war is evidence of the Divine approval, then must we conclude that the conquerors of Poland were in the right; that all the wars of Bonaparte but the last were justifiable; that Charles XII. of Sweden, and Frederick the Great, and Gengis Khan and Tamerlane, and Alaric and Attila, and all the successful warriors that have scourged mankind, were approved and assisted by God. But from this decision, I trust, all would recoil.

The great lesson, which Christ teaches and History confirms, is, that it is unwise, as well as unchristian, for men or nations to resort to weapons of violence, in order to redress their wrongs, or to vindicate their most precious rights. There is never any certainty, that the injured party will be successful in such a conflict. The Almighty promises his grace to the meek, not to the valiant; his support to those who confide in the power of his Holy Spirit, which is continually working in the hearts of men to will and to do of his good pleasure; and not to those who trust to brute force or stratagem.

To invoke the benignant Father of all men, as the patron of battle, seems to me as impious as it would be to call upon him to preside over any other scene of reckless indulgence of human passions,-to preside over a desperate game of chance, a duel, or that disgusting pugilistic contest, at which the eyes of millions in England and our country have been gloating for the last three months, with an eagerness of interest, that would be shocking even in savages. And I cannot see why it would not be just as consistent for a Christian minister to play the priest at the combat of Heenan and Sayers, as to be the chaplain of an army.

The religion of the Gospel utterly prohibits revenge, wrath, violence, without which there can be no war. The Providence of God has given no approval of bloodshed and murder. Indeed it has signally justified the declaration of Jesus, that the use of the sword only leads to the multiplied destruction of life.

The folly of the custom of war is exceeded only by its wickedness. It is the height of foolishness, it is madness, to commit the protection of our dearest rights and interests to the chance of battle. There is never any certainty that the injured party will be successful in war. Physical might is, by no means, always with the right. But moral might is always with the right. Why is it that so few men have yet received this great truth, which Providence has been teaching from the beginning of man's probation, and which is so plainly declared in the Gospel of Christ? Moral might is always with the right! When men really believe this, they are invincible. William Penn believed this,

and dared to plant his colony in the midst of savages, without a single weapon of defence.. There they lived, as long as our Republic has been in existence, maintaining the good order of civil government without a standing army, a militia, or even an armed police; there they lived in peace and unexampled prosperity, so long as this faith and a pacific spirit prevailed in the councils of the Colony; there they lived unharmed in the midst of warlike Indians, for more than seventy years, while the Colonies of New England, and other parts of the continent were embroiled in wars, suffering and committing atrocities of cruelty, the narration of which would make our blood curdle with horror.

The Quakers in Ireland believed in the might of the right. They believed that "when a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." They believed in the power of Love to restrain the violence of men, to turn their hearts from evil intentions, and to convert enemies into friends. During the whole of the terrible civil war, which raged in that Island in 1798 and 1799, those followers of the Prince of Peace were in continual danger; their properties and their lives were frequently threatened by one of the contending parties, and then by the other; sometimes they were in imminent peril. Nevertheless, they were steadfast in their adherence to their principles. They would not arm themselves, nor put their confidence in armed men. They would take no part, directly or indirectly, in that ferocious strife. They persisted in treating members of each party with kindness, and faithfully rebuking both of them for their folly and sin. They were sustained; and fully justified the wisdom and power of the pacific course, which they had pursued. At the end of the war, it was ascertained and made public, that only two, out of the twenty thousand Quakers, who lived in that part of Ireland where the conflict raged, only two had been slain; and they had lost their faith, and betaken themselves to a fortified place for protection. The rest had come out of that fiery trial unscathed. Even their dwellings and fields had been spared. In the midst of the desolation, which the fury of the combattants had spread far and wide, there were to be seen uninjured the houses and the properties of "The Friends."

Did time permit, a few more examples might be given of the safety of those who "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." The only reason why Christendom is not filled with the fruits of the spirit of Christ is, that Christians, so called, have not put on Christ, they have not the same mind that was in him; have not his faith, his hope, his charity.

Mr. President, Members of the Feace Society, the reform for which

under your auspices, I thus plead, is as broad as Humanity; and rests upon principles as deep as the foundations of the moral government of God.

Whenever or wherever men are to be dealt with, whether as individuals or communities, let us confidently rely upon the principles of the nature which the Creator has given them, and trust to the influence of his own ever-present, holy, loving spirit upon their hearts. Faith in Humanity, and faith in the Providence of that benignant Father whe has the hearts of all men in His hands, will give us that moral power by which all evil doers may be overcome, the violent restrained, and the kingdom of Peace and Righteousness be established upon earth.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY:

ITS THIRTY-SECOND

ANNIVERSARY.

The Society met May 28th, 3 P. M., for business, in the vestry of Park Street Church, Boston, and adjourned, a quorum not being present, to 7 P. M., for the public services.

In the ab

At 7 P. M., the Society met in Park Street Church. sence of Dr. WAYLAND, the President, Hon. AMASA WALKER, one of the Vice Presidents, was called to the chair. Rev. WILLIAM JENKS, D. D., of Boston, read the 72d Psalm, and offered prayer. A brief abstract of the Annual Report was read by the Corresponding Secretary, Dr. Beckwith, on behalf of the Board of Directors. The Chairman, after some account of his mission to England last year on behalf of our cause, introduced, as the speaker of the evening, Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY, of Syracuse, N. Y. At the close of his Address, listened to with much interest by a small but select audience, the Society, on motion of Rev. F. W. Holland,

Voted, That the thanks of this Society be presented to Rev. S. J. May for his able, earnest and seasonable Address, and that a copy be requested for the press.

The Annual Report of the Directors, and that of the Treasurer which had been duly audited, were both adopted. On motion, it was voted that the Society adjourn, to meet for the choice of officers at the call of the Executive Committee, and that the present officers meanwhile continue in office till successors are chosen.

REPORT.

In every good work there is need of patient, unfaltering trust in God, but in none more than in the great reform which seeks to eradicate from every Christian land, the immemorial custom of war. Next to paganism, it is the master evil of our race, and so deeply imbedded in the worst and strongest passions of our nature, so incorporated into the whole frame

work of government, so woven into the web and woof of society, linked with such a multitude of personal interests, fostered by so many prejudices of education, and upheld everywhere by such a vast amount of money, talent and official influence, that it might well seem to defy all efforts for its removal or serious abatement. There is, in truth, no sure hope except in the promise of God; but with the angelic announcement at Bethlehem of Peace on Earth as the birth-song of our religion, and the oft-repeated prophecy, that under its full legitimate influence, the nations shall one day beat their swords into ploughshares, and learn war no more, we assured. ly have the most ample encouragement in our work, and every reason to believe it will, in God's good time, reach a success as signal and glorious as the world has ever witnessed.

For such a consummation, however, we must both wait and work in the calm, cheerful patience of Christian Reformers. We cannot expect it in full to-day or to-morrow, this year or the next, in our day, or even in that of our children. In this cåuse we labor chiefly for generations yet unborn, and are scattering seed whose fruit will be gathered long after we shall have gone to our final account. We have indeed witnessed already results sufficient to reward us a thousand times over, but only a fraction of what is needed and is yet to come. Had we seen far less fruit in our own day, we should still have rested in full assurance, that a harvest, rich and glorious, will at length come in God's promised time. That time we can well afford to wait, and shall not wait in vain. We are scattering his own seed, and may safely leave the result in his hands. We are planting a tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of all nations from the evils of war; and, however many ages may elapse before it reach complete maturity, it will in the end shed over the whole earth the fulness of its benign influences. It is ours to use the means divinely appointed for this end, and then trust the promise of God to crown them in due time with success Whether successful or not now, we have no right, as believers in his word, to doubt for a moment the perfect triumph that is sure to come in the end.

The events of the past year, especially the rise and results of the late Italian War, teach many a pregnant lesson on this subject, but none that ought to diminish either our faith or our zeal. They should rather strengthen and stimulate both, and constrain us to gird ourselves anew for this great work. We see how strong a hold the war-system has on all Christendom; what a fearful capacity of mischief it keeps continually in its iron grasp; how easily it can, at almost any moment, pour its avalanche of evils over a continent, if not over a world; to how large an extent the great interests of mankind are held every hour at its mercy; how little control the nominal Christianity of Christendom has over this terrible evil, before which the Pope himself seems powerless to restrain his own followers from mutual butchery; and how vain the hope that the gospel itself, as hitherto understood and applied, can ever put an end to this giant sin and scourge. It is truly a vast work, only just begun; but it would seem as if the

events of the past year must, if anything ever can, stimulate the friends of God and man to a large increase of effort in its prosecution.

own.

In this great reform, before it can be fully accomplished, the mass of Christians must be enlisted as a work properly and pre-eminently their No single organization can achieve it; and the chief mission of the Peace Society is to keep the object duly before the public, to show what needs to be done, and stimulate the friends of God and man to do it. We never dreamed that a handful of men associated in this reform could themselves use a thousandth part of the means requisite for its full and final success. Such an idea would have been a glaring absurdity. It must be the joint labor of millions; and our Society can at best do little more than wake the Christian community to their duty on the subject, and supply some helps and motives to its proper performance. They must themselves do it by enlisting in it those permanent, all-pervading influences which mould or sway society. It clearly cannot be done at once. Such a chronic evil as war,, so nearly coeval with humån depravity itself, so deeply rooted, and so widely diffused, can never, by any amount of means, be cured in a day or an age. Its entire, permanent cure may prove the work of all future time, a reform to end only with the world itself.

The reason is obvious. All society, Christian as well as pagan, has been, from time immemorial, educated wrong on this subject, and needs to have in this respect its general habits of thought and feeling recast in the pacific mould of the gospel. Men have been trained to war; they mus henceforth be trained to peace. We must reverse in this regard the whole current of past ages. We must give all society a new education on this subject; and for such a purpose we must set at work everywhere the agencies or influences that form a controlling public opinion on every such question. The fireside and the pulpit, our schools and our presses, we must enlist as the chief nurseries of character, and the mainsprings of all moral, social and political influences. We must secure especially those higher seminaries where are trained the virtual law-givers of public opinion, the men that mould or sway society and government - our legislators and teachers, our editors, authors, and men in the learned professions. Win these, and in time we shall gain all. It is on such permanent, all-pervading influences we must put our trust, under God, for the steady progress and ultimate triumph of this cause.

Here we have the cheapest and most effective system of means possible for our purpose; and our chief responsibility and labor as a Peace Society is to keep all these duly at work everywhere in this great reform. Our first co-worker is the Christian mother in the nursery, by the cradle of her little one; and around her cluster the gentle yet potent influences of the hearth and family altar. Next come teachers in infant, primary and Sabbath schools, where we find in embryo the elements of all society and all governments. Make these what they might and should be, and the ultimate result we seek would follow in time as a matter of course.

The whole system of popular education must, also, become a nursery of