your fathers, and they curse you as cowards and traitors unto men! Not satisfied with annexing Texas and a war, we next invaded a territory which did not belong to Texas, and built a fort on the Rio Grande, where, I take it, we had no more right than the British, in 1841, had on the Penobscot or the Saco. Now the Government and its Congress would throw the blame on the innocent, and say war exists "by the act of Mexico!" If a lie was ever told, I think this is one. Then the "dear people" must be called on for money and men, for "the soil of this free republic is invaded," and the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the men who declared the annexation of Texas unconstitutional, recommends the war he just now told us to pray against, and appeals to our "patriotism," and "humanity," as arguments for butchering the Mexicans, when they are in the right and we in the wrong! The maxim is held up, "Our country, right or wrong;" "Our country, howsoever bounded;" and it might as well be, "Our country, howsoever governed." It seems popularly and politically forgotten that there is such a thing as Right. The nation's neck invites a tyrant. I am not at all astonished that northern representatives voted for all this work of crime. They are no better than southern representatives; scarcely less in favor of slavery, and not half so open. They say: Let the North make money, and you may do what you please with the nation; and we will choose governors that dare not oppose you, for, though we are descended from the Puritans we have but one article in our creed we never flinch from following, and that is—to make money; honestly, if we can; if not, as we can!

Look through the action of your Government, and your Congress. You see that no reference has been had in this affair to Christian ideas; none to justice and the eternal right. Nay, none at all! In the churches, and among the people, how feeble has been the protest against this great wrong. How tamely the people yield their necks—and say: "Take our sons for the war—we care not, right or wrong." England butchers the Sikhs in India—her generals are elevated to the peerage, and the head of her church writes a form of thanksgiving for the victory, to be read in all the churches of that Christian land.[7] To make it still more abominable, the blasphemy is enacted on Easter Sunday, the great holiday of men who serve the Prince of Peace. We have not had prayers in the churches, for we have no political Archbishop. But we fired cannon in joy that we had butchered a few wretched men—half starved, and forced into the ranks by fear of death! Your peace societies, and your churches, what can they do? What dare they? Verily, we are a faithless and perverse generation. God be merciful to us, sinners as we are!

But why talk for ever? What shall we do? In regard to this present war, we can refuse to take any part in it; we can encourage others to do the same; we can aid men, if need be, who suffer because they refuse. Men will call us traitors: what then? That hurt nobody in '76! We are a rebellious nation; our whole history is treason; our blood was attainted before we were born; our creeds are infidelity to the mother-church; our Constitution treason to our father-land. What of that? Though all the governors in the world bid us commit treason against man, and set the example, let us never submit. Let God only be a master to control our conscience!

We can hold public meetings in favor of peace, in which what is wrong shall be exposed and condemned. It is proof of our cowardice that this has not been done before now. We can show in what the infamy of a nation consists; in what its real glory. One of your own men, the last summer, startled the churches out of their sleep,[8] by his manly trumpet, talking with us, and telling that the true grandeur of a nation was justice, not glory; peace, not war.

We can work now for future times, by taking pains to spread abroad the sentiments of peace, the ideas of peace, among the people in schools, churches—everywhere. At length we can diminish the power of the national Government, so that the people alone shall have the power to declare war, by a direct vote, the Congress only to recommend it. We can take from the Government the means of war by raising only revenue enough for the nation's actual wants, and raising that directly, so that each man knows what he pays, and when he pays it, and then he will take care that it is not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can diffuse a real practical Christianity among the people, till the mass of men have courage enough to overcome evil with good, and look at aggressive war as the worst of treason and the foulest infidelity!

Now is the time to push and be active. War itself gives weight to words of peace. There will never be a better time till we make the times better. It is not a day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that the "honor of the nation" will suffer from Christian movements for peace. What if your men of low degree are a vanity, and your men of high degree are a lie? That is no new thing. Let true men do their duty, and the lie and the vanity will pass each to its reward. Wait not for the churches to move, or the State to become Christian. Let us bear our testimony like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels; fearing only to be such.

I would call on Americans, by their love of our country, its great ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes, and the memory of its fathers—to come and help save that country from infamy and ruin. I would call on Christians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift up their voice, public and private, against the foulest violation of God's law, this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of Christ, this worst form of infidelity to man and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike in all your bosoms, to protest manfully against this desecration of the earth, this high treason against both man and God. Teach your rulers that you are Americans, not slaves; Christians, not heathen; men, not murderers, to kill for hire! You may effect little in this generation, for its head seems crazed and its heart rotten. But there will be a day after to-day. It is for you and me to make it better; a day of peace, when nation shall no longer lift up sword against nation; when all shall indeed be brothers, and all blest. Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this beautiful land; Christ will be near you; God work with you, and bless you for ever!

This present trouble with Mexico may be very brief; surely it might be even now brought to an end with no unusual manhood in your rulers. Can we say we have not deserved it? Let it end, but let us remember that war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which ever befalls a people. It is far worse for a people to lose all reverence for right, for truth, all respect for man and God; to care more for the freedom of trade than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than millions of souls. This calamity came upon us gradually, long before the present war, and will last long after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and see our own likeness! We reverence force, and have forgot there is any right beyond the vote of a Congress or a people; any good beside dollars; any God but majorities and force, I think the present war, though it should cost 50,000 men and $50,000,000, the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad we are looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers! What can we say in our defence? Alas, the nation is a traitor to its great idea,—that all men are born equal, each with the same unalienable rights. We are infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of our shame.

There have been dark days in this nation before now. It was gloomy when Washington with his little army fled through the Jerseys. It was a long dark day from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the nation never so false. There was never a time when resistance to tyrants was so rare a virtue; when the people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can feel the darkness. The sack of this city and the butchery of its people were a far less evil than the moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up again like the mown grass; but to raise up saints and heroes in a dead nation corrupting beside its golden tomb, what shall do that for us? We must look not to the many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto God and man.

I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart intellect of this people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the Christianity of Christ! Oh, Lord! make the vision true; waken thy prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and me, and all of us: The right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die, and History responds her long amen.

What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up his children—Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, Athens, Rome—once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie the waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the Mississippi and the far distant Oregon—rolling their riches to the sea. He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his left, are the harbors, shops and mills of the East, and a five-fold gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right, spread out the broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-colored light; some bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and holds these sacred words—All men are equal, born with equal rights from God. The old says to the young: "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky Mountains say "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing, shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indians' blood; my hand has forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink his blood, for I have made my covenant of lies, and leagued with hell for my support. There is no right, no truth; Christianity is false, and God a name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, casting his Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he brandishes the negro-driver's whip, crying again—"Say, who is God, and what is Right." And all his mountains echo—Right. But the old genius sadly says again: "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper." The hollow tomb of Egypt, Athens, Rome, of every ancient State, with all their wandering ghosts, replies, "Amen."

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Isaiah lxiii. 1-6. Noyes's Version.

The People.
1. Who is this that cometh from Edom?
In scarlet garments from Bozrah?
This, that is glorious in his apparel,
Proud in the greatness of his strength?
Jehovah.
I, that proclaim deliverance,
And am mighty to save.
The People.
2. Wherefore is thine apparel red,
And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine-vat?
Jehovah.
3. I have trodden the wine-vat alone,
And of the nations there was none with me.
And I trod them in mine anger,
And I trampled them in my fury,
So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments,
And I have stained all my apparel.
4. For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
And the year of my deliverance was come.
5. And I looked, and there was none to help,
And I wondered, that there was none to uphold,
Therefore my own arm wrought salvation for me,
And my fury, it sustained me.
6. I trod down the nations in my anger;
I crushed them in my fury,
And spilled their blood upon the ground.

[4] To show the differences between the Old and New Testament, and to serve as introduction to this discourse, the following passages were read as the morning lesson: Exodus, xv. 1-6; 2 Sam. xxii. 32, 35-43, 48; xlv. 3-5; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16; Joel, iii. 9-17, and Matt. v. 3-11, 38-39, 43-45.

[5] Such was the price offered, and such the number of soldiers then called for.

[6] See the appropriate forms of prayer for that service by the present Bishop of Oxford, in Jay's Address before the American Peace Society, in 1845.

[7] Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God.

"O Lord God of Hosts, in whose hand is power and might irresistible, we, thine unworthy servants, most humbly acknowledge thy goodness in the victories lately vouchsafed to the armies of our Sovereign over a host of barbarous invaders, who sought to spread desolation over fruitful and populous provinces, enjoying the blessings of peace, under the protection of the British Crown. We bless Thee, O merciful Lord, for having brought to a speedy and prosperous issue a war to which no occasion had been given by injustice on our part, or apprehension of injury at our hands! To Thee, O Lord, we ascribe the glory! It was Thy wisdom which guided the counsel! Thy power which strengthened the hands of those whom it pleased Thee to use as Thy instruments in the discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the frustration of his ambitious designs! From Thee, alone, cometh the victory, and the spirit of moderation and mercy in the day of success. Continue, we beseech Thee, to go forth with our armies, whensoever they are called into battle in a righteous cause; and dispose the hearts of their leaders to exact nothing more from the vanquished than is necessary for the maintenance of peace and security against violence and rapine.

"Above all, give Thy grace to those who preside in the councils of our Sovereign, and administer the concerns of her widely extended dominions, that they may apply all their endeavors to the purposes designed by Thy good Providence, in committing such power to their hands, the temporal and spiritual benefit of the nations intrusted to their care.

"And whilst Thou preservest our distant possessions from the horrors of war, give us peace and plenty at home, that the earth may yield her increase, and that we, Thy servants, receiving Thy blessings with thankfulness and gladness of heart, may dwell together in unity, and faithfully serve Thee, to Thy honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, belong all dominion and power, both in heaven and earth, now and for ever. Amen."—See a defence of this prayer, in the London "Christian Observer" for May, p. 319, et seq., and for June, p. 346, et seq.

Would you know what he gave thanks for on Easter Sunday? Here is the history of the battle:

"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the hand-to-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours. The river was full of sinking men. For two hours, volley after volley was poured in upon the human mass—the stream being literally red with blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last, the musket ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the horse artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. No compassion was felt or mercy shown." But "'twas a famous victory!"

[8] Mr. Charles Sumner.

IV.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL, FEBRUARY 4, 1847.

Mr. Chairman,—We have come here to consult for the honor of our country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I love my country; I love her honor. It is dear to me almost as my own. I have seen stormy meetings in Faneuil Hall before now, and am not easily disturbed by a popular tumult. But never before did I see a body of armed soldiers attempting to overawe the majesty of the people, when met to deliberate on the people's affairs. Yet the meetings of the people of Boston have been disturbed by soldiers before now, by British bayonets; but never since the Boston massacre on the 5th of March, 1770! Our fathers hated a standing army. This is a new one, but behold the effect! Here are soldiers with bayonets to overawe the majesty of the people! They went to our meeting last Monday night, the hireling soldiers of President Polk, to overawe and disturb the meetings of honest men. Here they are now, and in arms!

We are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. Men, needed to hew wood and honestly serve society, are marching about your streets; they are learning to kill men, men who never harmed us, nor them; learning to kill their brothers. It is a mean and infamous war we are fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one, and that little one feeble and sick. What makes it worse is, the little boy is in the right, and the big boy is in the wrong, and tells solemn lies to make his side seem right. He wants, besides, to make the small boy pay the expenses of the quarrel.

The friends of the war say "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Ay, but she owes us money." Better say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want to steal it!"

This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of slavery. It is not enough that there are fifteen Slave States, and 3,000,000 men here who have no legal rights—not so much as the horse and the ox have in Boston: it is not enough that the slaveholders annexed Texas, and made slavery perpetual therein, extending even north of Mason and Dixon's line, covering a territory forty-five times as large as the State of Massachusetts. Oh, no; we must have yet more land to whip negroes in!

The war had a mean and infamous beginning. It began illegally, unconstitutionally. The Whigs say, "the President made the war." Mr. Webster says so! It went on meanly and infamously. Your Congress lied about it. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; the whigs lied just as badly. Your Congress has seldom been so single-mouthed before. Why, only sixteen voted against the war, or the lie. I say this war is mean and infamous all the more, because waged by a people calling itself democratic and Christian. I know but one war so bad in modern times, between civilized nations, and that was the war for the partition of Poland. Even for that there was more excuse.

We have come to Faneuil Hall to talk about the war; to work against the war. It is rather late, but "better late than never." We have let two opportunities for work pass unemployed. One came while the annexation of Texas was pending. Then was the time to push and be active. Then was the time for Massachusetts and all the North, to protest as one man against the extension of slavery. Everybody knew all about the matter, the democrats and the whigs. But how few worked against that gross mischief! One noble man lifted up his warning voice;[9] a man noble in his father,—and there he stands in marble; noble in himself—and there he stands yet higher up—and I hope time will show him yet nobler in his son, and there he stands, not in marble, but in man! He talked against it, worked against it, fought against it. But Massachusetts did little. Her tonguey men said little; her handymen did little. Too little could not be done or said. True, we came here to Faneuil Hall and passed resolutions; good resolutions they were, too. Daniel Webster wrote them, it is said. They did the same in the State House; but nothing came of them. They say "Hell is paved with resolutions;" these were of that sort of resolutions; which resolve nothing because they are of words, not works!

Well, we passed the resolutions; you know who opposed them; who hung back and did nothing, nothing good I mean; quite enough not good. Then we thought all the danger was over; that the resolutions settled the matter. But then was the time to confound at once the enemies of your country; to show an even front hostile to slavery.

But the chosen time passed over, and nothing was done. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; a whig Senate annexed Texas, and so annexed a war. We ought to have told our delegation in Congress, if Texas were annexed, to come home, and we would breathe upon it and sleep upon it, and then see what to do next. Had our resolutions, taken so warmly here in Faneuil Hall in 1845, been but as warmly worked out, we had now been as terrible to the slave power as the slave power, since extended, now is to us!

Why was it that we did nothing? That is a public secret. Perhaps I ought not to tell it to the people. (Cries of "Tell it.")

The annexation of Texas, a slave territory big as the kingdom of France, would not furl a sail on the ocean; would not stop a mill-wheel at Lowell! Men thought so.

That time passed by, and there came another. The Government had made war; the Congress voted the dollars, voted the men, voted a lie. Your representative, men of Boston, voted for all three; the lie, the dollars, and the men; all three, in obedience to the slave power! Let him excuse that to the conscience of his party; it is an easy matter. I do not believe he can excuse it to his own conscience. To the conscience of the world it admits of no excuse. Your President called for volunteers, 50,000 of them. Then came an opportunity such as offers not once in one hundred years, an opportunity to speak for freedom and the rights of mankind! Then was the time for Massachusetts to stand up in the spirit of '76, and say, "We won't send a man, from Cape Ann to Williamstown—not one Yankee man, for this wicked war." Then was the time for your Governor to say, "Not a volunteer for this wicked war." Then was the time for your merchants to say, "Not a ship, not a dollar for this wicked war;" for your manufacturers to say, "We will not make you a cannon, nor a sword, nor a kernel of powder, nor a soldier's shirt, for this wicked war." Then was the time for all good men to say, "This is a war for slavery, a mean and infamous war; an aristocratic war, a war against the best interests of mankind. If God please, we will die a thousand times, but never draw blade in this wicked war." (Cries of "Throw him over," etc.) Throw him over, what good would that do? What would you do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of this war! would not make it less wicked!

That is what a democratic nation, a Christian people ought to have said, ought to have done. But we did not say so; the Bay State did not say so, nor your Governor, nor your merchants, nor your manufacturers, nor your good men; the Governor accepted the President's decree, issued his proclamation calling for soldiers, recommended men to enlist, appealing to their "patriotism" and "humanity."

Governor Briggs is a good man, and so far I honor him. He is a temperance man, strong and consistent; I honor him for that. He is a friend of education; a friend of the people. I wish there were more such. Like many other New England men, he started from humble beginnings; but unlike many such successful men of New England, he is not ashamed of the lowest round he ever trod on. I honor him for all this. But that was a time which tried men's souls, and his soul could not stand the rack. I am sorry for him. He did as the President told him.

What was the reason for all this? Massachusetts did not like the war, even then; yet she gave her consent to it. Why so? There are two words which can drive the blood out of the cheeks of cowardly men in Massachusetts any time. They are "Federalism" and "Hartford Convention!" The fear of those words palsied the conscience of Massachusetts, and so her Governor did as he was told. I feel no fear of either. The Federalists did not see all things; who ever did? They had not the ideas which were destined to rule this nation; they looked back when the age looked forward. But to their own ideas they were true; and if ever a nobler body of men held state in any nation, I have yet to learn when or where. If we had had the shadow of Caleb Strong in the Governor's chair, not a volunteer for this war had gone out of Massachusetts.

I have not told quite all the reasons why Massachusetts did nothing. Men knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, but by a tariff which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring, when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say "No matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our dividends;" always some poor men, who say "No matter how much the nation suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby." Well, they lost their virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved to gain.

Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic, to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of "Yes.") Then what do you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too? He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall. Do you think that is democratic? Some men have just asked Massachusetts for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all this wickedness.

I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal. From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and colonels, who will have least of the hardships, most of the pay, and all of the "glory." I blame the men that made the war; the men that make money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr. Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, "No, he didn't.") Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, "He did right!") No, he should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did not he declare this war unconstitutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it, and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, "Our country, howsoever bounded," bounded by robbery or bounded by right lines! Has it not been said, all round, "Our country, right or wrong!"

I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive the nation! (Cries of "Throw him over, kill him, kill him," and a flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will hurt one hair of my head.

I say again it is time for the people to take up this matter. Your Congress will do nothing till you tell them what and how! Your 29th Congress can do little good. Its sands are nearly run, God be thanked! It is the most infamous Congress we ever had. We began with the Congress that declared Independence, and swore by the Eternal Justice of God. We have come down to the 29th Congress, which declared war existed by the act of Mexico, declared a lie; the Congress that swore by the Baltimore Convention! We began with George Washington, and have got down to James K. Polk.

It is time for the people of Massachusetts to instruct their servants in Congress to oppose this war; to refuse all supplies for it; to ask for the recall of the army into our own land. It is time for us to tell them that not an inch of slave territory shall ever be added to the realm. Let us remonstrate; let us petition; let us command. If any class of men have hitherto been remiss, let them come forward now and give us their names—the merchants, the manufacturers, the whigs and the democrats. If men love their country better than their party or their purse, now let them show it.

Let us ask the General Court of Massachusetts to cancel every commission which the Governor has given to the officers of the volunteers. Let us ask them to disband the companies not yet mustered into actual service; and then, if you like that, ask them to call a convention of the people of Massachusetts, to see what we shall do in reference to the war; in reference to the annexation of more territory; in reference to the violation of the Constitution! (Loud groans from crowds of rude fellows in several parts of the hall.) That was a tory groan; they never dared groan so in Faneuil Hall before; not even the British tories, when they had no bayonets to back them up! I say, let us ask for these things!

Your President tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason is it? treason to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong,—it is only the threshold of ruin. I would not have my country take the next step. Treason is it, to show that this war is wrong and wicked! Why, what if George III., any time from '75 to '83, had gone down to Parliament and told them it was treason to discuss the war then waging against these colonies! What do you think the Commons would have said? What would the Lords say? Why, that King, foolish as he was, would have been lucky, if he had not learned there was a joint in his neck, and, stiff as he bore him, that the people knew how to find it.

I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the war—its cause, its progress, or its termination!

Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his ships in aid of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with, while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong.

I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the shore hard, smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore Convention,—I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in the name of the country, in the name of man, yes, in the name of God: Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery, extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations, because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded; because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do; because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice of all-judging God. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then act like men.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] John Quincy Adams.

V.

A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 1848.

Soon after the commencement of the war against Mexico, I said something respecting it in this place. But while I was printing the sermon, I was advised to hasten the compositors in their work, or the war would be over before the sermon was out. The advice was like a good deal of the counsel that is given to a man who thinks for himself, and honestly speaks what he unavoidably thinks. It is now more than two years since the war began; I have hoped to live long enough to see it ended, and hoped to say a word about it when over. A month ago, this day, the 25th of May, the treaty of peace, so much talked of, was ratified by the Mexican Congress. A few days ago, it was officially announced by telegraph to your collector in Boston, that the war with Mexico was at an end.

There are two things about this war quite remarkable. The first is, the manner of its commencement. It was begun illegally, without the action of the constitutional authorities; begun by the command of the President of the United States, who ordered the American army into a territory which the Mexicans claimed as their own. The President says "It is ours," but the Mexicans also claimed it, and were in possession thereof until forcibly expelled. This is a plain case, and as I have elsewhere treated at length of this matter,[10] I will not dwell upon it again, except to mention a single fact but recently divulged. It is well known that Mr. Polk claimed the territory west of the Nueces and east of the Rio Grande, as forming a part of Texas, and therefore as forming part of the United States after the annexation of Texas. He contends that Mexico began the war by attacking the American army while in that territory and near the Rio Grande. But, from the correspondence laid before the American Senate, in its secret session for considering the treaty, it now appears that on the 10th of November, 1845, Mr. Polk instructed Mr. Slidell to offer a relinquishment of American claims against Mexico, amounting to $5,000,000 or $6,000,000, for the sake of having the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas; yes, for that very territory which he says was ours without paying a cent. When it was conquered, a military government was established there, as in other places in Mexico.

The other remarkable thing about the war is, the manner of its conclusion. The treaty of peace which has just been ratified by the Mexican authorities, and which puts an end to the war, was negotiated by a man who had no more legal authority than any one of us has to do it. Mr. Polk made the war, without consulting Congress, and that body adopted the war by a vote almost unanimous. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist made the treaty, without consulting the President; yes, even after the President had ordered him to return home. As the Congress adopted Mr. Polk's war, so Mr. Polk adopted Mr. Trist's treaty, and the war illegally begun is brought informally to a close. Mr. Polk is now in the President's chair, seated on the throne of the Union, although he made the war; and Mr. Trist, it is said, is under arrest for making the treaty, meddling with what was none of his business.

When the war began, there was a good deal of talk about it here; talk against it. But, as things often go in Boston, it ended in talk. The news-boys made money out of the war. Political parties were true to their wonted principles, or their wonted prejudices. The friends of the party in power could see no informality in the beginning of hostilities; no injustice in the war itself; not even an impolicy. They were offended if an obscure man preached against it of a Sunday. The political opponents of the party in power talked against the war, as a matter of course; but, when the elections came, supported the men that made it with unusual alacrity—their deeds serving as commentary upon their words, and making further remark thereon, in this place, quite superfluous. Many men,—who, whatever other parts of Scripture they may forget, never cease to remember that "Money answereth all things,"—diligently set themselves to make money out of the war and the new turn it gave to national affairs. Others thought that "glory" was a good thing, and so engaged in the war itself, hoping to return, in due time, all glittering with its honors.

So what with the one political party that really praised the war, and the other who affected to oppose it, and with the commercial party, who looked only for a market—this for merchandise and that for "patriotism"—the friends of peace, who seriously and heartily opposed the war, were very few in number. True, the "sober second thought" of the people has somewhat increased their number; but they are still few, mostly obscure men.

Now peace has come, nobody talks much about it; the news-boys have scarce made a cent by the news. They fired cannons, a hundred guns on the Common, for joy at the victory of Monterey; at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, New York, men illuminated their houses in honor of the battle of Buena Vista, I think it was; the custom-house was officially illuminated at Boston for that occasion. But we hear of no cannons to welcome the peace. Thus far, it does not seem that a single candle has been burnt in rejoicing for that. The newspapers are full of talk, as usual; flags are flying in the streets; the air is a little noisy with hurrahs, but it is all talk about the conventions at Baltimore and Philadelphia; hurrahs for Taylor and Cass. Nobody talks of the peace. Flags enough flap in the wind, with the names of rival candidates; but nowhere do the stripes and stars bear Peace as their motto. The peace now secured is purchased with such conditions imposed on Mexico, that while every one will be glad of it, no man, that loves justice, can be proud of it. Very little is said about the treaty. The distinguished senator from Massachusetts did himself honor, it seems to me, in voting against it on the ground that it enabled us to plunder Mexico of her land. But the treaty contains some things highly honorable to the character of the nation, of which we may well enough be proud, if ever of any thing. I refer to the twenty-second and twenty-third articles, which provide for arbitration between the nations, if future difficulties should occur; and to the pains taken, in case of actual hostilities, for the security of all unarmed persons, for the protection of private property, and for the humane treatment of all prisoners taken in war. These ideas, and the language of these articles, are copied from the celebrated treaty between the United States and Prussia, the treaty of 1785. It is scarcely needful to add, that they were then introduced by that great and good man, Benjamin Franklin, one of the negotiators of the treaty. They made a new epoch in diplomacy, and introduced a principle previously unknown in the law of nations. The insertion of these articles in the new treaty is, perhaps, the only thing connected with the war, which an American can look upon with satisfaction. Yet this fact excites no attention.[11]

Still, while so little notice is taken of this matter, in public and private, it may be worth while for a minister, on Sunday, to say a word about the peace; and, now the war is over, to look back upon it, to see what it has cost, in money and in men, and what we have got by it; what its consequences have been, thus far, and are likely to be for the future; what new dangers and duties come from this cause interpolated into our nation. We have been long promised "indemnity for the past, and security for the future:" let us see what we are to be indemnified for, and what secured against. The natural justice of the war I will not look at now.

First, then, of the cost of the war. Money is the first thing with a good many men; the only thing with some; and an important thing with all. So, first of all, let me speak of the cost of the war in dollars. It is a little difficult to determine the actual cost of the war, thus far—even its direct cost; for the bills are not all in the hands of Government; and then, as a matter of political party-craft, the Government, of course, is unwilling to let the full cost become known before the next election is over. So it is to be expected that the Government will keep the facts from the people as long as possible. Most Governments would do the same. But Truth has a right of way everywhere, and will recover it at last, spite of the adverse possession of a political party. The indirect cost of the war must be still more difficult to come at, and will long remain a matter of calculation, in which it is impossible to reach certainty. We do not know yet the entire cost of the Florida war, or the late war with England; the complete cost of the Revolutionary war must forever be unknown.

It is natural for most men to exaggerate what favors their argument; but when I cannot obtain the exact figures, I will come a good deal within the probable amount. The military and naval appropriations for the year ending in June, 1847, were $40,865,155.96; for the next year, $31,377,679.92; the sum asked for the present year, till next June, $42,224,000; making a whole of $114,466,835.88. It is true that all this appropriation is not for the Mexican war, but it is also true that this sum does not include all the appropriations for the war. Estimating the sums already paid by the Government, the private claims presented and to be presented, the $15,000,000 to be paid Mexico as purchase-money for the territory we take from her, the $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to be paid our own citizens for their claims against her,—I think I am a good deal within the mark when I say the war will have cost $150,000,000 before the soldiers are at home, discharged, and out of the pay of the state. In this sum I do not include the bounty-lands to be given to the soldiers and officers, nor the pensions to be paid them, their widows and orphans, for years to come. I will estimate that at $50,000,000 more, making a whole of $200,000,000 which has been paid or must be. This is the direct cost to the Federal Government, and of course does not include the sums paid by individual States, or bestowed by private generosity, to feed and clothe the volunteers before they were mustered into service. This may seem extravagant; but, fifty years hence, when party spirit no longer blinds men's eyes, and when the whole is a matter of history, I think it will be thought moderate, and be found a good deal within the actual and direct cost. Some of this cost will appear as a public debt. Statements recently made respecting it can hardly be trusted, notwithstanding the authority on which they rest. Part of this war debt is funded already, part not yet funded. When the outstanding demands are all settled, and the treasury notes redeemed, there will probably be a war debt of not less than $125,000,000. At least, such is the estimate of an impartial and thoroughly competent judge. But, not to exaggerate, let us call it only $100,000,000.

It will, perhaps, be said: Part of this money, all that is paid in pensions, is a charity, and therefore no loss. But it is a charity paid to men who, except for the war, would have needed no such aid; and, therefore, a waste. Of the actual cost of the war, some three or four millions have been spent in extravagant prices for hiring or purchasing ships, in buying provisions and various things needed by the army, and supplied by political favorites at exorbitant rates. This is the only portion of the cost which is not a sheer waste; here the money has only changed hands; nothing has been destroyed, except the honesty of the parties concerned in such transactions. If a farmer hires men to help him till the soil, the men earn their subsistence and their wages, and leave, besides, a profit to their employer; when the season is over, he has his crops and his improvements as the return for their pay and subsistence. But for all that the soldier has consumed, for his wages, his clothes, his food and drink, the fighting tools he has worn out, and the ammunition he has expended, there is no available return to show; all that is a clear waste. The beef is eaten up, the cloth worn away, the powder is burnt, and what is there to show for it all? Nothing but the "glory." You sent out sound men, and they come back, many of them, sick and maimed; some of them are slain.

The indirect pecuniary cost of the war is caused, first, by diverting some 150,000 men, engaged in the war directly or remotely, from the works of productive industry, to the labors of war, which produce nothing; and, secondly, by disturbing the regular business of the country, first by the withdrawal of men from their natural work; then, by withdrawing large quantities of money from the active capital of the nation; and, finally, by the general uncertainty which it causes all over the land, thus hindering men from undertaking or prosecuting successfully their various productive enterprises. If 150,000 men earn on the average but $200 apiece, that alone amounts to $30,000,000. The withdrawal of such an amount of labor from the common industry of the country must be seriously felt. At any rate, the nation has earned $30,000,000 less than it would have done, if these men had kept about their common work.

But the diversion of capital from its natural and pacific direction is a greater evil in this case. America is rich, but her wealth consists mainly in land, in houses, cattle, ships, and various things needed for human comfort and industry. In money, we are poor. The amount of money is small in proportion to the actual wealth of the nation, and also in proportion to its activity which is indicated by the business of the nation. In actual wealth, the free States of America are probably the richest people in the world; but in money we are poorer than many other nations. This is plain enough, though perhaps not very well known, and is shown by the fact that interest, in European States, is from two to four per cent. a year, and in America from six to nine. The active capital of America is small. Now in this war, a national debt has accumulated, which probably is or will soon be $100,000,000 or $125,000,000. All this great sum of money has, of course, been taken from the active capital of the country, and there has been so much less for the use of the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant. But for this war, these 150,000 men and these $100,000,000 would have been devoted to productive industry; and the result would have been shown by the increase of our annual earnings, in increased wealth and comfort.

Then war produced uncertainty, and that distrust amongst men. Therefore many were hindered from undertaking new works, and others found their old enterprises ruined at once. In this way there has been a great loss, which cannot be accurately estimated. I think no man, familiar with American industry, would rate this indirect loss lower than $100,000,000; some, perhaps, at twice as much; but to avoid all possibility of exaggeration, let us call it half the smallest of these sums, or $50,000,000, as the complete pecuniary cost of the Mexican war, direct and indirect.

What have we got to show for all this money? We have a large tract of territory, containing, in all, both east and west of the Rio Grande, I am told, between 700,000 and 800,000 square miles. Accounts differ as to its value. But it appears, from the recent correspondence of Mr. Slidell, that in 1845 the President offered Mexico, in money, $25,000,000 for that territory which we now acquire under this new treaty. Suppose it is worth more, suppose it is worth twice as much, or all the indirect cost of the war ($50,000,000), then the $200,000,000 are thrown away.

Now, for this last sum, we could have built a sufficient railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another across the continent, from the Mississippi to the Pacific. If such a road, with its suitable equipment, cost $100,000 a mile, and the distance should amount to 2,000 miles, then the $200,000,000 would just pay the bills. That would have been the greatest national work of productive industry in the world. In comparison with it, the Lake Mœris and the Pyramids of Egypt, and the Wall of China seem but the works of a child. It might be a work to be proud of till the world ends; one, too, which would advance the industry, the welfare, and general civilization of mankind to a great degree, diminishing, by half, the distance round the globe; saving millions of property and many lives each year; besides furnishing, it is thought, a handsome income from the original outlay. But, perhaps, that would not be the best use which might be made of the money; perhaps it would not have been wise to undertake that work. I do not pretend to judge of such matters, only to show what might be done with that sum of money, if we were disposed to construct works of such a character. At any rate, two Pacific railroads would be better than one Mexican war. We are seldom aware of the cost of war. If a single regiment of dragoons cost only $700,000 a year, which is a good deal less than the actual cost, that is considerably more than the cost of twelve colleges like Harvard University, with its schools for theology, law, and medicine; its scientific school, observatory, and all. We are, taken as a whole, a very ignorant people; and while we waste our school-money and school-time, must continue so.

A great man, who towers far above the common heads, full of creative thought, of the ideas which move the world, able to organize that thought into institutions, laws, practical works; a man of a million, a million-minded man, at the head of a nation, putting his thought into them; ruling not barely by virtue of his position, but by the intellectual and moral power to fill it; ruling not over men's heads, but in their minds and hearts, and leading them to new fields of toil, increasing their numbers, wealth, intelligence, comfort, morals, piety—such a man is a noble sight; a Charlemagne, or a Genghis Khan, a Moses leading his nation up from Egyptian bondage to freedom and the promised land. How have the eyes of the world been fixed on Washington! In darker days than ours, when all was violence, it is easy to excuse such men if they were warriors also, and made, for the time, their nation but a camp. There have been ages when the most lasting ink was human blood. In our day, when war is the exception, and that commonly needless, such a man, so getting the start of the majestic world, were a far grander sight. And with such a man at the head of this nation, a great man at the head of a free nation, able and energetic, and enterprising as we are, what were too much to hope? As it is, we have wasted our money, and got, the honor of fighting such a war.

Let me next speak of the direct cost of the war in men. In April, 1846, the entire army of the United States, consisted of 7,244 men; the naval force of about 7,500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation 20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and only 7,000 or 8,000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than 15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of a standing army. At that time, the standing army of France was about 480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the officers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file, had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding the blood of men. The navy and army were looked on as instruments of peace; as much so as the police of a city.

The first of last January, there was, in Mexico, an American army of 23,695 regular soldiers, and a little more than 50,000 volunteers, the number cannot now be exactly determined, making an army of invasion of about 75,000 men. The naval forces, also, had been increased to 10,000. Estimating all the men engaged in the service of the army and navy; in making weapons of war and ammunition; in preparing food and clothing; in transporting those things and the soldiers from place to place, by land or sea, and in performing the various other works incident to military operations, it is within bounds to say that there were 80,000 or 90,000 men engaged indirectly in the works of war. But not to exaggerate, it is safe to say that 150,000 men were directly or indirectly engaged in the Mexican war. This estimate will seem moderate, when you remember that there were about 5,000 teamsters connected with the army in Mexico.

Here, then, were 150,000 men whose attention and toil were diverted from the great business of productive industry to merely military operations, or preparations for them. Of course, all the labor of these men was of no direct value to the human race. The food and clothing and labor of a man who earns nothing by productive work of hand or head, is food, clothing, and labor thrown away; labor in vain. There is nothing to show for the things he has consumed. So all the work spent in preparing ammunition and weapons of war is labor thrown away, an absolute loss, as much as if it had been spent in making earthen pitchers and then in dashing them to pieces. A country is the richer for every serviceable plough and spade made in it, and the world the richer; they are to be used in productive work, and when worn out, there is the improved soil and the crops that have been gathered, to show for the wear and tear of the tools. So a country is the richer for every industrious shoemaker and blacksmith it contains; for his time and toil go to increase the sum of human comfort, creating actual wealth. The world also is better off, and becomes better through their influence. But a country is the poorer for every soldier it maintains, and the world poorer, as he adds nothing to the actual wealth of mankind; so is it the poorer for each sword and cannon made within its borders, and the world poorer, for these instruments cannot be used in any productive work, only for works of destruction.

So much for the labor of these 150,000 men; labor wasted in vain. Let us now look at the cost of life. It is not possible to ascertain the exact loss suffered up to this time, in killed, deceased by ordinary diseases, and in wounded; for some die before they are mustered into the service of the United States, and parts of the army are so far distant from the seat of Government that their recent losses are still unknown. I rely for information on the last report of the Secretary of War, read before the Senate, April 10, 1848, and recently printed. That gives the losses of parts of the army up to December last; other accounts are made up only till October, or till August. Recent losses will of course swell the amount of destruction. According to that report, on the American side there had been killed in battle, or died of wounds received therein, 1,689 persons; there had died of diseases and accidents, 6,173; 3,743 have been wounded in battle, who were not known to be dead at the date of the report.

This does not include the deaths in the navy, nor the destruction of men connected with the army in various ways, as furnishing supplies and the like. Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in the present year, and others which may be expected before the troops reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at 4,000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent. each year, which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled in modern warfare.

Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on to endure.

Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering their retreat after they were beaten. Still more, they have been ill provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were destitute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded. To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000 deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the number.

Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000 men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow torture of their wounds, or deceased of diseases caused by extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead!

You all remember the bill which so hastily passed Congress in May, 1846, and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting 150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of 200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more—part by disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a wounded frame! Sir, that is the English of your vote." Suppose the prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;" perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote away blood, if it is not your own!

Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people; they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly—in the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have seized provisions which were private property, snatching them out of the hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the nation, and the particular murder and robbery on account of the special individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft, robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or lust on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation's sake, but a wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation.

One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations; its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting, were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men, women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been given for this cold-blooded massacre; none can be given. It was not battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it. The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national butchery on the Lord's day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would have been ashamed of. "But 'twas a famous victory."

One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness, took place at the bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General refused; they must stay and be shot.

Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof. Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about 30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the celebrated fortress of St. Juan d' Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of 15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-balls and bomb-shells upon your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets, churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights; imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men anticipating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of the picture of Vera Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the institution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom."

Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a complete notion of the ferocious passions which it excites. Let me help your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and exclaimed, "By God, this will not do. This is not the way for Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not answer, sir." So the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that's the way to do it. Give 'em hell, damn 'em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each, "Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only as having said, "Don't give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington for his "In Peace prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready, and for his aphorism, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em." Yet he does not seem to be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on that account, he was none the less ready to fight it.

One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty, went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and 800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service. These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month, why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the most? Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply seems equal to the demand.

The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier's art; the horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness, though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes, and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have generally been men of little education, men of strong passions and bad habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an epaulette on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered.

Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail, and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related, that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour, and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man whose reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds, however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a "Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D, a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred lashes each.

I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by one, have seen them slowly hanged to death; that your representative, ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on; that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty men to be thus murdered.

Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of 24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the war, with the Baltimore conventions of '44 and '48, and the Whig convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours. Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers' blood, to get never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause of freedom. In the cause of slavery—God forgive us for that! We have trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again."

Let us now look at the effect of this war on the morals of the nation. The Revolutionary war was the contest for a great idea. If there were ever a just war it was that, a contest for national existence. Yet it brought out many of the worst qualities of human nature on both sides, as well as some of the best. It helped make a Washington, it is true, but a Benedict Arnold likewise. A war with a powerful nation, terrible as it must be, yet develops the energy of the people, promotes self-denial, and helps the growth of some qualities of a high order. It had this effect in England from 1798 to 1815. True, England for that time became a despotism, but the self-consciousness of the nation, its self-denial and energy were amazingly stimulated; the moral effect of that series of wars was doubtless far better than of the infamous contest which she has kept up against Ireland for many years. Let us give even war its due: when a great boy fights with an equal, it may develop his animal courage and strength—for he gets as bad as he gives, but when he only beats a little boy that cannot pay back his blows, it is cowardly as well as cruel, and doubly debasing to the conqueror. Mexico was no match for America. We all knew that very well before the war begun. When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than 15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile country, and with less than 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, taking as much territory as they will—it is hardly fair to dignify such operations with the name of war. The little good which a long contest with an equal might produce in the conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico been a strong nation we should never have had this conflict. A few years ago, when General Cass wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled. The northern men thought of their mills and their ships; they thought how Boston and New York would look after a war with our sturdy old father over the sea; they thought we should lose many millions of dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no ships and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar institution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to emancipate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire, and they said, "Don't." The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war, with such a foe. Everybody knows the effect which this fear had on southern politicians, in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has done and is doing; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the Hell of the poor and the weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and wanton in this age of the world, surely needless and wicked between Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Cass in 1845 thought unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It would have ended slavery; ended it in blood no doubt, the worst thing to blot out an evil with, but ended it and for ever. God grant it may yet have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know what it was worth; and as the burnt child dreads the fire, no future President, or Congress, or Convention, or Party would talk much in favor of war for some years to come.

The moral effect of this war is thoroughly bad. It was unjust in the beginning. Mexico did not pay her debts; but though the United States, in 1783, acknowledged the British claims against ourselves, they were not paid till 1803. Our claims against England, for her depredations in 1793, were not paid till 1804; our claims against France, for her depredations in 1806-13, were not paid us till 1834. The fact that Mexico refused to receive the resident Minister which the United States sent to settle the disputes, when a commissioner was expected—this was no ground of war. We have lately seen a British ambassador ordered to leave Spain within eight and forty hours, and yet the English Minister of foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, no new hand at diplomacy, declares that this does not interrupt the concord of the two nations! We treated Mexico contemptuously before hostilities began; and when she sent troops into a territory which she had always possessed, though Texas had claimed it, we declared that that was an act of war, and ourselves sent an army to invade her soil, to capture her cities, and seize her territory. It has been a war of plunder, undertaken for the purpose of seizing Mexican territory, and extending over it that dismal curse which blackens, impoverishes, and barbarizes half the Union now, and swiftly corrupts the other half. It was not enough to have Louisiana a slave territory; not enough to make that institution perpetual in Florida; not enough to extend this blight over Texas—we must have yet more slave soil, one day to be carved into Slave States, to bind the Southern yoke yet more securely on the Northern neck; to corrupt yet more the politics, literature, and morals of the North. The war was unjust at its beginning; mean in its motives, a war without honorable cause; a war for plunder; a quarrel between a great boy and a little puny weakling who could not walk alone, and could hardly stand. We have treated Mexico as the three Northern powers treated Poland in the last century—stooped to conquer. Nay, our contest has been like the English seizure of Ireland. All the justice was on one side, the force, skill, and wealth on the other.

I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could fight!—almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better. The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept 5,000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous discipline. If such valor be a merit, I am ready to believe that the Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise? Most men think so, but it is the smallest honor of a nation. Of all glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest.

Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation and some writers quote the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of Monterey, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were "a great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at their fate, but will hope to see the day when the last king who can estimate a nation's strength only by its battles, has passed on to impotence and oblivion. The power of America—do we need proof of that? I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships; I read it in those letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, and the ocean; in the school-houses which lift their modest roof in every village of the North; in the churches that rise all over the freeman's land: would God that they rose higher, pointing down to man and to human duties, and up to God and immortal life! I see the strength of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray to the very shores of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and $200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would have been a worthy sign of the nation's strength. Perhaps those kings could not see it; but sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste of treasure and this waste of blood is only a proof of weakness. War is a transient weakness of the nation, but slavery a permanent imbecility.

What falsehood has this war produced in the executive and legislative power; in both parties, whigs and democrats! I always thought that here in Massachusetts the whigs were the most to blame; they tried to put the disgrace of the war on the others, while the democratic party coolly faced the wickedness. Did far-sighted men know that there would be a war on Mexico, or else on the tariff or the currency, and prefer the first as the least evil?

See to what the war has driven two of the most famous men of the nation: one wished to "capture or slay a Mexican;"[12] the other could encourage the volunteers to fight a war which he had denounced as needless, "a war of pretexts," and place the men of Monterey before the men of Bunker Hill;[13] each could invest a son in that unholy cause. You know the rest: the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on edge. When a man goes on board an emigrant ship, reeking with filth and fever, not for gain, not for "glory," but in brotherly love, catches the contagion, and dies a martyr to his heroic benevolence, men speak of it in corners, and it is soon forgot; there is no parade in the streets; society takes little pains to do honor to the man. How rarely is a pension given to his widow or his child; only once in the whole land, and then but a small sum.[14] But when a volunteer officer—for of the humbler and more excusable men that fall we take no heed, war may mow that crop of "vulgar deaths" with what scythe he will—falls or dies in the quarrel which he had no concern in, falls in a broil between the two nations, your newspapers extol the man, and with martial pomp, "sonorous metal blowing martial sounds," with all the honors of the most honored dead, you lay away his body in the tomb. Thus is it that the nation teaches these little ones, that it is better to kill than to make alive.

I know there are men in the army, honorable and high-minded men, Christian men, who dislike war in general, and this war in special, but such is their view of official duty, that they obeyed the summons of battle, though with pain and reluctance. They knew not how to avoid obedience. I am willing to believe there are many such. But with volunteers, who, of their own accord, came forth to enlist, men not blinded by ignorance, not driven by poverty to the field, but only by hope of reward—what shall be said of them! Much may be said to excuse the rank and file, ignorant men, many of them in want—but for the leaders, what can be said? Had I a brother who, in the day of the nation's extremity, came forward with a good conscience, and perilled his life on the battle field, and lost it "in the sacred cause of God and his country," I would honor the man, and when his dust came home, I would lay it away with his fathers'; with sorrow indeed, but with thankfulness of heart, that for conscience' sake he was ready even to die. But had I a brother who, merely for his pay, or hope of fame, had voluntarily gone down to fight innocent men, to plunder their territory, and lost his life in that felonious essay—in sorrow and in silence, and in secrecy would I lay down his body in the grave; I would not court display, nor mark it with a single stone.

See how this war has affected public opinion. How many of your newspapers have shown its true atrocity; how many of the pulpits? Yet, if any one is appointed to tell of public wrongs, it is the minister of religion. The Governor of Massachusetts[15] is an officer of a Christian church; a man distinguished for many excellences, some of them by no means common: it is said, he is opposed to the war in private, and thinks it wicked; but no man has lent himself as a readier tool to promote it. The Christian and the man seem lost in the office, in the Governor! What a lesson of falseness does all this teach to that large class of persons who look no higher than the example of eminent men for their instruction. You know what complaints have been made, by the highest authority in the nation, because a few men dared to speak against the war. It was "affording aid and comfort to the enemy." If the war-party had been stronger, and feared no public opinion, we should have had men hanged for treason, because they spoke of this national iniquity! Nothing would have been easier. A "gag law" is not wholly unknown in America.

If you will take all the theft, all the assaults, all the cases of arson, ever committed in time of peace in the United States since the settlement of Jamestown in 1608, and add to them all the cases of violence offered to woman, with all the murders, they will not amount to half the wrongs committed in this war for the plunder of Mexico. Yet the cry has been and still is, "You must not say a word against it; if you do, you 'afford aid and comfort to the enemy.'" Not tell the nation that she is doing wrong? What a miserable saying is that; let it come from what high authority it may, it is a miserable saying. Make the case your own. Suppose the United States were invaded by a nation ten times abler for war than we are, with a cause no more just, intentions equally bad; invaded for the purpose of dismembering our territory and making our own New England the soil of slaves; would you be still? would you stand and look on tamely while the hostile hosts, strangers in language, manners, and religion, crossed your rivers, seized your ports, burnt your towns? No, surely not. Though the men of New England would not be able to resist with most celestial love, they would contend with most manly vigor; and I should rather see every house swept clean off the land, and the ground sheeted with our own dead; rather see every man, woman, and child in the land slain, than see them tamely submit to such a wrong: and so would you. No, sacred as life is and dear as it is, better let it be trodden out by the hoof of war, rather than yield tamely to a wrong. But while you were doing your utmost to repel such formidable injustice, if in the midst of your invaders men rose up and said, "America is in the right, and brothers, you are wrong, you should not thus kill men to steal their land; shame on you!" how should you feel towards such? Nay, in the struggle with England, when our fathers perilled every thing but honor, and fought for the unalienable rights of man, you all remember, how in England herself there stood up noble men, and with a voice that was heard above the roar of the populace, and an authority higher than the majesty of the throne they said, "You do a wrong; you may ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, while a foreign troop remained in my land, I would never lay down my arms; no, never, never, never!"

But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the off-scouring of the people at first. Now these men have tasted the idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its riot, tasted of its blood! They will come home before long, hirelings of murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands? The nation taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation's sake; the Governor of Massachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and "humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the nation's account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an American on his own account? Ay, why not?—that is a distinction too nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine.

See the effect on the nation. We have just plundered Mexico; taken a piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the Revolution, a hundred times as large as Massachusetts; we have burnt her cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest. The Mexicans were as unprotected women, we, armed men. See how the lust of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south; the lust of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica,—all the islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the "area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emancipation—hoping the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to reëstablish slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would bring much money to New England, and what is the value of freedom compared to coffee and sugar and cotton?

I must say one word of the effect this war has had on political parties. By the parties I mean the leaders thereof, the men that control the parties. The effect on the democratic party, on the majority of Congress, on the most prominent men of the nation, has been mentioned before. It has shut their eyes to truth and justice; it has filled their mouths with injustice and falsehood. It has made one man "available" for the Presidency who was only known before as a sagacious general, that fought against the Indians in Florida, and acquired a certain reputation by the use of bloodhounds, a reputation which was rather unenviable even in America. The battles in northern Mexico made him conspicuous, and now he is seized on as an engine to thrust one corrupt party out of power, and to lift in another party, I will not say less corrupt, I wish I could; it were difficult to think it more so. This latter party has been conspicuous for its opposition to a military man as ruler of a free people; recently it has been smitten with sudden admiration for military men, and military success, and tells the people, without a blush, that a military man fresh from a fight which he disapproved of, is most likely to restore peace, "because most familiar with the evils of war!" In Massachusetts the prevalent political party, as such, for some years seems to have had no moral principle; however, it had a prejudice in favor of decency: now it has thrown that overboard, and has not even its respectability left. Where are its "Resolutions?" Some men knew what they were worth long ago; now all men can see what they are worth.

The cost of the war in money and men I have tried to calculate, but the effect on the morals of the people, on the press, the pulpit, and the parties, and through them on the rising generation, it is impossible to tell. I have only faintly sketched the outline of that. The effect of the war on Mexico herself, we can dimly see in the distance. The Government of the United States has wilfully, wantonly broken the peace of the continent. The Revolutionary war was unavoidable; but for this invasion there is no excuse. That God, whose providence watches over the falling nation as the falling sparrow, and whose comprehensive plans are now advanced by the righteousness and now by the wrath of man, He who stilleth the waves of the sea and the tumult of the people, will turn all this wickedness to account in the history of man,—of that I have no doubt. But that is no excuse for American crime. A greater good lay within our grasp, and we spurned it away.

Well, before long the soldiers will come back, such as shall ever come—the regulars and volunteers, the husbands of the women whom your charity fed last winter, housed and clad and warmed. They will come back. Come, New England, with your posterity of States, go forth to meet your sons returning all "covered with imperishable honors." Come, men, to meet your fathers, brothers. Come, women, to your husbands and your lovers; come. But what! is that the body of men who a year or two ago went forth, so full of valor and of rum? Are these rags the imperishable honors that cover them? Here is not half the whole. Where is the wealth they hoped from the spoil of churches? But the men—"Where is my husband?" says one; "And my son?" says another. "They fell at Jalapa, one, and one at Cerro Gordo; but they fell covered with imperishable honor, for 'twas a famous victory." "Where is my lover?" screams a woman whom anguish makes respectable spite of her filth and ignorance;—"And our father, where is he?" scream a troop of half-starved children, staring through their dirt and rags. "One died of the vomit at Vera Cruz. Your father, little ones, we scourged the naked man to death at Mixcoac."

But that troop which is left, who are in the arms of wife and child, they are the best sermon against war; this has lost an arm and that a leg; half are maimed in battle, or sickened with the fever; all polluted with the drunkenness, idleness, debauchery, lust, and murder of a camp. Strip off this man's coat, and count the stripes welted into his flesh, stripes laid on by demagogues that love the people, "the dear people!" See how affectionately the war-makers branded the "dear soldiers" with a letter D, with a red-hot iron, in the cheek. The flesh will quiver as the irons burn; no matter: it is only for love of the people that all this is done, and we are all of us covered with imperishable honors! D stands for deserter,—aye, and for demagogue—yes, and for demon too. Many a man shall come home with but half of himself, half his body, less than half his soul.

"Alas, the mother that him bare,
If she could stand in presence there,
In that wan cheek and wasted air,
She would not know her child."

"Better," you say, "for us better, and for themselves better by far, if they had left that remnant of a body in the common ditch where the soldier finds his 'bed of honor;' better have fed therewith the vultures of a foreign soil, than thus come back." No, better come back, and live here, mutilated, scourged, branded, a cripple, a pauper, a drunkard, and a felon; better darken the windows of the jail and blot the gallows with unusual shame, to teach us all that such is war, and such the results of every "famous victory," such the imperishable honors that it brings, and how the war-makers love the men they rule!

O Christian America! O New England, child of the Puritans! Cradled in the wilderness, thy swaddling garments stained with martyrs' blood, hearing in thy youth the warwhoop of the savage and thy mother's sweet and soul-composing hymn:

"Hush, my child, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed;
Heavenly blessings, without number,
Rest upon thine infant head:"

Come, New England, take the old banners of thy conquering host, the standards borne at Monterey, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, the "glorious stripes and stars" that waved over the walls of Churubusco, Contreras, Puebla, Mexico herself, flags blackened with battle and stiffened with blood, pierced by the lances and torn with the shot; bring them into thy churches, hang them up over altar and pulpit, and let little children, clad in white raiment and crowned with flowers, come and chant their lessons for the day:

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Then let the priest say, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach unto any people. Blessed is the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Happy is that people that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord, and Jesus Christ their Saviour."

Then let the soldiers who lost their limbs and the women who lost their husbands and their lovers in the strife, and the men—wiser than the children of light—who made money out of the war; let all the people, like people and like priest, say "Amen."