18. THE WHITE, THE RED, AND THE BLACK MEN.

When the Floridas were erected into a territory of the United States, one of the earliest cares of the Governor, William P. Duval, was directed to the instruction and civilisation of the natives. For this purpose he called a meeting of the chiefs, in which he informed them of the wish of their Great Father at Washington that they should have schools and teachers among them, and that their children should be instructed like the children of white men. The chiefs listened with their customary silence and decorum to a long speech, setting forth the advantages that would accrue to them from this measure, and when he had concluded, begged the interval of a day to deliberate on it.

On the following day, a solemn convocation was held, at which one of the chiefs addressed the Governor in the name of all the rest. My brother,' said he, 'we have been thinking over the proposition of our Great Father at Washington, to send teachers and set up schools among us. We are very thankful for the interest he takes in our welfare; but, after much deliberation, have concluded to decline his offer. What will do very well for white men, will not do for red men. I know you white men say we all come from the same father and mother, but you are mistaken. We have a tradition handed down from our forefathers, and we believe it, that the Great Spirit, when he undertook to make men, made the black man ; it was his first attempt, and pretty well for a beginning; but he soon saw he had bungled; so he determined to try his hand again. He did so, and made the red man. He liked him much better than the black man, but still he was not exactly what he wanted. So he tried once more, and made the white man; and then he was satisfied. You see, therefore, that you were made last, and that is the reason I call you my youngest brother.

'When the Great Spirit had made the three men, he called them together and showed them three boxes. The first was filled with books, and maps, and papers; the second with bows and arrows, knives and tomahawks; the third with spades, xes, hoes and hammers. "These, my sons," said he, "are the

means by which you are to live; choose among them according to your fancy."

'The white man, being the favourite, had the first choice. He passed by the box of working-tools without notice; but when he came to the weapons for war and hunting, he stopped and looked hard at them. The red man trembled, for he had set his heart upon that box. The white man, however, after looking upon it for a moment, passed on, and chose the box of books and papers. The red man's turn came next; and you may be sure he seized with joy upon the bows and arrows and tomahawks. As to the black man, he had no choice left but to put up with the box of tools.

From this it is clear that the Great Spirit intended the white man should learn to read and write; to understand all about the moon and stars; and to make everything, even rum and whisky. That the red man should be a first-rate hunter and a mighty warrior, but he was not to learn anything from books, as the Great Spirit had not given him any : nor was he to make rum and whisky, lest he should kill himself with drinking. As to the black man, as he had nothing but working-tools, it was clear he was to work for the white and red man, which he has continued to do.

'We must go according to the wishes of the Great Spirit, or we shall get into trouble. To know how to read and write is very good for white men, but very bad for red men. It makes white men better, but red men worse. Some of the Creeks and Cherokees learnt to read and write, and they are the greatest rascals among all the Indians. They went to Washington, and said they were going to see their Great Father, to talk about the good of the nation. And when they got there, they all wrote upon a little piece of paper, without the nation at home knowing anything about it. And the first thing the nation at home knew of the matter, they were called together by the Indian agent, who showed them a little piece of paper, which he told them was a treaty, which their brethren had made, in their name, with their Great Father at Washington. And as they knew not what a treaty was, he held up the little piece of paper, and they looked under it, and lo! it covered a great extent of country, and they found that their brethren, by knowing how to read and write, had sold their houses, and their lands, and the graves of their

fathers; and that the white man, by knowing how to read and write, had gained them. Tell our Great Father at Washington, therefore, that we are very sorry we cannot receive teachers among us; for reading and writing, though very good for white men, is very bad for Indians.'—Washington Irving.

19. THE INJUstice of War.

If the existence of war always implies injustice, in one at least of the parties concerned, it is also the fruitful parent of crimes. It reverses all the rules of morality. It is nothing less than a temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are incorporated. Whatever renders human nature amiable or respectable, whatever engages love or confidence, is sacrificed at its shrine. In instructing us to consider a portion of our fellow-creatures as the proper objects of enmity, it removes, as far as they are concerned, the basis of all society, of all civilisation and virtue; for the basis of these is the goodwill due to every individual of the species as being a part of ourselves. From this principle all the rules of social virtue emanate. Justice and humanity in their utmost extent are nothing more than the practical application of this great law. The sword, and that alone, cuts asunder the bond of consanguinity which unites man to man. As it immediately aims at the extinction of life, it is next to impossible, upon the principle that everything may be lawfully done to him whom we have a right to kill, to set limits to military license; for when men pass from the dominion of reason to that of force, whatever restraints are attempted to be laid on the passions will be feeble and fluctuating. Though we must applaud, therefore, the attempts of the humane Grotius to blend maxims of humanity with military operations, it is to be feared they will never coalesce, since the former imply the subsistence of those ties which the latter suppose to be dissolved. Hence the morality of peaceful times is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good; of the latter to inflict injuries. The former commands us to succour the oppressed; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies; the latter to make

themselves terrible even to strangers. The rules of morality will not suffer us to promote the dearest interest by falsehood; the maxims of war applaud it when employed in the destruction of others. That a familiarity with such maxims must tend to harden the heart, as well as to pervert the moral sentiments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural consequence of their prevalence is an unfeeling and an unprincipled ambition, with an idolatry of talent and a contempt of virtue; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from the humble, the beneficent, and the good, to men who are qualified by a genius fertile in expedients, a courage that is never appalled, and a heart that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evils and augment the happiness of the world, a fellow-worker together with God, in exploring and giving effect to the benevolent tendencies of nature, the warrior is revolving, in the gloomy recesses of his mind, plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons crowded with captives, cities emptied of their inhabitants, fields desolate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood; and if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity, in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has reduced to despair.-Robert Hall.

20. THE PROTESTANT MARTYRS IN PARIS.

The spots which are consecrated to the sufferings of the Protestant martyrs are numerous enough, alas! The Place de Grève witnessed the first execution. The first martyr was a poor working man named Leclerc, a native of Meaux, where Bishop Briçonnet and Farel, the predecessor of Calvin, had attracted a small nucleus of reformers. His body was cast into the fire, but not before his hand had been cut off, his nose torn, his chest pinched by red-hot tongs. The courageous fellow did not flinch; and during his horrible and protracted tortures he cried to the assembled people the words of the Psalm: 'Their idols are the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not. They that make them are like unto them.'

The Place Maubert saw even a greater number of execu

tions than the Grève. The torments were equally revolting, and as the victims invariably showed an unconquerable energy in confessing the faith for which they died, the judges ordered their tongues to be cut out before they left the prison walls. An exception was made in favour of Councillor Anne Dubourg, and he took advantage of it for preaching the Gospel from the gallows. His words were not lost, for a jealous Catholic writer of the time complains that they did more harm than a hundred sermons. Weak women and tender children proved as enduring as the most enthusiastic men. Remembrance has been preserved of a pious woman who was buried alive, and who smiled and talked till the earth covered her head. Another, a young and beautiful girl, presented her tongue of her own accord to the knife of the executioner. A worthy predecessor of the grotesque Dr. Véron gives, in his 'Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris,' the list of the Huguenots who were led to the stake in the capital during the year 1534. Death was the penalty for every religious misdemeanour. A bookseller was executed for having sold Luther' (sic); a student for having 'posted written papers at night;' the wife of a shoemaker, who was also a schoolmaster, because her husband had ‘eaten meat on Fridays and Saturdays.' It is not related that the poor woman had herself partaken of the forbidden viands; at all events she had cooked them, and that awful transgression was atoned for on the scaffold.

The Place de l'Estrapade received its name on account of the terrible torments which the Protestants had to undergo. The Estrapade was a favourite way of inflicting death, because it protracted the sufferings of the victims. Francis and his Court often witnessed the horrifying spectacle, and the Jesuits, who strictly forbade their pupils to resort to the theatre, allowed them free access to the burning of heretics. Cruelty and bigotry were but too often synonymous in history.

21. THE FRENCH MASTER.

Poor fellow! If he had committed some grievous offence against the Criminal Code, and been condemned to slave in the pontoons at Toulon or the galleys at Cayenne, he could hardly have been dragging on a more miserable existence. To