our present or any other common government; if there is confessedly such an inevitable conflict of principles, institutions and interests in different sections, as to forbid the hope of their ever living together in harmony; if on the slave issue neither party will yield its settled convictions or preferences; if the South is irrevocably bent on demanding what the North is equally resolved not to grant,-the adoption of slavery as a national institution, to be nursed and guarded, extended and perpetuated, in every part of our country, through all coming time; then let us, in a peaceful, orderly way, take the steps requisite for such a change of the constitution as will allow the withdrawal of those who wish to leave.'

Such was our plea for peace when it was possible. Would to God it had been heard in season! What a world of treasure and blood, of crime, mischief and misery, might have been averted! But the rebels, listening to no terms, but strangely claiming the right to resist and even overthrow our government in the execution of their schemes, compelled our rulers, in fulfilling their oath of office, to call forth the entire resources of the country for the support of its authority, and a due enforcement of the laws. On the commonly received principles, as all governments are constituted, we see not how they could have done otherwise; and, if they were wrong, then all real, effective government is wrong, and society must be abandoned to a remediless, everlasting anarchy.

THE SPECTACLE WE PRESENT.

What a spectacle we are now exhibiting before the world-how strange, mournful and humiliating! Our Union, so long our common trust and glory, now spurned, intensely hated, and desperately resisted by thrice as many as united seventy-five years ago in its formation! Our government, so lately the pride of our own people, and the admiration of the world, confessedly the most beneficent on earth, now trampled rudely, fiercely in the dust by more than ten millions of rebels leagued for its overthrow! Our country, so rich in natural resources, and till now with such fair prospects before it of permanent, steadily increasing prosperity beyond that of any other in ancient or modern times, suddenly smitten with a universal blight, and a fearful uncertainty shrowding all the future! Work-shops closed, and factories suspended; marts of trade comparatively deserted, vessels idle and

rotting at our wharves, and legalized piracy trying to sweep our commerce from the ocean; the great thoroughfares of business and travel obstructed in every direction; the chief sources of our wealth dried up, while the expenses of our government are increasing tenfold in its support of fleets and armies; the whole land one vast panorama of hosts mustering for the deadly rencontre of brother against brother, family against family, Christian against Christian, all alike professing to be followers of the Prince of Peace, and, with strange and horrid perversion of conscience, beseeching their common God and Father in heaven to help them in this work of mutual slaughter!

A sad, revolting sight! How can it be justified to conscience, to God or the world? What possible excuse for such suicidal folly, such wholesale mischief, such gigantic wickedness? With a common government over us to protect and enforce every right, with a constitution to watch over every section and every interest, with a system of laws and courts expressly designed to settle every dispute by a legal, peaceful process, what conceivable apology can there be for what we now see in our land? Surely somebody must be held to a fearful responsibility for all this.

those who do preor on those who On this point we

On whom, then, does the blame rest? On cisely what the constitution and laws require, are confessedly violating both by wholesale? find, in certain quarters, a strange sort of logic; a logic that makes it wrong for a government to assert its own authority, and insist on the enforcement of its own laws; wrong to punish disobedience, and put down rebellion; wrong even to save itself from destruction by resisting those who seek its overthrow and utter ruin! We can understand how the guilty should resort to such shifts to screen themselves from deserved punishment; but how can a friend of peace and order, or any man of sense, connive for one moment at such wretched, desperate sophistry? On this principle there can be no real government anywhere. If transgressors have a right to disobey, and rulers are wrong in executing upon them the penalties which the laws prescribe, then all government, whether among men, or in any part of God's dominions, must be a sheer nullity, a figment and a farce.

We marvel much that any man in his senses should charge upon our government, and its loyal supporters, the blame of the conflict now raging among us. What have they done, or attempted to do? Just what the constitution and laws prescribe for the suppression and punishment of rebellion. Is this wrong? Then all government is

wrong, and God himself an Almighty tyrant for not letting the devi and his allies have their own way with impunity. Our rulers may not be wise in every measure; but, constituted as all governments now are, they could not do essentially otherwise than they have done, without betraying their trust. The question was, whether the government, or the rebels banded for its overthrow, should rule; and on this issue, our rulers were allowed no choice, but were compelled, if not arrant knaves, or equally arrant cowards, to meet and crush the rebellion, or perish in the attempt.

Here, then, is our conclusion. War in every form we abhor as unchristian; but our principles of peace were never meant to smother our sense of justice, or tempt us either to apologize for crime, or refuse assent to its condign punishment. Peace with us does not mean covert rebellion; nor can government, in our view of its legitimate province and functions, ever lead to any violence except what may be necessarily involved in a proper, indispensable execution of its laws. Such enforcement of law ought not to be called war, nor be allowed to share any of the moral elements that belong to war.

IS NOW NO TIME TO WORK FOR PEACE?

At a time like the present, we must of course expect the cause of Peace, always the most difficult of reforms, to be environed with peculiar difficulties. It is not that we feel the slightest distrust of its merits, but that we cannot get the community to look at them in earnest and aright. At all times undervalued, just now it is in danger of being thrown quite into the shade, or trampled in the mire under the iron heel of war. Like the Prince of Peace himself, it is expected to stand before the public like a sheep dumb before her shearers, and not open its mouth in vindicating its own claims. Shall we at such a crisis abandon or suspend it? For ourselves we can see no reason at all for relaxing our efforts, but a great deal for prosecuting them with tenfold more zeal and energy. Retrace our steps! Pause in our work! What have we to retract or essentially modify? Our object, our principles, our measures, our arguments, are all the same, and rendered only the more important by the developments of the passing hour. They were designed for just such an emergency as the present; and all we ask in proof of their excellence and efficacy, is merely a right application of them to the case.

Here is surely a fair test; for nobody expects medicine to cure till it is taken.

On the question of Peace, however, the community seem strangely to lack their usual fairness and good sense. We remember, as quite in point, a story of William Ladd, the founder of our Society. On one of his journeys, he reached the house of a friend, and found it uncovered in the midst of a drenching rain. Why, my good friend,' exclaimed the man of peace, why don't you shingle your house?' 'What!' re. torted his easy, improvident friend, shingle it in such a storm as

6

this! Wait till the weather is fair.'

So he did; but Mr. Ladd, on

his return one sunny day, found the house of his good-natured, slip-shod

friend, still in the same condition.

Well, my friend, I see you've not shingled your house yet. What does all this mean?' 'Oh !' said he, there's no need of it in such fine weather as this.' So in sunshine he would not, and in storm he could not, shingle his house.

Precisely thus fares the cause of Peace. Press its claims at the near approach of war, or during its progress; and you are confronted with the plea, it is out of place now; wait till peace returns.' At length peace does return; and how are you met now? Do even good Christian men, followers of the Prince of Peace, respond promptly, spontaneously to the claims of this cause, and set themselves about its great work in earnest? No; they sing the old lullaby, in such a time of profound peace, there surely can be no need of labor in this cause. Wait till we see some occasion for it in the approach of actual war. Everybody is for peace now, as much so as you are yourself; and no argument or influence can make them more so. Why waste effort where it is so

unnecessary?'

This strange logic we have met, in one form or another, at almost every turn. When we seemed, in 1840, on the eve of a war with England respecting our North-Eastern boundary, and our society made special and successful efforts to avert the gathering storm, not a few good men, all of them quite as much of course in favor of peace as ourselves, and some of them at the head of Christian presses, scouted such efforts as entirely superfluous. The age,' said they, has outgrown the barbarism of war. True, we retain the sword still for our security; but we shall keep it in its scabbard to rust there forever. These efforts in the cause of peace are entirely superfluous. We have waged our last war, have fought our last battle. There may indeed be bluster and menace on both sides; but they will take good heed not to rush into actual conflict. No; the age is too civilized, too Christian

ever to tolerate war again; and all efforts in the cause of Peace we must regard as a grand superfluity.'

Thus reasoned such men down to the very hour when our country plunged into its piratical crusade against Mexico; but what did they say then? Why, they changed entirely their tone; and from representing everybody as so much in favor of peace as to render any efforts in this cause quite superfluous, they leaped at once to the conclusion, that the evil is really incurable. We verily thought,' said they, "that the people were almost cured of war; but we find them in truth as full of its spirit as ever, and there is no use in trying to restrain them. They will fight; and no efforts of ours can ever prevent it Of what avail have been all the labors of the Peace Society? Nations will go to war whenever they choose; and, however suicidal the folly, we cannot restrain them, but must let them take their own course. We may deplore the fact, but cannot alter it, and must patiently wait God's good time, the glorious era of universal peace promised in his word, to see nations ceasing from the work of mutual mischief and slaughter for the settlement of their disputes.'

We have no sympathy or respect for such logic as this. No time now to plead or work for peace! Tell us, then, when we shall have. While a huge, terrible evil is staring us full in the face, is that no time to arrest it, or prevent its recurrence? While the plague or the cholera is raging all around us, shall we deem this no time to check its ravages, and devise means to prevent their return in future? The argument is fairly applicable to the evil now upon us; yet how many professed, sincere friends of peace would fain have us give no heed to its claims just now. Why not? In such a crisis as this, are not its arguments, its appeals, its healing influences, most needed? You may indeed say it is too late to realize its full benefits, since ours is chiefly a work of prevention, more an antidote than a specific remedy; but if the evil has gone in this case beyond our control, we certainly ought to gather up its dear-bought lessons of wisdom and warning for future use in our cause. It will teem with such lessons. Well and truly has it been said, that every day is our country now writing history fast; and with equal rapidity must this contest accumulate a vast amount of materials to be used hereafter in pushing our cause onward at length to a signal and glorious triumph.