pe.ssions and of the sure opere.tion of principles which must be only one degree Iese destructive to the unconscious subjects than to their designed and deliberately marked objects. War shakes not merely to its foundations this or that fabric or human society, but io it_s ~entre the fabric ce.lled human natwre itself, which is compacted of affections, and, inv1s1ble though they may be, bound of no other bonds so real. Nothing there- fore, can justify it but the.t kind of necessity which declares, and can demonstrate what it declares, that that disaster of" shalcing" confronts, and is within measurable distance of, the one alternative of shattering, and may therefore be counted the lesser evil or risk. The mutual bate and ill will of nations is a monster form of the sin of individual hate, and it is the viole.ting on a gigantic scale of the second great commandment. It is true that there are some reliefs to this indictment, in respect of those composin"0 the actual armies that confront one another, and of those who may be called the mere machinery of war; but there is little relief, indeed, to it, in regard to all who may be called principals. But in the "quiet" of a nation, its proper human affections find their opportunity and feel their way with some uniformity and some regularity of growth; not swept across, on the one hand, by the destructive tornado of animosity, prejudice, bate, and by all the hurricane of evil-doing; nor, on the other hand, goaded into partial, frenzied action by the anguished imagination, or the sickening sight of the unspeakable horrors of the actual battle-field-its mangled limbs, its cries and groans, and, for months afterwards, its bleeding hearts and wasted homes, and that whole crew of consequential vices and indirect calamities which overspread equally the land of conquered and conqueror I !I. THE THOUGHT OF A PEOPLE NOT 8U11JECT TO THE UNHEALTHY STRAIN OF ONE USURP• ING INTEREST, ONE IMPERIOUS, TYRANNOUS, CONSTANT, EXCITING THEME, BUT FREE TO ASCERTAIN, TO FOLLOW, TO DEVELOP, THE LEADING AND THE INSTUl"CTS OF ITS PBOPEB GENIUS, WHATEVER THAT MAY BE. The loss is, of course, simply incalculable which has resulted from this one source of perversion, so varied in its operation. No eye, even with all the aid of historic retrospect, can track its disturbing, distracting, deso- lating tyranny. The interaction of the exceedingly diverse genius of different people!! must be equally significant with the same phenomenon as between different individuals (as e.g. even within the range of one family), and is amazingly tributary to the general and, let us say, universal well-being, when permitted, as it never yet has been, free play. For what areas of lands, bounded and unbounded in dimension, and through what stretches of the ages, has it substituted the ravaging headlong course of the turbid mountain-torrent for the flow of some beneficent river, with the generous, fertilizing streams, and the everywhere meandering rills, and the unnumbered perennial springs! III. OUTER WORKS OF WIDE AND ENDURING INFLUENCE, AND MO:SUME1<"'TS OF BEAL AND ENDURING HONOUR, AMONG THE PEOPLE. With what a mourning heart we look back upon many, nay, the most part, of the greatest monuments of antiquity, and are often tempted to do so with cynical look and cynical speech I How many of them perpetuate the names and memory of those who were the scourges of their kind, the pestilences of human society, barriers to the health, wealth, and real well-being of the world, from whom they wrung unwilling and undeserved honour, which time has reversed and revenged I By unfortunate irony of events, the useful works of our te:i:t even were largely those of the surer preparation for war; but we may perhaps lay more grateful stress on the thought that they are described rather as preparations against war, and defensive in character. Modem history and, in especial, the history, in God's mercy, through some few longer stretches of time, of Great Britain-that antitype in so many most real senses of J udrea of old-have done enough just to e:i:em- plify sufficiently the fact that, in "quiet," the useful works of art, the pursuit of the most beneficent sciences, the material well-being of a people, find the occasion to rise and to spread more equably. Material well-being may not at first seem to bs of the highest moment, but (the expression being rightly understood) it certainly is of very high moment. The world was not meant to be a scene of beggary, nor the mere triumph of moral and spiritual force, with constant strain and effort over material exigence. So far as at any time and any where it is such a scene, it yields no honour to religion, no testimony to its power, no furtherance of its imperial claims. IV. FAVOURABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE FAIREST OF GROWTHS-THAT OF RELIGION, AND 011' A HEALTHY STATE OF RELIGIOUS FEELING AND LIFE. The" quiet" and" rest" li'2 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [clt. xiv. 1-11!.
110 repeatedly spoken of ere instanced partly, indeed, e.s the reward of practice.I religion, but partly also (here e.s very emphatically elsewhere) e.s the opportunity of setting the hou8e of God, its worship, and its priests a.nd officers in order, a.nd of breaking down and breaking e.way from the evil practices and habits of idolatry. It ce.n scarcely be do~bt{!d ~hat the scourge of war was.used, has often been used, (1) as the just juclgment on 1rrehg1on ; (2) as a strong correchve and loud ce.11 to remember God e.nd righteous- ness; e.nd (3) as, generally speaking, such an awakener of the minds of men from that dormant, sluggish state that grows with hardening tendency on easy and undisturbed lives, that deep convictions of a religious character have been known to seed themselves under the unlikeliest of circumstances. There a.re abundant analogies to this in the individual life, which would quite prepare us for coITesponding phenomena in the col- lective life of a nation. Nevertheless, the blessed reality has been of re.re-enough occurrence. We cannot say that the holy dove lights often on such lands, in the midst of scenes where foes make fiends and where fiends triumph. War is too great a curse, and, where the blame may he the least, too directly the mark of the cloven foot. Golden harvest-fields of illimitable stretch do not bless the eye across rock-rent and gaping lands, of the scenery of which savagery is the first, the chief, the last character- istic. The still aspect of the rich, ever-ripening, abounding fruits of the retired, fertile, unstricken country, figure, not unaptly, the "no war," the "quiet," the "rest" of that land and nation, where the good leaven of God, by truth and practice, is blessedly leavening the whole lump.