H 90 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FRANK BAKER COLLECTION OF WESLEYANA AND BRITISH METHODISM THE LOOKING &L*4SS» Be. 'tfUYHOKITIES AGAINST THE TRACTICE OF WAR. THE Elf. WILLIAM LAW, A. M. IN the darkest acres of Romish superstition^ a martial spirit of zeal and glory for the gospel, broke forth in kings, cardinals, bishops, monks, and friars, to lead the sheep of Christ, saints, pilgrims, penitents, and sinners of all kinds, to proceed in battle array, to kill, devour, and drive the Turks from the land of Palestine, and the eld earfhly Jerusalem. — These blood-thirstv ex- peditions were called holy-wars, because it was fighting for the holy land ; they were called also Cromdcs, because crosses and . crucifixes made the greatest glitter amongst the sharpened in- struments of human murder. — Thus under the banner of the cross, went forth an army of church wolves, to destroy the lives of those, whom the Lamb of God died on the Cross to save. The light which broke out at the reformation, abhorred the bloody superstitious zeal of these catholic heroes. But mark, — What followed from this new-risen, reforming light. — What came forth instead of these holy Creisades ?. B Why 10 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Why, wars, if possible, still more diabolical. Christian kingdoms with blood-thirsty piety, de- stroying, devouring, and burning one another, for the sake of that which was called popery, and that which was called protestantism. Now who can help seeing, that Satan, the prince of the powers of darkness, had here a much greater triumph o\er Christendom, than in all the holy wars, and Croisades that went be- fore ? For all that was then done, by such high- spirited fighters for old Jerusalem's earth, could not be said to be so much done against gos]:el light, because not one in a thousand of those holy warriors, were allowed to see what was in the gospel. But now with the gospel opened in every one's hands, papists and protcstants make open war against every divine virtue that belonged to Christ, or which can unite them with that Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world : — I say against every divine, re-. deeming virtue of the Lamb of God, for these are the enemies which christian war conquers : for there is not a virtue of gospel goodness, but has its death blow from it : — for no virtue hath any gospel goodness in it any farther, than it Jiath its birth, and growth, in and from the spi- rit of Christ ; where his nature and spirit is not, there is nothing but the heathen to be found, which is but saying the same truth, as when the Apostle said, that he who hath not, or is not led by the spirit of Christ , is none of his. Now fancy to yourself, Christ the Lamb op God THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 1 1 God, after his divine sermon on the mount, put- ting himself at the head -of a blood thirsty army ; or St. Paul going forth with a squadron of fire and brimstone, to make more harock in human lives than a devouring earthquake ! But if this be too blasphemous an absurdity to be supposed, what follows, but that the christian who acts in the .destroying fury of war, acts in full contrariety to the whole nature and spirit of Christ, and can no more be said to be led by his spirit, or be one with him, than tho^e hise- nemies, who came forth with satards and stares to take him. Blinded protectants think they have the glo- ry of slaughtering blind papists ; and the victo- rious papist claims the merit of having conquer- ed troops of heretics : but alas ! the conquest is equally great on both sides, both are entitled to the sameviclory ; and the glorious victory on both sides, is only that of having trampled gos- pel goodness equally under their feet. When a nwst Christian majesty with his ca- tholic church sings a Te Deum* at the high altar, for rivers of protestant blood pcurcd out ; or an evangelical church sings praise and glory to the Lamb of God for helping them from his holy throne in heaven, to make popish towns like Sodom and Gomorrah, they blaspheme God as much as Cain would have done, had he offered a sacrifice of praise to God, for helping him to murder his brother. — Let such worshipers of God be told, that the field of blood gives all its 12 glory * \\ , ruic thtt O God. •12 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. £lory to Satan, who was a murderer from the be- ginning, and who will; to the end of his reign, be the only receiver of all the glory that can come from it ! A glorious Alexander in the heathen world, is a shame and reproach to human nature, and does more mischief to mankind in a few years, than all the wild beasts in every wilderness upon earth, have ever done from the beginning of the world to this day. But the same hero, making the same ravages from country to country, with christian soldiers, has more thanks from the de- vil, than twenty Pagan Alexanders would ever have had. — To make men kill men, is meat and drink to tha' roaring adversary of mankind, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour. But to make christians kill christians for the sake of Christ's church, is his highest triumph over the highest mark, which Christ hath set upon those whom he hath purchased by his blood. — This 'commandment [ saith he, I give unto you, that yt. love one another.— Hij this shall all men know that 1ft are my disciples, if ye love one another as J liave loved yon. Can the duellist, who would rather sheathe his sword in the bowels of his brother, than stifle that which he calls an affront, — Can he be said to have this mark of his belonging to Christ ? nnd may not he that is called his second, more justly be said to be second to none in the love of- human murder? Now THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 13 Now what is the difference between the haughty duellist with his provided second, meet- ing his adversary with sword and pistel behird a hedge or a house, and two kingdoms with their high spirited regiments, slaughtering one ano- ther in the field of battle? It is the difference that is between the murder of one man, and the murder of an hundred tJiousaad! Now imagine the duellist fasting and eonfes- sing his sins to Gon to-day, because he is engag- ed to light his brother to-morrow ; fancy again the conqueror got into his closet, on his bended knees, lifting up his hands and heart to God, for blessing his weapons with the death of his bro- ther ; and then you have a picture in little, of the great piety, that begins and ends the wars all over heavenly Christendom. What blindness can well be greater, than to think that a christian kingdom as such can have any other goodness, or union with Christ, but th:\t very goodness, which makes the private christian to be one with him, and a partaker of the divine nature? Or that pride, wrath, ambi- tion, envy, covetousness, rapine, resentment, revenge, hatred, mischief and murder, are only the works of the devil, whilst they are commit- ted by private or single men ; but when car- ried on by all the strength and authority, all the hearts, hands, voices of a whole nation, that the devil is then quite driven out of them, loses all his right and power in them, and they become holy matter of church thanksgiving, and the sa- cred oratory of pulpits. 14 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. The temporal miseries and wrongs, which war carries along with it, wherever it goes, are nei- ther to be numbered nor expressed. What thie- very bears any proportion to that, which with the boldness of drum and trumpet, plunders the innocent of all that they have? And if them- selves are left alive, withal! their limbs, or their daughters unravisheds, they ha\emany times on- ly the ashes of their consumed houses to lie down upon. — What honor has war nor gotten, for its tens qf 'thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of men slaughtered on heaps, with as little regret cr concern, as at leads of rubbish thrown into a pit?— Who but the fiery dragon, would put wreaths of laurel on such heroes heads? Who but he could say unto them, — Well done good and faithful servants! But there is still an evil of war much greater though less regarded. —Who reflects, how ma- ny hundreds of thousands, nay millions of young men, born into this world for no other end, but that they may be born again of Christ, and from sons of Adam's misery, become sons of God, and feilcw heirs with Christ in everlasting glory ; who reflects, 1 .say, what nameless numbers of these, are robbed of God's precious gift of life to thern, before they have known the one sole benefit of living ; who are not suffered to stay in this world, till age and experience have done their best for them, have helped them to know the inward voice and operation of God's spirit, helped them to find^ and feel ther^Y, curse, and sting THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 15 vting of sin and death, which must be taken from within them, before they can die the death of the righteous ; but instead of all this, have been either violently forced, or tempted in the fire of youth, and full strength of sinful lusts, to for- get God, eternity, and their own souls, and rush into a kill or be killed, with as much haste, and goodness of spirit, as tyger kills tygcr for the sake of his prey. Look nowat warring Christendom, what small- est drop of pity towards sinners is to be found in it ? Or how could a spirit all hellish, more fullv contrive to hasten their destruction ? — It stirs up and kindles every passion of fallen na- ture, that is contrary to the all-humble, all-meek, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-saving spirit of Christ. — It unites, it drives and compels, name- less numbers of unconverted sinners, to fall mur- dering and murdered amongst flashes of fire, with the wrath and swiftness of lightning, into a fire infinitely worse than that in which they died ! — Oh sad subject for thanksgiving days, whether in popish orprotestant churches! For if there is a joy of all the angels in heaven, for one sinner thatrepenteth, what a joy must there be in hell over such multitudes of sinners not suffered to repent? And if they who have con- verted many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars in the firmament for ever, what Choraziiis woe may they not justly fear, whose proud wrath and vain glory, have robbed such numberless troops of poor wretches, of all time and place of 16 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GI ASS. of knowing what righteousness they wanted, for the salvation of their immortal souls. "For the glory of his Majesty's arms/' say Christian kings! Now if at the time, their churches had called a solemn assembly to unite hearts and voices in this pious prayer, '* O blcs- " sed Jesus, dear redeeming Lamb of God/ who 11 earnest down from heaven, to save men's lives, " and not to destroy them, go along we humbly i( pray thee, with our bomb vessels and fire ships, '' suiter not our thundering cannon to r< ar in u vain, but let thy tender hand of love and n-er- " cy, direct their balls to more heads and hearts " of thine own redeemed creatures, than the " poor skill of man is able of itself to do !" — Had not such prayers had more of the man of the earth, more of the son of perdition in them, than the most christian Ling's glorying in his arms ? Again, would you farther see the fall of the universal church, from being led by the spirit of Christ, to be guided by the inspiration of the great fiery dragon, lock at all European Chris- tendom sailing round the globe, with fire and sword, and every murdering art, to seize the possessions, and kill the inhabitants of both the Indies. What natural right cf man, what super- natural virtue which Christ brought down from heaven, was not here trodden under foot ? — All that you ever read or heard of heathen barbari- ty, was here outdone by christian conquerors. And to this day, what wars of christians against christians, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 17 christians, blended with scalping heathens, still keep staining the earth and the seas with human blood, for a miserable share in the spoils of a plundered heathen world ! A world, which should have heard or seen, or felt nothing from the followers of Christ, but a divine love, that had forced them from distant lands, and through the perils of long seas, to visit strangers with those glad tidings of peace and salvation to all the world, which angels from heaven, and shep- herds on earth, proclaimed at the birth of Christ. But the wisdom of this world hath asked me, how it is possible for Christian kingdoms in the neighbourhood of one another, to preserve them- selves, unless the strength and weapons of war, are every one's defence against such invasions, Encroachments and robberies, as would otherwise be the fate of Christian kingdoms lrom one another? This question is so far from needing to be an- swered by me, that it is wholly on my side : it confesses all, and proves all that I have said of the fallen state of Christendom, to be strictly true. — For if this is the governing spirit of chris- tian kingdoms, that no one can subsist in safety from its neighbouring christian kingdoms but by its weapons of war, are not all christian king- doms equally in the same undrristian state, as two neighbouring blooch/ knaves, who cannot be safe from one another, but as each others mur- dering arms preserve and protect them ? This plea therefore for Christendom's wars, proves nothing 18 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. nothing else but the want of Christianity all o- \er the christian world ; and stands upon no better a foundation of righteousness and good- ness,, than one murdering knave killing another, that would have killed him. But to know whether Christianity wants, or admits of war, Christianity is to be considered a3 in its right state. — Now the true state of the world termed christian, is thus described by the great gospel-prophet, who shewed what a change it was to make in the fallen state of the world. — It shall come to pass, saith he, in the last days, that is, in the days of Christendom, that the moun- tain of the Lm rets house (his established king- dom) shall be established in the top of the moun- tains } and all nations shall flow into it : and many people shall say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house, and he will teach us of his ways, and zee will walk in his paths, Isaiah ii. 2. 3. Now what follows from this going up of the nations to the mountain of the Lords house, from his teaching them of his ways, and their walking in his paths? The holy prophet ex- pressly tells you in his follov/ing words : — Ihcy shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, (N.B.) neither shall they learn war any more. — This is the prophet's true Christendom, with one and the same essential divine mark set upon it. as when the Lamb of God said, by this shall men Know that ye are my disciples, if ye locc one another as 1 have loved you. ...Christ's THE WARRIOR LOOKING GLASS, ID — Christ's kingdom of God is no where come, but where the works of the devil are destroy- ed, and men are turned from the power of satan unto God. God is only another name for the highest and only good; and the highest and only good, means nothing else but lore with all its works. Satan is another name for the nJiolc and all of evil, and the whole of evil is nothing else but its whole contrariety to love: and the sum total of all contrariety to love, is contained in pride, wrath, strife, self, envy, hatred, revenge mischief and murder. Look at these, with all their fruits that belong to them, and then you see all the princely power that satan is and has, in this fallen world. Would you see when and where the kingdoms of this fallen world are become a kingdom of God, the gospel prophet tells you, that it is thai and there where all enmity ceaseth. — The wolf, saith he, shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the j/ouf/g lion and the falling together, and a little child shall lead them ; the cozv and the dear shall fcidj and their young ones shall lie dozvn together, and the lion shall eat straic like the ox. The suck- ing child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den : — For, ( N.B. ) they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, that is, throughout all holy Christendom. Isaiah xi. 6. See here a kingdom of God on the earth ; it is nothing else but a kingdom of mere love, where 20 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. where all hurt and destroying is done away,, and every work of enmity changed into one united power of reigning love : the prophet tells you, it is because in the day of his kingdom, the earth shaU be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea : — Therefore, O Christen- dom ! Thy wars are thy certain proof, that thou art all over — as full of an ignorance of God, as the zcalers cover the sea ! As to the present fallen state of universal Christendom, working under the spirit and pow- er of the great fiery dragon, it is not my inten- tion, in any thing I am here upon, to shew how any part of it can subsist, to preserve itself from being devoured by every other part, but by its own dragon weapons. In these last ages of fallen Christendom, ma- ny reformations have taken place ; but alas ! Truth must be forced to say, that they have been in all their variety, little better than so many run-away births of one and the same mother, so many lesser Baficls come out of Babylon the great. — For amongst all the reforms, the one only true reformation hath never yet been thought of. — A change of place, of governors, of opinions, to- gether \vith new formed, outward models, is all the reformation that has yet been attempted. But the Christendom which I mean, that nei- ther wants nor allows of war, is only that where Christ is king, and his holy spirit the only go- vernor of the wills, affections, and designs of all that belong to it. It is my complaint against, and charge upon all THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. M all the nations of Christendom, that this neces- sity of murdering arms, is the dragon's Monster, that is equallv brought forth by all and every part of fallen Christendom ; and that therefore all and every part, as well Popish as Protestant, are at one and the same distance, from the spi- rit of their Lord and Saviour the Iamb of God. and therefore all want one and the same en- tire REFORMATION ! Address to the Ciergjj. ROBERT BARCLAY. XVi'vr.NGF, and War are evils as opposite and contrary to the spirit and doctrine of Christ, as light to darkness. For, through contempt of Christ's Law, the whole world is filled with vari- ous oaths, cursings, bias} hemous profanations, and horrid pci j uiics ; so likewise, through contempt of the same law, the world is filled with violence, oppression, murders, ravishing of women andvir- giriSy spoilings, depredations, our/iings, devastati- ons and all manner of laschiousness and cruelty : so that it is strange, that men, made after the image of God, should have so much degenerated that they rather bear the image and nature of roaring Lions, tearing Tygers, devouringWolves, and raging Boars, than rational Creatures endu- ed with reason. And it is yet much mc-r l- mirable, that this horrid Monster should find place, and be fomented among thcoc men, c pre 22 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. profess themselves disciples of our Lord and Mas- ter Jesus Christ, who by his excellency is called the Prince of Peace, and hath expressly prohibi- ted his children all violence ; and on the con- trary, commanded them, that according to his example, they should follow Patience, Charity, Forbearance, and other virtues worthv of a Christian ! Hear then what this great prophet saith, whom every soul is commanded to hear, under the pain of being cut ofF, Mat. 5. from verse rJS, to the end of the chapter. For thus he saith : Ye have heard, that it hath been said, an Eye for an Eye, and a Tooth for a Tooth : But I say unto vou, that ve resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the Law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee ; and from him that would bor- row of thee, turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy : But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you : that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye 3 Do not even the publicans the same? And if THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 23 if ye salute your brethren only, what do you more than others ? Do not the publicans so I Be ye therefore perfe6t, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfecl. These words, with a respect to revenge, as the former in the case of sweeping, do forbid some things, which were formerly lawful to the Jews, considering their condition and dispensation ; and command unto such, as will be the disciples of Christ, a more perfect, eminent, and full sig- nification of charity, as also patience and suffer- ing, than was required of them in that time, state and dispensation, by the law oi' Moses. This is not only the judgment of most, if not all, the Ancient Fathers (so called) of the first three hundred years after Christ, but also of ma- ny others ; and in general of all those, who have rightly understood and propagated the law of Christ concerning szcearing, as appears from Jus- tin Martyr in Dialog, cum Trypho, ejusdem- que Apolog. 2. Item ad Zenam, Tertul. de Corona Militis. And many others. Yea Aitgitstin, altho' he vary much in this matter, notwithstanding in these places he did condemn fighting, Epist. 158, 159, 160. It. ad Judices Epist. 263. And elsewhere. From hence it appears, that there is so great a connexion betwixt these two precepts of Christ, that as they were uttered and commanded by him at one and the same time ; so the same way they were received by men of all ages, not on- ly in the first promulgation, by the little num- ber c\the disciples, but also after the christians c 2 increased 24 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. increased in the first three hundred years. E- ven also in the Apostacy, the one was not left and rejected without the other ; and now again in the restitution, and renewed preaching of the eternal gospel, they are acknowledged as eternal and unchangeable Jaws, properly belonging to the evangelical state and perfection thereof: from which if any withdraw, he falls short of the per- fection of a Christian Man. And truly, the words are so clear in themselves that (in my judgment) they need no illustrati- on to explain their sense: For it is as easy to reconcile the greatest contradictions, as these laws of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the wicked practices of wars ; for they are plainly inconsis- tent. Whoever can reconcile this, resist not evil, with, resist violence by force ; again, give also thy other cheek, with, strike again ; also, love thine c- nemies, with, spoil them, make a prey of them pur- me them with fire and sword; or, pray for those that persecute you, and those that calumniate you, with, persecute you by fines, imprisonments, and death itself ; and not only such, as do not perse- cute you, but who heartily seek and desire your eta Hal and temporal welfare : whoever, I say, can find a means to reconcile these things, may be supposed also to have found a way to recon- cile God with the Devil, Christ with Antichrist, Light with Darkness, and Good with Evil. But if this be impossible, as indeed it is, so will all the other-be impossible ; and men do but deceive themselves and others, while they boldly adven- ture to establish such absurd and impossible things, Nevertheless, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 25 Nevertheless, because some, perhaps through inadvertency, and by the force of custom and tra- dition, do transgress this comma/id of Christ, I shall briefly shew, how much war doth contra- dict this precept, and how much they are in- consistent with one another; and consequently that war is no ways lawful to such, as will be the disciples of CJirist. For, First, Christ commands, that we should love our enemies : but war, on the contrary, teacheth us to hate and destroy them. Secondly, The Apostle saith, that We war not after tJieJJesJi, and that we fight not with flesh and blood: but outward war is according to the flesh, and against flesh and blood ; for the shedding of the one, and destroying of the other. Thirdly, The Apostle saith, that the weapons of our war/are are not earned, but spiritual ': but the weapons of outward warfare are carnal, such as Cannon, Muskets, Spears, Swords, Sec. of which there is no mention in the Armour de- scribed by Paul. Fourthly, Because James testifies, that zears and strifes come from the Lusts, which war in the members of carried men; but christians, that is, those that are truly saints, have crucified the flesh with its affections aiul Lusts : Therefore they cannot indulge them by waging war. Fifthly, Because the Prophets Isaiah andil/i'- cah have expresly prophecied, that in the /noun- tain of the house of the Lord, Christ shatt judge the nations, and then they shall beat thcir%words into Plow-shares , &c. And the Ancient Fathers C3 . of -* 20 THE "WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. of the first three hundred years after Christ, did affirm these prophecies to be fulfilled in the christians of their times, who were most averse from war ; concerning which Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and others may be seen ; which need not seem strange to any, since Philo Judcem a- ihnndantly testifies of the Essenes, that there was none found among them that would make instmi- rgetUs of war. But how much more did Jesus come, that he wight keep his followers from fight- ing, and bring them to Patience and Charily f Sixthly, Because the Prophet foretold, that there should none hurt nor tail in all the holy mountain of the Lord: But outward war is ap- pointed for killing and destroying. Seventhly, Because Christ said, that his king* dam is not of this world, and therefore that his servants shall not fight : Therefore those that light, arc not his disciples nor servants. Eighthly, Because he reproved Peter for the use of the sword, saying, put up again thy sword into his place : for all they that take the sword *hatt perish with the sword. Concerning which TtYlulllm speaks well, lib. de Idol. How shall he fight in jjeace without a sword, which the Lord did take away f For cdtho ' soldiers came to J o hn, tend received a form of observation ; if also the Centurion believed afterwards, he disarmed every soldier in disarming of Peter. Idem de Coro. Mil. nsketh, shall it de lawful to use the sword, the Lord saying, that he that uscth the sword, shall perish by the sword ? Ninthly, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Z7 Ninthly, Because the Apostle admonisheth, christians, that they defend not themselves, neither revenge by rendering evil for evil ; but give place unto wrath, because vengeance is the Lord's Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good. If thine enemy hunger, feed him, if he thirst give him drink : But war throughout teacheth and in- joineth the quite contrary. Tenthly, Because Christ calls his children to bear his cross, not to crucify or kill others ; to patience, not to revenge; to truth and simplicity, not to fraudulent stratagems ofivar, or to play the sycophant, which John himself forbids ; to flee the glory of this world, not to acquire it by war/ike endeavours : therefore war is altogether contrary unto the law and spirit of Christ. But they object, that it is lawful to war, be- cause Abraham did war before the giving of the law, and the Israelites after the giving of the law. I answer, as before, I. That Abraham offered sacrifices at that time, and circumcised the males: which nevertheless are not lawful for us under the gospel. 2. That neither defensive nor offensive war was lawful to the Ifraelites, of their own will, or by their own counsel or conducl ; but they were obliged at all times, if they would be successful, first to enquire the Oracle of God. 3. That their wars, against the wicked nati- ons, were a figure of the inward war of the true christians against their spiritual enemies, in which we overcome the devil, the world, and the flesh. 4. Some- 28 THE WARRIOR S LOOKING GLASS. 4. Something is expresly forbidden by Christ, Mitt, 5. 26. which was granted to the Jeus in their time, because of their hardness,* and on the contrary, we are commanded that singular patience and exercise of love, which Mofes commanded not to his disciples From whence Tertullian saith well against JMarc. Chrifl tru- ly teacheth a new patience, even forbidding the re- venging of an injury, which was per nutted by the Creator. And lib. de patien. The laze finds more than is lost, by Chriji } faying, love your ene- mies. And in the time of Clem. Alex. Chris- tians were' 3) far from wars, that he testified, that they had no marks or signs of violence a- mong them, saying, neither fword nor how to them that follow peace, nor cups to them, who are mode- rate and temperate, as Sylvius Disc, de Rev. Belg. Secondly, They object, that defence is of na- tural right, and that religion deflroys not nature. I answer, be it so ; but to obey God, and commend ourselves to him in faith and patience, is not to destroy nature, but to exalt and perfect it ; to wit, to elevate it from the natural to the supernatural life, by Christ living therein, and comforting it, that it may do all things, and 4 be rendered more than conqueror. Thirdly, They object, that John did not' abro- gate or condemn war, xvhen ihejoldiers came unto him. I answer, what ther ? The question is not concerning Johns doctrine but Chriji* s, whose disciples we are, not John 's : for Chriji, and not John, is that prophet., whom we ought all to hear THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 29 hear. And albeit that Christ said, Luke 7, 28, That a greater than John the hapti/I ::as not among men born among women : vet he adds, That the leajl in the kingdom of God is greater than he. But what was Johns answer, that we may see, if it can jusfifie the soldiers of this time ? For if it be narrowly minded, it will appear, that what he proposeth to soldiers, doth manifestly forbid them that employment; for he commands them, Luke 3; 14. not to do violence to any wan, vor to defraud any man ; but that they be content xcith their wages. Consider then what he dis- charged to soldiers, viz. not to use "iolence or deceit against any ; which being removed, let any tell how soldiers can war ? for are not craft, violence and injujlice, three properties of zcar, and the natural consequences of battles? Fourthly, They objeel, that Cornelius, and that centurion, of whom there is mention made, Mat. 8. 5. were soldiers ; and there is no mention, that they laid dozen their military employments. I answer ; neither read we, that they conti- nued in them. But it is most probable, that if they continued in the doctrine of Christ (and we read not any where of their falling from the faith) that they did not continue in them ; e- specially if we consider, that two or three ages afterwards, chrijiians altogether rejected war, or at least a long while after their time, if the Em- peror Marc. Aurel. Anton, is to be credited, who writes thus: — "I prayed to my country Gods, but when I was neglected by them, and observ- ed myself pressed by the enemy ; considering the 30 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. the fewness of my forces, I called to one, and in- treated those, who with us are called christians, and I found a great number of them : and I forc- ed them with threats, which ought not to have been ; because afterwards I knew their strength and force. Therefore they betook themf elves nci- thcr to the i/fe of darts nor trumpets, for they use not so to do, for the cause and name of their God which they bear in their consciences :" and this was done about an hundred and sixty years after Christ. To this add those words, which in Justin Martyr, the Christians' answer, f IVe Ught not with our enemies* And, moreover, the answer oi Martin to Julian the apostate, re- lated by Sulpitius Sever us : ' I am afoldier of Chrift, therefore I cannot fight ; y which was three hundred years after Chrift. It is not therefore probable, that they continued in warlike em- ployments. How then are Vincentius Lyrineri/is, and the Papifts, consistent with their maxim, That which always, every where, and by all was received, 8zc. And what becomes of the Priejl? y with their oath, that they neither ought, nor will, interpret the fcripture, but according to the uni- ver pal con pent of the fathers, so called ? For it is as easy to obfeure the fun at mid-day, as lo de- ny that the primitive Christians renounced all revenge and war. And albeit this thing be so much known to all ; yet it is as well known, that all the modern seels live in the nejdect and contemot of this law of Christ, and likewise oppress others, who in this agree not with them for conscience sake towards THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 31 towards God ; Even as we have suffered much in our country, because we neither could our- selves bear arms, nor send others in their place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire. And lafdy, Because we could not hold our doors, windows and shops close, for conscience sake, upon such days as Fasts and Prayers were appointed, for to desire a blessing upon, and success for the arms of the kingdom or commonwealth, under which we live ; neither give thanks for the vic- tories acquired by the effusion of blood. By which forcing of the conscience, they would have constrained our brethren, living in divers kingdoms, at war together, to have implored our God for contrary and contradictory things, and consequently impossible ; for it is impossi- ble, that two parties fighting together, should both obtain the viclorv. And because we can- not concur with them in this confusion, there- fore we are subjecl to perjlxidion. Yea, and others, who with us do witness, that the use of arms is unlawful to chriflians, do look asquint upon us : But which of us two do most faith- fully observe this testimony against arms ? Ei- ther they, who at certain times, as the magis- trate's order, do close up their shops and houses, and meet in their assembly, praying for the prosperity of their arms, or giving thanks for some victory or other, whereby they make them- selves like to those that approve wars and fight- ing ; Or we, which cannot do these things, for the same cause of conscience, lest we should de- stroy 32 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. stroy by our works, what we establish in words ; we shall leave to the judgment of all prudent men. Fifthly, They objeft; That Chri/l, Luke 22. 36. /peaking to his di/ciplcs, commands them, that he that then had not a /word, /hould fell his coat, and buy afword: therefore, say they, arms are lawful. I answer ; some indeed understand this of the outward fivord; nevertheless regarding only that occasion : otherwise judging, that christi- ans are prohibited wars under the gospel. A- mong which is Ambro/e. who upon this place speaks thus : " O Lord ! Why commandest thou me to buy a sword, who forbidest me to smite with it ? Why commandest thou me to have it, whom thou prohibitest to draw it ? Unless perhaps a defence be prepared, not a necessary revenge ; and that I may seem to have been a- ble to revenge, but that I would not. For the law forbids me to smite again ; and therefore perhaps he said to Peter, offering two swords, (It is enough) as if it had been lawful, until the gospel times, that in the law there might be a learning of equity, but in the gospel a perfec- tion of goodness." Others judge Christ to have spoken here mystically, and not according to the letter; as Origen upon Mat. 19, saying, If ■ any looking to the letter, and not \ understanding the will of the words, Jhall sell his bodily garment, and buy a fword, talcing the words of Chri/l contrary t9 his will, he Jhall ptri/h : but concerning which fword he /peaks, is not proper here to mention. And THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 23 And truly, when we consider the answer of the disciples, Mafier, behold here are twofwords ; un- derstanding it of outward swords : and again, Christ's answer, It is enough; it seems, that Christ would not that the rest, who had not swords, (for they had only two swords) should sell their coats, and buy an outward sword. Who can think, that matters standing thus, he should have said, two was enough? But howe- ver it is sufficient, that the use of arms is un- lawful under the gospel. Sixthly, they object ; Thai the fcriptures and old fathers (so called) did only prohibit private revenge, not the ufe oj arms, for the defence of our country, body, wives, children and goods, when the magi/irate commands it ; feeing the magi/Irate ought to be obeyed : therefore, albeit it be unlawful for private men to do it of themj elves, neverthelefs they are bound to do it by the command of the magi/Irate. I answer ; if the magistrate be truly a chris- tian, or desires to be so, he ought himself in the first place to obey the command of his mas- ter, saying, love your enemies, S\c. and then he could not command us to kill them : but if he be not a true christian, then ought we to obey our Lord and King, Jcfus Chrifl, whom he ought also to obey : for in the kingdom of Christ, all ought to submit to his laws, from the high- est to the lowest, that is, from the King to the Beggar, and from Girfar to the Clown. But alas! where shall we"4$hd-such an obedience ? O de- plorable fall ! Concerning which Ludov. Viv. ' d writes t 34 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. writes well, lib. de con. tit Chrift. Jul). Tare. by relation of Fredericus Sylvius, Disc, de Revol. Belg. p. 85. "The prince enrer'd into the church not as a true and plain christian, which had been most happy and desirable ; but he brought in with him his nobility, his honours, his ARMS, his ensigns, his triumphs, his haughtiness, his pride, his superciliousness ; that is, he came in- to the house of Christ, accompanied with the devil ; and which could no ways be done, he would have joined two houses and two cities to- gether, God's and the Devil's, which could not more be done, than Home and Cori/ianlinoplt, w 7 hich are distant by so long a tra6t both of sea and land. (What communion, faith Paid, is there betwixt Christ and Belial ? ) Their zeal cooled by degrees, their faith decreased, -their whole piety degenerated ; instead whereof, we make now use of shadows and images, and (as he saith) I. would that we could but retain these.'* thus far Vhes. But lastly, as to what relates to this thing, since nothing seems more contrary to man's nature, and seeing of all things the de- fence of one's self seems most tolerable, as it is most hard to men, so it is the most perfeel part of the christian religion, as that, wherein the de- nial 'of felf, and intire confidence in God, doth most appear ; and therefore Christ and his apos- tles left us hereof a most perfeel example. As to what relates to the present magistrates of the cliriftian world, albeit we deny them not alto- gether the name of chrifiians, because of the public profession they make of Ckfifl's name • yet THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 35 yet we mav boldly affirm, that they are far from the perfection of the chrijlian religion : because in the state in which they are, (as in many places before I have largely observed) they have not come to the pure dipensation of the gospel. And therefore, while they are in that condition, we shall not say, that war, undertaken upon a just occasion, is altogether unlawful to them. For even as circumcision, and the other ceremo- nies, were for a season permitted to the Jews, not because they were either necessary of them- selves, or lawful at that time, after the resurrec- tion of Christ ; but because that spirit was not yet raised up in them, whereby they could be delivered from such rudiments : so the present confessors of the chrijlian name, who are yet in the mixture, and not in the patient suffering spirit, are not yet fitted for this form of Christi- anity, and therefore cannot be undefending themselves, until they attain that perfection. But for such whom Christ has brought hither, it is not lawful to defend themselves by Arms, but they ought over all to trust to the Lord. But lajllij, to conclude, if to revenge < selves, or to render injury, evil for evil, wound for wound, to take eye for eye, tooth for tooth ; if to fight for outward and perishing things, to go a warring one against another, whom we ne- ver saw, nor with whom we never had any con- test, nor any thing to do; being moreover al- together ignorant of the cause of the war, but only, that the magistrates of the nations foment quarrels one against another, the causes where- d 2 of 36 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. of are for the most part unknown to the soldiers that fight, as well as upon whose side the right or wrong is ; and yet to be so furious, and rage one against another, to destroy and spoil all, that this or the other worship may be received or abolished ; if to do this, and much more of this kind, be to fulfil the law of Christ, then are our adversaries indeed true chrifiians, and we miserable heretics, that suffer ourselves to be spoiled, taken, imprisoned, banished, beaten, and evilly entreated, without any resistance, placing our trust only in GOD, that he may de- fend us, and lead us by the way of the crofs un- to his kingdom. But if it be other ways, we shall certainly receive the reward, which the Lord hath promised to those that cleave to him, and in denying themselves, confide in him. Apology for the Quakers. Rev. THOMAS CLARKSON, M. J. It may be presumed to be difficult for christi- ans who have been in the habit of seeing wars entered into and carried on by their own and other christian governments, and without any other censure than that they might be politically wrong, to see the scriptural passages of e< non- rejijlanceto evil, and love of enemies," but through a vitiated medium. The prejudices of some, the interests of others, and custom with all, will induce THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 37 induce a belief among them, that these have no relation to public wars. At least they will be glad to screen themselves, under such a notion. But the question is, what a heathen would have said to these passages, who, on his conversion to christian itv, believed that the New Testament was of divine origin, — that it was the Book of Life,: — and that the precepts which it contained were not to be dispensed with to suit particular cases, without the imputation of evil? Now such a trial the Quakers say, has been made. It was made by the first christians ; and they affirm that these interpreted the passages which have been mentioned, different from those of most of the christians of the present age; for that both their opinions and their practice spoke loudly against the lawfulness of war. With respect to the opinions of the early chris- tians, which I shall notice first, it must be pre- mised, that such of them as have written books have not all of them entered upon this subject ; some of them have not had occasion even to notice it. But where they have, and where they have expressed an opinion, I believe that this will be found unfavourable to the continuance of war. J njl in the JMartip* one of the earliest writers in the second centurv, considers war as unlaw- ful. He makes also the devil "the author of all war." No severer censure could have been pas- sed upon it than this, when we consider it as coming from the lips of an early christian. The sentiment, too, was contrary to the prevailing d 3 * §en- 38 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. sentiments of the times, when of all professions, that of war was most honourable, and was the only one that was considered to lead to glory*. It resulted therefore, in all probability, from the new views which Justin had acquired by a pe- rusal of such of the scriptures as had then fallen into his hands. Tatiarij who was the disciple of Justin, in his oration to the Greeks, speaks precisely in the same terms on the same subject. From the different expressions of Clemens of Alexandria, a cotemporary of the latter, we col- lect his opinion to be decisive againji the law- fulness of war. Tertullian who may be mentioned next in or- der of time, strongly condemned the practice of bearing arms, as it related to chriflians. I shall give one or two more extracts from him on this subject : — in his dissertation on the worship of Idols, he says : " though the soldiers came to John, and received a certain form to be observ- ed; and though the centurion believed; yet Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed eve- ry soldier afterwards ; for custom never sancti- ons an illicit aft." And in his soldier's garland he says, " can a soldier's life be lawful, when Christ has pronounced that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword ? Can one who professes the peaceable doctrine of the gospel be a soldier, when it is his duty not so much as to go to law ? And shall he who is not to revenge his own wrongs be instrumental in bringing o- tbers into chains, imprisonment, torment, death?" Cyprian; THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 39 Cyprian, in his epistle to Donatus, takes a view of such customs in his own times as he con- ceived to be repugnant to the spirit or the letter of the go/pel. In looking at war, which was one of them, he speaks thus: "suppose thyself/' says he, {C with me on the top of some very ex- alted eminence, and from thence looking down upon the appearances of things beneath thee. Let our prospect take in the whole horizon, and let us view, with the indifference of persons not concerned in them, the various motions and a- gitations of human life. Thou wilt then, I dare say, have a real compassion for the circumstan- ces of mankind, and for the posture in which this view will represent them. And when thou rerlectest upon thy condition, thy thoughts will rise in transports of gratitude and praise to God, for having made thy escape from the pol- lutions of the world. The things thou wilt prin- cipally observe will be — the highways beset with robbers ; the seas with pirates ; encamp- ments, marches, and all the terrible forms of war and bloodshed. When a single murder is committed, it shall be deemed perhaps a crime ; but that crime shall commence a virtue, when committed under the shelter of public authori- ty ; so that punishment is not rated by the mea- sure of guilt ; but the more enormous the size of the wickedness is, so much the greater is the chance of impunity," These are the sentiments of Cyprian ; and that they were the result of his views of Christianity, as taken from the di- vine writings, there can be little doubt. If he had 40 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. had stood upon the same eminence, and beheld the same sights, previously to his conversion, he might, like others, have neither thought pi- racy dishonourable, nor war inglorious. Lactftnthis, who lived some time after Cyprian in his treatise concerning the true worship of God, says, " it can never be lawful for a righte- ous man to go to war, whose warfare is righte- ousness itself." And in another part of the sam$ treatise he observes, that "no exception can be made with respecl to this command of God. It can never be lawful to kill a man, whose person the divine being designed to be sacred as to violence." The names of Origen, Archelam, Amhrofe,. Chryfofiom, Jerome, and Cyril may be added to those already mentioned, as the names of per- sons who gave it as their opinion, that it was unlawful for cliriflians to go to war. With respect to the practice of the early chris- tians, it may be observed, that there is no well- authenticated instance upon record of christians entering into the army for tliefirjl two centuries "; but it is true, on the other hand, that they r/e- clined the military profession, as one in which it was not lawful for them to engage. The firji species of evidence to this point, may be found in the following facls, which reach from the vear 169 to the year 198: — Avidius Crassus had rebelled against the empe- ror Vents, and was slain. In a short time af- terwards, Clodius Albiirfis in one part of the world and Pe'^ennius Niger in another, rebelled a- gainst THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 4 1 gainst the emperor Severus, and both were slain likewise. Now suspicion fell,, as it always did in these times if any thing went wrong, upon the christians, as having been concerned upon these occasions. ButTertullian, in his discourse to Scapula, tells us that no chrijlians were to be found in thefe armies. And yet these armies were extensive. Crassus was master of all Syria with its four legions, and Albinus of those of Britain ; which legions together contained be- tween a third and a half of the standing legions of Rome. And the facl, that no christians were then to be found in these, is the more remark- able, because, according to the same Tertnllian, Christianity had reached all the places in which these armies were. A fecond species of evidence, as far as it goes, may be collected from expressions and declara- tions, in the works of certain authors of those times. Justin the Martyr, and Tatian, make distinctions between soldiers and christians ; and the latter says, that the christians declined even military commands. Clemens of Alexan- dria gives the christians who were cotemporary with him the appellation of "peaceable," or of "the followers of peace ;" thus distinguishing them from the soldiers of his age. And he says expressly, that " those who were the followers of peace used none of the instruments of war." A third species of evidence, which is of the highest importance in this case, is the belief which the writers of these times had, that the prophecy of Isaiah, which stated that men should turn 42 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS, turn their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks,, was then in the act of completion. Irenaeus, who flourished about the year 180, affirms that this famous prophecy had been com- pleted in his time ; " for the christians/' says he, iC have changed their" swords and their lances into instruments of peace, and they know not how to fight/* Justin Martyr, who was cotem- porary with Irenaaus, asserted the same thing ; which he could not have done if the christians of his time had engaged in war. e mark- ed, still asserting that he was a christian. Up- on which Dion instantly replied, " Bear arms, or thou shalt die." To this Maximilian answered, « I cannot fight, if I die : I am not a soldier of this world, but a soldier of God.*' Dion then said, rf Who has per- suaded thee to behave thus ?" Maximilian an- swered, "My own mind and He who has called me." Dion then spoke to his father, and bade him persuade his son. But his father observed, that his son knew his own mind, and what it was best for him to do. After this had passed, Dion addressed Maxi- milian again in these words : u Take thy arms, and receive the mark/* •* I can receive," says Maximilian, u no such mark. I have already the mark of Christ" Upon which Dion said, " I will send thee quickly to thy Christ." — "Thou may est do so," says Maximilian* u but the glory will be mine." £ Dion 46 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Dion then bade the officer mark him. But Maximilian still persisted in refusing, and spoke thus : " I cannot receive the mark of this world. And if thou shouldest give me the mark, I will destroy it. It will avail nothing. / am a chris- tian, and it is not lawful for me to wear such a mark about my neck, when I have received the saving mark of the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, whom thou knowest not, who died to give us life, and whom God gave for our sins. Him all we christians obey. Him we follow, as trie restorer of our life and the author of our salvation." Dion instantly replied to this, " Take thy arms, and receive the mark, or thou shah suffer a most miserable death !" — " But I shall not perish/' said Maximilian. " My name is alrea- dy enrolled with Chrift. I cannot fight. " Dion said, " Consider, then, thy youth, and bear arms. The profession of arms becomes a young man." Maximilian replied, "My arms are with the Lord. I cannot fight for any earth- ly consideration. I am now a christian." Dion, the proconsul, said, "Among the life- guards of our masters Dioclesian and Maximian, and Constantius and Maximus, there are Christi- an soldiers, and they fight." Maximilian an- swered, '■' They know best what is expedient for them ; but I am a christian, and it is unlawful to do evil." Dion said, "Take thy arms. Despise not the profession of a soldier, lest thou perish misera- bly." — *■' But I shall not perish," says Maximili- an ; THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 47 an ; " and if I should leave this world, my soul will live with Christ the Lord." Dion then ordered his name to be struck from the roll ; and when this was done he proceeded : " Because out of thy rebellious spirit thou hast refused to bear arms, thou shalt be punished ac- cording to thy deserts, for an example to others;" and then he delivered the following sentence : Maximilian ! Because thou hast with a rebelli- ous spirit refused to bear arms, thou art to die by the sword:' Maximilian replied, " thanks be to God." He was twenty years three months and seven- teen days old ; and when he was led to the place of execution he spoke thus : " My dear brethren, endeavour with all your might, that it may be your portion to see the Lord, and that he may give you such a crown." And then with a plea- sant countenance he said to his father, "Give the executioner the soldier's coat thou hadst got for me ; and when I shall receive thee in the company of the blessed martyrs, we may also rejoice together with the Lord." After this he suffered. His mother Pom- peiana obtained his body of the judge, and con- veyed it to Catthage, and buried it near the place where the body of Cyprian the martyr lav. And thirteen days after this his mother died, : ni was buried in the same place. And Victor, his father, returned to his habitation, rejoicing and praising God that he had sent before such a gift to the Lord, himself expecting to follow after. I shall only observe upon this instance that e z it 48 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. it is nearly pure and unmixed, or that it is but little connected with idolatrous circumstances ; or rather* that the unlawfulness of fighting was principally urged by Maximilian as a reason a- gainst entering upon a military life. Let us now find a case where, when a person was con- verted in the army, he left it, pleading this prin- ciple as one among others for his dereliction of it. JVLarcellus was a centurion in the legion called " Trqjana." On a festival given in honour of the birth-day of Galerius, he threw down his military belt at the head of the legion, and, in the face of the standards, declared with a loud voice, that he would no longer serve in the army, for that " he had become a chriftian. — I hold in deteflation,* says he, addressing himself to all the soldiers, "the wor/hip of your Gods, — Gods which are made of wood and stone, — Gods which are deaf and dumb." So far Marcellus, it appears seems to have been influenced in his desertion of a military life by the idolatry connected with it. But let us hear him further on this subject : " It is not lawful/' says he, " for a christian, who is the servant of Christ the Lord, to dear arms for any earthly consideration. " After a delay of more than three months in prison after this transaction, which delay was allowed for the pur- pose of sparing him, he was brought before the prsefecl. Here he had an opportunity of cor- recting his former expressions. But as he per- sisted in the same sentiments, he suffered. It is remarkable that, almost immediately af- ter THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 49 ter his execution,, Cassian, who was the notary to the same legion, refused to serve any longer, by publicly throwing his pen and accoraptbook up- on the ground, and declaring at the same time that the sentence of Marcel his was imjufl. When- taken up by the order of Aurelianus Agncolanus, be is described by the record preserved by J?//- inart, to have avowed the same sentiments as Marcellus, and like him to have suffered death. It may not, perhaps, be necessary to cite any other instances, to the point in question. But as another occurs, which may be related in few words, I will just mention it in this place : Mar- tin, of whom Sulpicius Severus says so much, had been bred to the profejfion of arms, but on his convetfion to Christianity declined it. In the answer which he gave to Julian the apostate for his conduct on this occasion, we find him mak- ing use only of these words : " I am a chrifiian, and therefore I cannot fight. y> Now this answer of Martin is detached from all notions of idolatry. The unlawfulness of fighting is given as the only motive for his resig- nation. And there is no doubt that the unlaw- fulness of fighting was as much a principle of religion in the early times of Christianity, as the refusal of sacrifice to the Heathen Gods; and that they operated equally to prevent men from entering into the army, and to drive them out of it on their conver/ion. Indeed these principles generally went together, where the profession of arms presented itself as an occupation for a christian. He who refused the profession oft e 3 account 50 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. account of the idolatry connected with it, would have refused it on account of the unlawfulness of fighting. And he who refused it on account of the guilt of fighting, would have refused it on account of the idolatrous services it required. Both and each of them, were impediments in the early times of Christianity to a military life. It may be considered as a well founded pro- position, that as the lamp of Christianity burned bright in those early times, so those who were illuminated by it declined the military profes- sion ; and that as its flame shone less clear, they had less objection to it. Thus, in the two first centuries, when Christianity was the purest, there were no christian soldiers. In the third century, when it became less pure, there is frequent mention of such soldiers. And in the fourth, when its corruption was fixt, christians entered upon the profession of arms with as lit- tle hesitation as they entered upon any other occupation in life. That there were no christian soldiers in the first and second centuries has already been made apparent. That their conduct was greatly altered in the third century, where we are now to view it, we may collecl: from indisputable authority. A christian soldier was punished for refusing to wear a garland, like the rest of his comrades, on a public occasion. This man, it appears, had been converted in the army, and objected to the ceremony on that account. Now Tertullian tells us that this soldier was Named for his un- seasonable THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. hV seasonable zeal, as it was called by some of the christians of that time, though all christians be- fore considered the wearing of such a garland as unlawful and profane. In this century there is no question but the christian discipline be- gan to relax. That there were christian soldiers in this more corrupt century of the church it is impossible to deny : for such frequent mention is made of them in the histories which relate to this period, that we cannot refuse our assent to one or other of the propositions, either that there were men in the armies who called themselves christians, or that there were men in them who had that name given them by others. That they were christians however is another question. They were pro- bably such christians as Dion mentioned to have been among the life guards of Dioclesian and Maximian, and of Constantius and Maximus, of whom Maximilian observed, " These men may know what is most expedient for them to do ; but I am a christian, and therefore I cannot fight/' That Christianity was more degenerate in the fourth than in the third century, we have indu- bitable proof. Almost every body knows that more evils sprung up to the church in this century than in any other ; some of which remain at the pre- sent day. Constantine, on his conversion, introduced many of the Pagan superstitions, in which he had been brought up, into the christian religion. Thus there was a mixture of Christianity and Paganism 52 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Paganism in the church which had never been known before. Now in this century, when the corruption of the church may be considered to have been fix- ed, we find the distinction between them and rs gradually passing away. Hence the unlawfulness of fighting be^an to be given up. We find, however, that here and there an ancient father still retained it as a re- ligious tenet ; but these dropping off one after another, it ceased at length to be a doctrine of the church. When I consider, says Mr. C/arkson, the fre- quency of modern wars, — when I consider that they are scarcely over before others rise up in their place ; — when I consider, again, that they come like the common diseases which belong to our infirm nature, and that they are considered by men nearly in a similar light, — I should feel myself criminal, if I were not to avail myself of the privilege of an author, to add a few ob- servations of my own upon this subject. Living as we do, in an almost inaccessible island, and having therefore more than ordinary means of security to our property and our persons from hostile invasion, we do not seem to be suffici- ently grateful to the divine being for the bles- sings we enjoy. We do not seem to make a right use of our benefits, by contemplating the situation, and by feeling a tender anxiety for the happiness of others. We seem to make no proper THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 53 proper estimates of the miseines of war. The lat- ter we feel principally in abridgements of a pe- cuniary nature. But if we were to feel them in the conflagration of our towns and villages, or in personal wounds, or in the personal sufferings of fugitive misery and want, we should be apt to put a greater value than we do upon the bles- sings of peace. And we should be apt to consi- der the connexion between war and misery, and between war and moral evil, in a light so much stronger than we do at present, that we might even suppose the precepts of Jesus Christ to be deficient, unless they were made to extend to wars as well as to private injuries. I wonder what a superior being, living in the nearest planet to our earth, and seeing us of the size of ants, would say, if he were enabled to get any insight into the nature of modern wars. It must certainly strike him, if he were to see a number of such diminutive persons chasing one another in bodies over different parts of the hills and volleys of the earth, and following each other in little nut shells, as it were, upon the o- cean, as a very extraordinary sight, and as mys- terious, and hard to be explained. But when he saw them stop and fight, and dejlroy one ano- ther, and was assured that they were actually engaged in the folemn game of death, and this at such a distance from their own homes, he would wander at the caufes of these movements, and the reafon of this dejiriiBion ; and, not knowing that they possessed rational faculties, he would pro- bably consider them as animals destined by na- ture to live upon one another. J 54 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. I think the first question he would ask would be, and from whence do thefe fightings come ? It would be replied of course, that they came from their lusts ; — that these beings, though di- minutive in their appearance were men ; — that they had pride and ambition ; — that they had envy and jealousy ; — that they indulged also hatred, and malice, and avarice, and anger; — and that on account of some or other of these causes they quarrelled and fought with one another. Well : — but the superior being would say, is there no one on the earth which I see below me to advise them to conduct themselves better ; or are the paffions you speak of eternally upper moji and never to befubduedf The reply would of course be, that in these little beings, called men, there had been implanted the faculty of reason, by the use of which they must know that their conduct was exceptionable, but that in these cases they seldom minded it. It would also be added in reply, that they had a religion, which was not only designed by a spirit from heaven who had once lived amongst them, but had been pro- nounced by him as enicatious to the end pro- posed ; that one of the great ohjetls of this reli- gion was a due fi&jugatwn of their paffions ; and this was so much insisted upon, that no one of them was considered to have received this reli- gion truly, unless his passions were subdued, but here the superior being would inquire, whe* ther they acknowledged the religion f poteen of and the authority from whence it came. To which it would THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 55 would of course be replied, that they were so tenacious of it, notwithstanding their indulgence of their de/Iruclion of one another, that you could not offend them more grievously than by telling them that they did not belong to the religion they professed. It is not difficult to foresee what other ques- tions this superior being would ask ; and pro- bably the first of these would be, the duration of the tires of these little beings, and the length arid frequency of their wots. It would be repli- ed to these, that their lives were but as a vapour which appeareth for a little time and then va- nisheth away, and that a quarter and sometimes half of their time on earth, was spent in these destructive pursuits. The superior being would unquestionably be grieved at this account, be- cause he would feel that they really frustrated their own happiness ; or that they lost by tneir own fault, a considerable portion of the enjoy- ment of their Jives. In this impatience and anxiety for their fu- ture comfort he would probably ask, again, if thcii had any notion of a?uj generous end for zohich they xcere born ; for it is impojfible they could flip- poje that they came into the zcor/d to destroy one another. It would be replied, that they could not be ignorant of the true obje6l or end ; for the smr^ religion in which they believed, and which was said before to have been given them by a spirit sent from heaven, inculcated, that they* were sent there on a life of trial, and that in a future existence they were to give an account of £>6 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. of their conduct, and were to be rewarded or pu- nished accordingly. The same religion, it would be replied also, inculcated, notwithstanding their fightings, the utmost benevolence from one to- wards another. It wished so much every one of them to live peaceably, that it enjoined it as a duty rather to put up with an injury than to resent it ; and it carried its benevolence so far, that it made no distinction between others of the same species, who spoke a different language or lived in other districts or parts of the same world. But here the superior being would interrupt. What ! he would fay, are they not to refent inju- ries, and yet do they go to war ? And are they not afraid of fighting in this manner, when they are to give an account of their conduct in a future state? It would be replied, no. They have their philosophers among them ; and most of these have determined, that in this particular case responsibility lies at the door of those who employ them. But, notwithstanding this* there are others living among them who think other- wise. These are of opinion, that those who em- ploy them cannot take the responsibility upon themselves without taking it from those whom they thus employ. But the religion of the great spirit no where says, that any constituted autho- rities among them can take away the responsi- bility of individual creatures ; but, on the other hand, in the most positive terms, that every in- dividual creature is responsible wholly for him- self. And this religion does not give any crea- ture THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING-GLASS. 5? ture an exemption on account of any force \\ hich may be used against him ; because no one according to its precepts, is to do evil, not even that good may come. But, if he be persecuted he is to adhere to that which is right, and to ex- pect his reward in the other state. The impos- sibility, therefore, of breaking or dissolving in- dividual responsibility, in the case of immoral action, is an argumetU to many of the unlawful- ness of these wars. And those who reason in this manner think they have reasoned right, when they consider, besides, that if any of the beings in question were to kill one of his usu- ally reputed enemies in the time of peace, he would suffer death for it, and be considered as accountable also for his crime in a future state. They cannot see, therefore, how any constituted authorities, among them can alter the nature of things, or how these beings can kill others in time of war without the imputation of a crime, whom they could not kill without such an im- putation in time of peace. They see in the book of the great spirit no dispensation given to societies to alter the nature of actions which are pronounced to be crimes. But the superior being would say, is it really defined, and is it defined clearly in the great book ofihefpirit, that if one of them fliould kill another he is guilty of a crime ? It would be replied, — not only of a crime, bid of the greatest of all crimes ; and that no difpenfation is given to any of them to commit it in any cafe. And it w*- bserved, further, that there are other 58 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. crimes which these fightings generally include, which are equally specified and forbidden in the great book, but which they think it proper to sanclion in the present case. Thus all kinds of treachery and deceit are considered to be allow- able; for a very antient philosopher among them has left a maxim upon record, and it has not yet been beaten out of their heads, notwith- standing the precepts of the great book, in near- ly the following words: fe who thinks of requir- ing open courage of an enemy, or that treachery is not equally allowable in zvar* ?" Strange ! The superior being would reply. *Fhey seem to me to be revelling the order of their nature, and the end of their existence. But how do they justify themselves on these occasions? It would be answered, — they not only justify themselves, but they even go so far as to call these fightings honourable. The greater the treachery, if it succeed, and the greater the number of these beings killed, the more glori- ous is the aclion esteemed. Still more strange ! the superior being would reply. And is it pojjible, he would add, that they enter into this profejjion with a belief that they are entering into an honowable employ ! Some of them, it would be replied, consider it as a gen- teel employ ; and hence they engage in it. O- thers, of a lazy disposition, prefer it to any other. Others are decoyed into it by treachery in vari- ous ways. There are also flrong drinks which they are fond of; and if they are prevailed up- * Dolus an virtus quis in hoftc requirat ? on THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 59 on to take these to excess they lose their rea- son, and they are obliged to submit to it. It must be owned, too, that when these wars begin, the trades of many of these little beings are stopped ; so that, to get a temporary livelihood, they go out and fight. Nor must it be conceal- ed, that many are forced to go, both against their judgment and against their will. The superior being, hurt at these various ac- counts, would probably ask, and what then docs the community get by these wars, as a cowiterba- lance for the loss of so much happiness, and. the production of so much evil ? It would be replied, nothing. The community is generally worse off at the end of these wars than when it began to contend. But here the superior being would wish to hear no more of the system. He would suddenly turn away his face, and retire into one of the deep valleys of his planet, either with exclamations against the folly, or with emoti- ons of pity for the situation, or with expressi- ons of disgust at the wickedness, of these little creatures. Portraiture of Quakerism. Rev, JAMES SJURIN. PASTOR OF THE FRENCH CHURCH AT THE HAGUE. A Tyrant executes on a gibbet a poor unhap- py man, whom the pain of hunger, and the frightful ar prehension of sudden death, forced to break open an house. Here, if you will, dis- f ft order 60 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. order is punished, and society is satisfied. But who shall satisfy the just vengeance of society on this mad tyrant ? This very tyrant at the head of perhaps a hundred thousand thieves, ra- vages the whole world ; he pillages en the right, and oil the left ; he violates the inofl sacred rights, the moji solemn treaties, he knows neither religion nor go vd faith . Go, see, follow his steps, palaces reduced to ashes, and people run mad with despair. Inquire for the author of all these miseries. Will you find him, think you, confined in a dark dungeon, or expiring on a wheel ? Lo ! he Jits on a throne, in a superb royal palace ; na- ture and art contribute to his pleasures; a cir- cle of courtiers minister to his passions, and e- re6l altars to him whose equals in iniquity, yea, if I may be allowed to say so, whose inferiors in vice have justly suffered the most infamous punishments. And where is divine justice all this time ? W 7 hat is it doing ? I answer with my text, Jfter death comes judgment. Sermon on Judgment. Rev. PETER DU MOULIN, Jux. D. D jl\t all times and in all places the true christian ougiil to detest zOar, as hring the reign of the devil and the kingdom of the Prince of this World, a school of murder and rapine, a gidph of misery, and a refuge for the rabble of every sort, as ex- perience loo well Ju/fifies. To THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 61 To love the trade of war, and to be pleased with destroying one's fellow creatures, as men destroy Wolves, Boars, and other wild beasts, is an unnatural barbarity, a diabolical fury, and not true courage. He then who values as he ought, the integrity a «d quiet of his consci- ence, and the salvation of his soul, will take care to preserve himself from this inhuman pas- sion, the true likeness of the Devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. The sons of God are the sons of peace : they maintain it in their own hearts, and they endeavour to establish it in that of others by prayer, by pacific counsels, and by all the methods in their power. Treatise on Peace of Soul. Rev. VICESSIMUS KNOX, D. D. X. he calamities attendant upon a state of war, seem to have prevented the mind of man from \ iewing it in the light of an absurdity, and an object of ridicule as well as pity. But if we could suppose a superior being capable of be- holding us, miserable mortals, without compas- sion, there is, I think, very little doubt but the variety of military manoeuvres and formalities, the pride, pomp, and circumstances of war, and all the ingenious contrivances for the glorious purposes of mutual destruction, which seem to constitute the business of many whole king- f 3 doms, o2 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. doms, would furnish him with an entertainment like that which is received by us from the ex- hibition of a farce or a puppet show. But not- withstanding the ridiculousness of all these so- lemnities, we, alas ! are doomed to feel that they are no farce, but the concomitant circum- stances of a most woful tragedy. The causes of war are for the most part such as must disgrace an animal pretending to rati- onality. Two poor mortals, elevated with the distinction of a golden bauble on their heads, called a crown, take offence at each other with- out any reason, or with the very bad one of wishing for an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves, by making reciprocal depredations. The creatures of the court, and the leading men of the nation, who are usually under the influ- ence of the court, resolve (for it is their interest) to support their royal master, and are never at a loss to invent some colourable pretence for engaging the nation in the horrors of war. Taxes of the most burthensome kind are levied, soldiers are collected, so as to leave a paucity of husbandmen, reviews and encampments suc- ceed, and at last fifteen or twenty thousand men meet on a plain, and coolly shed each other's blood without the smallest personal animosity or the shadow of a provocation. The kings i n the mean time, and the grandees, who have employed these poor innocent vidims to shoot bullets at each other's heads, remain quietly at home, and amuse themselves, in the intervals of balls, hunt- ing schemes and pleasures of every species, vrtth THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 63 with reading at the fire-side, over a cup of cho- colate the dispatches from the army, arid the news in the extraordinary gazette. Old Horace very truly observes, that whate- ver mad frolics enter into the heads of the kings, it is the common people, that is, the honest artizan, and the industrious tribes of the middle ranks, nn- ojf ended and unoffending, who chiefly fuffer in the evil consequences. If the king of Prussia were not at the head of some of the best troops in the universe, he would be judged more worthy of being tried, cast, and condemned eit the Old Bcu- leij, than emu shedder of blood who cxer died by a halter. B-ut he is a king ; but he is a hero : — those names fascinate us, and we enrol the butcher of mankind among their benefaelors. When one considers the dreadful circumstan- ces that attend even victories, one cannot help being a little shocked at the exultation which they occasion. I have often thought it a laugh- able scene, if there were not a little too much of the melancholy in it, when a circle of eager politicians have met to congratulate each other on what is called a piece of gpod news just ar- rived. Every eye sparkles with delight ; every voice is raised in announcing the happy event. And what is the cause of all this joy f And for what are our windows illuminated, bonfires kin- dled, bells rung, and feasts celebrated ? We have had a succesful engagement. We have left a thousand of the enemy dead on the field of battle, and only nine hundred of our country- men. Charming news ! It was a glorious bat- tle ! 64 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. tie ! But before you give a loose to your rap- tures, pause awhile ; and consider, that to eve- ry one of these nineteen hundred, life was no* less sweet than it is to you ; that to the far greater part of them were wives, fathers, mo- thers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, and friends, all of whom are at this moment bewail- ing that event which occasions your foolish and brutal triumph. The whole time of war ought to be a time of general mourning, a mourning in the heart, a mourning much more j?? were than on the death of one of thofe princes wlwfe accurfed ambition is often thefole caufe of war. Indeed, that a whole people should tamely submit to the evils of war, because it is the will of a few vain, selfish, ignorant, though exalted individuals, is a phe- nomenon almost unaccountable. But they are led away by false glory, by their passions, by their vices. They reflect not ; and indeed, if they did refiecY, and oppose, what would avail the opposition of unarmed myriads to the man- date of a government supported by a standing army ? J\lany of the European nations are en- tirety military ; war is their trade; and when they have no employment at home, or near it, they blush not to let themf elves out to shed any blood, in any cause of the best paymaster. Ye beasts of the forest, no longer allow that man is your superior, while there is found on the face of the earth such degeneracy ! Morality and religion forbid war in its mo~ tives, conducl, and consequences ; but to many rulers THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 65 rulfcrs and potentates morality and religion ap- pear as the inventions of politicians to facilitate subordination. The principal objects of crown* ed heads, and minions, are the extension of em- pire, the augmentation of a revenue, cr the annihilation of their subjects' liberty. Their restraints in the pursuit of these objects are not those of morality and religion ; but solely reasons of state, and political caution. Plausi- ble words are used,, but they are only use to hide the deformity of the real principles. U lit ve- rier near is deemed desirable in an interested view* a specious pretext never yet remained un \ found. JMoraliljj is as Utile considered in the beginnings as in the prosecution of wot. The most solemn treaties and engagments are violated by the governing part of the nation, with no more scruple than oaths and bonds are broken by a cheat and a villain in the walks of private life. Does the difference of rank and situation make any difference in the atrocity of crimes ? If any, it renders a thousand times more criminal than that of a thief, the villainy of them, who by violating every sacred obligation between nation and nation, give rise to miseries and mischiefs most dreadful in their nature ; and to which no human power can say, Thus far shall ye proceed and no farther. Are not the natural and moral events of life sufficient, but they must be rendered more acute, more nu- merous, and more embittered by artificial ms ? My heart bleeds over those compli- cated scenes of woe, for which no epithet can be 66 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. be found sufficiently descriptive. Language fails in labouring to express the horrors of war amid private families, who are so unfortunate as to be situated on the seat of it. War, however, it will be said, has always been permitted by providence. This is indeed true ; but it has been only permitted as a scourge. Let a spirit and activity be exerted in regulating the morals of a nation, equal to that which war, and all its apparatus, are attended to, and man- kind will no longer be scourged, neither will it be necessary to evacuate an empire of its members, for none will be superfluous. Let us according to the advice of a pious divine of the present age, think less of our fleets and armies, and more of our faith and practice. While we are warriors, with all our pretensions to civiliza- tion, we are savages. Essays. Rev. THOMAS HARTLEY, M. J. i. he unlimited ambition of princes is another abuse of government, leading to the most per- nicious effecls. This ardour of extending their dominions, contrary to all reason and justice, has disturbed the peace of mankind, and filled the earth with violence in almost every age, insomuch that universal history is little more than a history of wrongs and robberies, com- mitted by these great violators of the rights of mankind. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS 67 mankind. " What have we to do xcith Hue, said the honest blunt Scythian to Alexander, as Quint us Curtius relates it : ivc never fet foo> in thy country : may not thofe wJwinh ' i xcoods, be allowed to live, without knowing who i oil art s and from whence thou earnest? Hon ;.,.. test thy coming to extirpate robbers, u, , thyset, the greatest robber upon ca: And too well does the same language suit some wh ■ . ass for chris- tian princes. Look to the remotest parts of the earth, and say, v, here have not the like de- predations with those of Alexander been coin- mined by them ? How have the poor natives been driven out of their possessions, and hunted down lil ■ wild beasts! What millions* were slaughtered by the Spaniards in their first American expediti- ons ! and what millions have been slaughtered since, by other European nations in the East and West Indies, and other ,parts of the globe ! ar with me, reader, in the following ex 'ta- rnation : O holy God, how patient art thou to- wards those who use thy scored name for a co- ver to iniquity : who niake thee to serve with their sins, and mock thee with a pretended wor- ship, wmilst they offer up their most devout af- fe61ions and real sei ices to Mammon and Moloch ! It is shocking to an honest heart to think, what little claim ce owers have to liieir possessions in the distant countries before-men- * The Inweft compute them twenty million; ; and PuRCHAS,if 1 rtmembcr right, fifty million:. tioncd, 63 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS, tioned, unless violence and murdeiy fraudulent dealings, or the setting up of a flag-staff with the invader's name upon it, can give them a suf- ficient title, a title which they would be asham- ed to allow of in any of their subjects at home ; and yet we cannot be unacquainted with the names of certain potentates now living, who would hang a poor man for stealing a cow, whilst they themselves share a kingdom among them, acquired by rank usurpation. O for a Nathan this day in every court of Ghrijlendom, to take up his parable, and, as the application Jhould require it, to say even to the most puissant monarch, thou art the man ! God's controversy with the JSaiiom. Iter. — BURDOX. M. A. %^t <^-> t^i But there is one profession, whose institution aud whole employment are so totally opposite to every thing that I have ever wished or look- ed ,: the instruction or ultimate destination necessity to except it r Xh ion of a soldier is, in -all respects, so contrary to every principle of reason and jus- it admits not of the slightest vin inclioned it, and custom . enormities: but ■* lire of things, and: the THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 69 trurder of innocent vitlirns either just or honour- able ; for in every instance in which war has been undertaken, the men, who, by their am- bition and intrigues, have pushed things to ex- tremities have decided the contest by means of those who were innocent of the quarrel, and unconcerned in the event ; by men whom ig- norance or necessity had compelled to be their dupes, and betook themselves to fighting, be- cause they could find no other employment. Let any man coolly and impartially examine the history of the past and the present times, and say, whether every dispute between nations might not have been settled by ncgociaiion, if the parties had been so disposed, and whether every thing should not be resorted to rather than force, for whoever is the cause of shedding man's blood, except positively to save his own life, is guilty of murder. The fact however, is, that mankind have so long been accustomed to this barbarous mode of decision, that they ne- ver think of any other ; yet notwithstanding the force of custom, the appearance of necessi- tv, the sanction of time, the power of example, the danger of delay, the strength of our ene- mies, and the urgency of the case, no war can be justified by that party who have not ex- hausted every mode of conciliation, and propos- ed every scheme of settling differences without resorting to the sword. To what purpose is it to educate a young man with all the sentiments of liberality, ge- nerosity, and humanity ; to make him ace :n- g pUshed, 70 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. plished, enlightened, and virtuous, and give him ideas of philanthropy, benevolence, and affection for his species if they are all to be obli- terated by the horrible inconsistency of mak/- ing him a licensed robber, or a murderer by profession ? Such an education ought to tend rather to banish the sentiments of hatred and hostility, and enforce those of peace and benevo- lence; for surely thefe things are not requisite to murder with greater dexterity, or destroy an enemy with a surer and more certain aim. The end of such an education is inconsistent with its principles ; and while the profession of a soldier continues in society, let those who are intended for it remain as they ought to be, sa- vage, ignorant, or uncivilized ! for while wars continue, civilization is not complete ! Materials for Th inking. — ■iiurjMiiimi*— THOMAS TRY ON, THE CELEBRATED MYSTIC PHILOSOPHER. Some may say, " if <®e should not fight, and he- ready to withstand our enemies, and neigltbonrinz nations, we should quickly be brought into subjec- tion." This is very true, if men should leave flighting, and yet live such wicked ungodly lives as they do; but if any nation would re- pent of the evil of their ways, and enter with one THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. ? { one mind into unity, and live in the power and operation of the Love of God, they then should have no occasion to fear or dread any outward enemies, having so perfectly subdued those within, they should rest secure. This the chil- dren of Israel did often witness, when they feared the Lord, and refrained from Idols ; that is, when they did not set their hearts and affec- tions upon the creatures, nor live in wanton- ness : then their enemies were bowed before them, and the very sight or appearance of ten would make a thousand fly : but when they did forsake the fear of the Lord, and turned th« use of natural things into wantonness, they a- wakened the wrath of God, by which their e- nemies got many advantages over them, and carried them away captive. The very same ts now a-days amongst us ; this being a certain truth that will stand for ever against the gain- say ers, and evil men, viz. that all oppression, vi- olence and killing, doth proceed from the serpent (he betrayer ; which I wish all our heroes and fighters, and great martial men would well consider, and turn the eye of their understand- ings inward, and search themselves, then they would certainly find that it is the fierce Cain- like spirit which reigns in them, and excites, them to commit such outrages. When the soldiers asked John the baptist " zvhat they should do to be saved" he said unto them, €t be content with your wages, and do violence to no man." Which is to say they Jlwuld be foldiers no longer ; for all soldiers do c 2 live 72 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. live in the spirit of violence and must kill and deflroy whenever their commanders please. So likewise Chrifl, says to Peter, ( than whom cer- tainly never man drew sword in a better quar- rel ) " put up thy sword, those who take the sw T ord shall jxrish by the sword ; my kingdom is not of this world ;" that is, "my kingdom consists in love, mercy, meekness, friendliness, peace and good-will unto all men ! Way to health, long life and happiness. BATISTA AJVGELONI .Men of letters are tried at a severer tribunal than men of arms ; their claim to merit infixed on more established principles, and a better foundation ; and yet, such is the event, the eclat of fire and szvord, ruined nations, kings enslaved, and slaughtered millions, are more the admiration of mankind, than the man of study who advances arts and sciences, happiness and health, a public blessing. There is scarce a more depreciating consider- ation to human nature, than that the mild arts of peace should meet such little success, and the prqfefjbrs of slaughter and destruction, find applause and honorable reception every where : this disposition seems to be inherent in the nature of man. For myself I confess, when I behold the mo- numents THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 73 nu men ts and tombs of those ravagers. with pompous panegyrics of their military actions, I conceive the greatest abhorrence at their names and characters; lean never esteem that being, whose malicious heart prompts Ins understand- ing and his arm by the worst of passions, to the destruction of his ozvn species ; lie is to my eyes only a robber, more illustrious and pernicious than the common highwayman ; and tho' the world have agreed to honor such men, with all that is to be given in it ; yet ro me, evcrv mo- nument which preserves the memory of these kind of beings, is but a standing satire against the persons who performed the actions they recount, those who have bestowed on them these superb acknowledgements, all wholookon, read and applaud, and perhaps human nature itself. What is a long list of victories, but a keen in- vective on human nature ? What are the his- tories of thousands slain, but a demonstration of our delight in bloodshed ? Cities ruined, nations plundered, temples and deities pro- phaned, are the glories of that being which boasts of humanity, and calls itself Lord of the creation. If riches crown the event, all terminates well, the author is justified ; the barrier of gold is the sacred impassable defence, behind which the violater is secure from all attacks, unless his con- science sometimes disquiet his enjoyments, and touch that heart with remorse, for fts possessor, which it never felt for others, in the bloody hour of destruction. g 3 Letters on the English Nation. 55. 74 THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. Rev. SAMUEL CLARKE. J- hough for war, multitudes of persons are ga- thered together, yet very few armies have been heard of, whereof ihe greater part have been men truly religious, and fearing God, but ra- ther impious, licentious, iewd, violent persons, according to that of the poet. Rara fides, pieiafque viris qui cajlrafequimtur.\ Hence these mischiefs. For war, men use to be furnished with all manner of deadly weapons, whereby soldiers are the more emboldened to all manner of ravages, they count all that they can come by, by right or wrong to be as their own : so that the places through which they pass or where they make any stay, suffer much prejudice by them : for the more power any have, the more forward they are to oppress others: and as for justice it useth to sleep in such times. To maintain war, great treafures are exhaust- ed, subjects oppressed, husbands taken from their wives, parents from their children, mas- ters from their families, and all sorts of persons from their callings. Hereby trading decays, and lands lie often untilled. And of those em- ployed in war, many never return home again, whence it comes to pass that many wives are made widows, children fatherless ; old, and im- potent parents are left childless, and friends friendless to their utter undong. In war many are brought into most lamenta- ble, % Fahh and piety are rarety found among men who follow camps. THE WARRIOR S LOOKING GLASS. 75 ble distresses without comfort, or succour : some in the battle are dismembered, whereby they are disabled to help themselves : and though they call, and cry for help, none can or will assist them, but often they lie trampled upon by men and horses, whereby they die many deaths ; or if they shift out of the field they feel the smart of their wounds, and the loss of their limbs, or senses to their dying day. In war many are taken captives, and' by their enemies put to cruel, and exquisite torments. By war, some invade other's kingdoms, and countries, thrust out the true owners, and law- ful heirs, take away their lands, and inheri- tances, goods, and cattle : abrogate good laws : make cruel, and oppressive edicts : deprive people of their privileges, and immunities: make noble men, mean ; rich men, poor ; free- men slaves ; deflower men's wives ; ravish their virgins ; rip up their women with child ; tram- ple the aged under foot : toss infants on pikes, or dash out their brains. By war much more blood useth to be shed than any other way. Heaps upon heaps are thereby made of dead corpses : by the bword there have been slain in one battle five hun- dred thousand in one day, ii. Chron. xiii. 17. It destroys whole hosts of men. ii. Chron. xx. 21. Yea it destroys whole cities, men and wo- men, young and old, ox and sheep, &c. Josh. vi. 21. In war, most unnatural slaughters are often committed : relations fighting on both sides : 76 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. so that sometimes brother kills brother : father son ; one kinsman another, one friend another. By war not only the living are cut off, so as towns, cities and nations have thereby been dis- peopled : but corn-fields burnt, fruit trees cut down, barns, granaries, and other like places filled with all manner of store, and other pro- visions both for man and beast, are destroyed, and consumed. Castles, towns, and walls beat- en down. The most sacred house of God that ever was, that glorious temple built by Solomori was not spared, ii. Kings xxv. 9. Yea, famous cities, towns, and kingdoms, have by war been made into heaps of rubbish, and desolate wil- dernesses, full of briers, and thorns, and habi- tations for wild beasts, dragons and owls, and other doleful creatures. Isaiah vii, 20, 24. By war the juster cause, and better part is often overthrown, and put to the worst : might overcoming right. For it falls out in war, as in duels, the stronger, and skilfuller, the more expert and acYive man may have the worst cause, and yet overcome the other, though the juster person. Mirror of Providence, p. 686. Right Hon. EDMUND BURKE. «^-» «^i «-^» -I he first accounts we have of mankind are but so many accounts of their butcheries. All empires THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 77 empires have been cemented in blood; and in those early periods when the race of mankind began first to form themselves into parties and combinations, the first effecl of the combinati- on, and indeed the end for which it seems pur- posely formed, and best calculated, is their mu- tual destruction. All antient history is dark and uncertain. One thing however is clear. There were Conquerors, and Conquests, in those days ; and consequently, all that devastation, by which they are formed, and all that oppression by which they are maintained. We know little of Sc/o/Iris, but that he led out of Egypt an army of above 700,000 men ; that he over-ran the Mediterranean coast as far as Colchis, that in some places, he met but little resistance, and of course shed not a great deal of blood; but that he found in others, a peo- ple who knew the value of their liberties, and sold them dear. Whosoever considers the ar- my this conqueror headed, the space he tra- versed, and the opposition he frequently met ; with the natural accidents of sickness, and the dearth and badness of provision to which he must have been subjeel in the variety of climates and countries his march lay through, if he knows any thing, he must know, that even the conqueror's army must have suffered greatly ; and that of this immense number, but a very small part could have returned to enjoy the plunder accumulated by the loss of so many of their companions, and the devastation of so consider- able a part of the world. Considering, I say, the 78 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. the vast army headed by this conqueror, whose unwieldy weight was almost aione sufficient to wear down its strength, it will be far from ex- cess to suppose that one half was lost in the expedition. If this was the state of the victori- ous, and, from the circumstances, it must have been this at the least ; the vanquished must have had a much heavier loss, as the greatest slaughter is always in the flight, and great car- nage did in those times and countries ever at- tend the first rage of conquest. It will there- fore be very reasonable to allow on their ac-* count as much as, added to the losses of the Conqueror, may amount to a million of deaths, and then we shall see this conqueror, opening the scene by the destruction of at least one mU~ lion of his species, provoked by his ambition, without any motive but pride, cruelty and mad- ness, and without any benefit to himself; (for Justin expressly tells us, he did not maintain his conquests) but solely to make so many people, in so distant countries, feel experimentally, how fever e afcourge providence intends for the human race, when he gives one man the power o* ver many, and arms his, naturally, impotent and feeble rage, with the hands of millions, who know no common principle of action, but a blind obedience to the passions of their ruler. The next personage, who figures in the tra- gedies of this ancient theatre, is Semiramis? for we have no particulars of Ninus, but that he made immense and rapid conquests, which doubtless were not compassed without the usual car- THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 79 carnage. We see an army of above three mil- lions employed by this martial queen in a war against the Indians. W r e see the Indian anm/ still greater ; and we behold a war continu- ed with great fury and with various success. This ends in the retreat of the queen, with scarce a third of the troops employed in the expedition, which at that rate must have cost two millions of sends on her part ; and it is not unreasonable to judge that the country which was the seat of war, must have been an equal sufferer. But I am content to detract from this and to suppose that the Indians lost only half so much, and then the accompt stands thus: in this war alone, ( for Semiramis had other wars ) in this Jingle reign, and in this one fpot of the globe, did three millions of fouls expire, 1:1th all the horrid and shocking circumstances which at- tend al! wars, and in a quarrel, in which none of the fujferers could have the least rational concern. The Babylonian, A'fyrian, Median Mud Pe Monarchies must have poured out jea$ of in their formation, and in their destruction. The armies and fleets of Xerxes, their numbers, the glorious stand made against them, and the unfortunate event of all his mighty preparati- ons, are known to every body. In this expe- dition draining half Jfia of its inhabitants, he led an army of about two millions to he slaughtered and wasted, by a thousand fatal accidents, in the same place where his predecessors had be- fore, by a similar madness, consumed the flower of so jnany Kingdoms, and wasted the force of so 80 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. so extensive an empire. It is a cheap calcula- tion to say, that the Per/tan empire in its wars, against the Greeks and Scylhians, threw away at least four millions of its sit bj eels, to say nothing of its other wars, and the losses sustained in them. These were their losses abroad ; but the war, was brought home to them, first by Agejilaus, and afterwards, by Alexander. I have not the books necessary to make very exact calculations; but you will agree with me, that to form this hero no less than twelve hundred thou- sand lives must have been sacrificed; but no sooner had he fallen himself a sacrifice to his vices, than a thousand breaches were made for ruin to enter, and give the last hand to this scene of misery and destruction. His kingdom was rent and divided ; which served to employ the more distinct parts to tear each other to pieces and bury the whole in blood mid slaughter. The kings of- Syria and of Egypt, the kings of Per- gamus and Jtfacedon, without intermission wor- ried each other for above two hundred years ; until at last a strong power arising in the west, rushed in upon them and silenced their tumults by involving all the contending parties in the same destruction. It is little to say, that the contention between the successors of Alexander depopulated that part of the world of at least two millions. The struggle between the Macedonians and Greeks, and before that, the disputes of the Greek commonwealths among themselves, for an unprofitable superiority, form one of the blood i- THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 81 bloodiest scenes in history. One is astonished how such a final! [pot could furnish men suffici- ent to sacrifice to the pififid ambition of posses-, sing five or six thousand more acres, or two or* three more villages. Yet to see the acrimony and bitterness with which this was disputed be-: rween the Athenians » nd Idscedmmomam ; what armies cut off; what fleer* sunk, and burnt; what a number of cities sacked, and their inhabitants slaughtered, and captivated ; one would be in- duced to believe the decision of the fate of mankind at least depended upon it ! But there disputes ended as ail such ever have done, and ever will do; in a real wcakmf* of all parties ; a momentary shadow, and dream of power in some one ; and the subjection of all to the yoke of a stranger, who knows how to profit of their divisions. This at least was the case of the Greeks; and sure from the earliest accounts of them in their absorption into the Rowan em- pire, we cannot judge that their intestine divi- sions, and their foreign wars, consumed less than three ?ni!tions of their inhabitants. What an Aceldama, what a field of bloob Sicily has been in ancient times, whilst the mode of its government was controverted be- tween the republican and tyrannical parties, and the possession struggled for by the natives, the Greeks, the Carthage nians, and" the Romans. You will remember the total destruction of such bodies as an army of 300,000 men. You will find every page of its history dyed in blood* and blotted and confounded by tumults, rebel h lious 82 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. lions, massacres, assassinations, proscriptions, and a series of horror beyond the histories perhaps of any other nation in the world ; though the histories of all nations are made up of Jimilar matter. I once more excuse myself in point of exactness for vrant of books. But I shall es- timate the slaughters in this island but at two millions ; which your lordship will find much short of the reality. Let us pass by the wars, and the consequen- ces of them, which wasted Grecia- Magna, be- fore the Roman power prevailed in that part of Italy. They are perhaps exaggerated ; there- fore I shall only rate them at one million. Let us hasten to open that great scene which esta- blishes the Roman empire, and forms the grand catastrophe of the ancient drama. This empire, whilst in its infancy, began by an effusion of human blood scarcely credible. The neigh- bouring little states teemed for new destructi- on : the Sabines, the Samnites, the */Equi, the Volsci, the Hetrurians, were broken by a series of slaughter, which had no interruption for some hundreds of years; slaughter which upon all sides consumed more than two millions of the wretched people. The Gauls rushed into Italy about this time^ndaddedjthe total destruction of their own armies to those of the ancient inha- bit its. In short, it were hardly possible to conceive a more horrid and bloody picture, if that w' 1 the Punic wars, that ensued soon af- ter, djj not present one, tkat far exceeds it. Here we find that Climax of devastation, and ruin> HIE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 83 ruin, which seemed to shake the whole earth. The extent of this war which vexed so many nations, and both elements, and the havock in the human species caused in both, really asto- nishes beyond expression when it is naked- ly considered, and those matters which are apt 1o divert our attention from it, the characters, actions, and designs of the persons concerned, are not taken into the accompt. These wars, I mean those called the Pmric wars, could not have stood the human race in less than three millions of the species. And yet this forms but a part only, and a very small part, of the havock caused by the Roman ambition. The war with Mithridates was very little less bloody ; that prince cut off at one stroke 150,000 Romans by a massacre. In that war Sulla destroyed 300,000 men at Cheronea. He defeated Mithridates* army under Dorilaus, and slew 300,000. This great and unfortunate prince lost another 300,000 before Cyzicnm. In the course of the war he had innumerable other losses ; and having many intervals of success, he revenged them severely. He was at last totally overthrown ; and he crushed to pieces the king of Armenia his ally, by the great- ness of his ruin. All who had connexions with him shared the same fate. The merciless geni- us of SijUa had its full scope ; and the streets of Athens were not the only ones which ran with blood. At this period the sword glutted with foreign slaughter, turned its edh pari of the globe, such a carnage has been made in two or three short reigns, and that this carnage, great as it is^ makes but a minute part of what the histories of that people inform us they suf- fered ; what shall we judge of countries more extended, and which have waged wars by far more considerable ? Instances of this sort compose the uniform of history. But there have been periods when no less than universal destruction to the race of mankind seems to have been threatened. When the Goths the Vandals and the Huns poured in- to Gaul, Italy, Spain, Ch^eece, and Africa, car- rying destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving horrid desarts every where behind them. Vajlum ubique Jilentium y fecreti collet, fumantia procul tecla; nemo exploi % atoribus, u J obxim 85 THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. ebiuns,'l is what Tacitus calls victorias fades. ft is always so ; but was here emphatically so. From the North proceeded the swarms 01 Goths, Vandals, Huns, Oftrogoths, who ran towards the South into Africa itself, which suffered as all to the- North had done. About this time another torrent of barbarians, animated by the same fury, and encouraged by the same success, poured out of the south, and ravaged all to the North-Kast and West, to the remotest parts of Persia on one hand, and to the banks of the Lore, or further, on the other ; destroying arl the proud and curious monuments of human art, that not even the memory might seem to survive of the former itihabitants. What has been done since, and what will continue to be done whilst the same inducements to war continue, 1 shall not dwell upon. I shall only in one worfl men- tion the horrid effects of bigotry and avarice, in the conquest of Spani/k America ; a conquest on a low estimation effected by the murder of ten millions of the species. I shall draw to a conclusion of this part, by making a general calculation of the whole. I think I have actually mentioned above thirty- six millions. I have not particularized any more. I don't pretend to exactness; therefore for the sake of a general view, I shall lay toge- ther all those actually slain in battles, or who have perished in a no less miserable manner by the other destructive consequences of war, from . * A dr»ary fiUnce extended on every fide ; the hills were folitary ; houfes every here and there were difcerned Ymoaking among their ruins ; fco\\t3 tr averted the province in vam ; not 3 finglc inhabitant waj to be found. th# THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 87 the beginning of the world to this day, in the four parts of it, at a thousand times as much ; no exaggerated calculation, allowing for time and extent. We have not perhaps spoke of the Jive hundredth part ; lam sure I have not of what is actually ascertained in history ; but how much of these butcheries are only expres- sed in generals, what part of time history has never reached, and what vast spaces of the ha- table globe it has not embraced, I need not mention ; I need not enlarge on these torrents of silent and inglorious blood which have glut- cd the thirsty sands oftAfric, or discoloured the polar snow, or fed the savage forests of America, for so many ages of continual war ; shall I, to justify my calculations from the charge of ex- . fravagance, add to the account those Jkir- mijlies which happen in all wars, without being singly of sufficient dignity in mischief, to merit a place in history, but which by their frequen- cy compensate for this comparative innocence ; shall I inflame the account by those general massacres which have devoured whole cities and nations ; those wasting pestilences, those con- suming famines, and all those furies that follow in the train of war ? I have no need to exag- gerate ; and I have purposely avoided a parade of eloquence on this occasion. I should de- spise it upon any occasion ; else in mentioning these slaughters, it is obvious how much the whole might be heightened, by an arTecling description of the horrors that attend the wast- ing of kingdoms, and sacking of cities. Rut I do 88 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. do not write to the vulgar, nor to that which only governs the vulgar, their passions. I go upon a naked and moderate calculation, just e- nough, without a pedantical exactness, to give some feeling of the erTecls of political society. / charge the whole of these effects on 'political society. I avow the charge, and I shall present- ly make it good. The numbers I particularized, are about thir- ty six millions. Besides those killed in battles I have said something, not half what the matter would have justified, but something I have said, concerning the confequences of war even more dreadful than that monstrous carnage itself which shocks our humanity, and almost staggers our belief. So that allowing me in my exuberance one way, for my deficienees in the other, you will find me not unreasonable. I think the numbers of men now upon earth are computed at* 500 millions at the most. Here the slaughter of mankind, on what you will call a small calculation, amounts to upwards of seventy times the number of souls this day on the globe.J A point which may furnish mat- ter of reflection to one inclined to draw conse- quences. * Guthrie ftates the population of the globe at nine hundred fifty three millions. J There appears a little ambiguity in this place, which U eaf>ly reclined by a reference to what is laid in page Sj. — Mr. Burke has actually afcertaincd from hiflorie proof, that $6 millions have perifhed in the various warj I THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 89 I now come to show, that political society is justly chargeable with much the greatest part of this destruction of the species. To give the fairest play to every side of the question, I will own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature, which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please ; but ownjng this, I still insist in charging it to political regulations, that these broils are so frequent, so cruel, and attended with consp- ires so deplorable. In a state of nature, it had been impossible to find a number of men, sufficient for such slaughters, agreed in the same bloody purpose ; or allowing that they might have come to such an agreement, (an impqffifile supposition) yet the means that simple nature has supplied them with, are by no means ade- quate to such an end ; many scratches, many detailed ; and he has aflTurned as a probable fuppofition, that in the four parts of the globe, from the beginning of the world to the time of his writing, there have perifhed by wars and their confequences, a thoufand times as ma- ny, making in the aggregate 36036 millions, which divi- ded by 500 millions the iflurncd population of the earth, the quotient will amount to more than seventy times. But if we take the population at 953 millions, as itated above, the quotient will then (hew chat nearly thirty. niv e times, theprefent number living upon earth, h^ve been faeri freed by thefe infernal butcheries ! Mr. Buike's eilay was published about 1772, fo that the above cftima- tion includes none of thole untold millions who have pe- rifhed in the wars of America, Germany, France, Spain, the E ft and Welt Indies, &c. &c. &c. nor in thole which have defolated the civilized world, as it is c>l}edj for the lie hit eighteen years. bruises ; 90 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Iruifes ; undoubtedly would be received upon Jill hands ; but only a few a very few deaths. Society and politics, which have given us these destructive views, have given us also the means of satisfying them. From the earliest dawnings of poller/ to this day, the invention of men has been Jkarpening and improving the myjlery of murder, from the fujl rude ejfays of dubs and Jlavcs, to the prefent perfection of gunnery, can- noneering, bombarding, mining, and all these spe- cies of artificial, learned, and refined cruelty, which make a principal part of what politicians have taught us to believe is our principal glory. How far mere nature would have carried us, we may judge by the example of those animals, who still follow her laws, and even of those to whom she has given dispositions more fierce, and arms more terrible than ever she intended we should use. It is an incontestible truth that there is more havock made in one year by men, than has been made by all the Lions, Tygers, Panthers, Ounces, Leopards, Hyenas, Rhinoce- roses Elephants, Bears, and Wolves, upon their several species, since the beginning of the world ; though these agree ill enough with each other, and have a much greater proportion of rage and fury in their composition than we have. But with respect to you ije legislators, ye civilizers of mankind ! with respect to you be it spoken, your regulations have done more mis- chief in cold blood, 'hart a J l the rage of the fierce/} animals in their yeatejl terrors, or furies, has ever done, or ever could do ! Vindication of Natural Society, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 9i Dr. JONATHAN SWIFT. THE CELEBRATED DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S DUBLIN. LI was] asked, what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another ? I answered, they wfcre innumerable ; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to go- vern. Sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects a- gainst their evil adminstration. Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives : for instance whether flejli be /read, or bread he JleJJi;* whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine ; whether whistling be a vice or a vir- tue ;f whether it be better to kiss a past or throw it into the fire ;J what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or grey ; and whether it should be long or short, harrow or zcide, dirty or clean, with many more.§ Nei- ther are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance, as those occasioned by differences in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent. Sometimes the quarrel between two princes * TranfuLftamiation. f Cburch-mufic. \ Kitting a crof». § The colour and make of (acred Vtftments, and different orders of frepifh ecclefiafiics. is 92 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. is to decide which of them shall dispcsses a third of his dominions,, where neither of them pretend to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrelleth with another, for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong; and sometimes because he is too weak. Some- times our neighbours want the things which we have, or have the things which we want ; and we both fight till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of war, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter into a war against cur near- est ally, when one of his towns lie convenient for us or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round and compact. If a prince sends forces into a nation, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance of ano- ther to secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, when he hath driven out the invader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison or banish the prince he came to re- lieve. Alliance by blood or marriage is a fre- quent cause of war between princes ; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater is their disposition to quarrel. There THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 93 There are likewise a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to make war by themselves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for so much a day to each man, of which they keep three fourths to themselves, and it is the best part of their maintenance. I related the revolution under the prince of Orange ; the long war with France entered in- to by the said prince and renewed by his suc- cessor, wherein the greatest powers of Chris- tendom were engaged, and which still continu- ed : I computed, at his request, that about a million of men might have been killed in the whole progress of it; and perhaps a hundred or more cities taken, and five, times as many ships burnt or sunk. What you have told me (said my master) upon the subject of war, does indeed discover most admirably the ejfetl of that reafon you pre- tend to: however itis happy, that the shame is greater than the danger; and that nature has left you utterly incapable of doing much mis- chief. For, your mouths, lying flat with your faces, you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unless by consent. Then as to the claws upon your feet before and behind, they are so short and tender, that one of our yahoos would drive a dozen of yours before him. And therefore in recounting the numbers of those who had been killed in battle, I cannot but think you have said the thing which is not. 94 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. I could not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at his ignorance. And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a de- scription of cannons, culverins, musquets, car- bines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, bombardments, sea-fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses feet ; flight', pursuit, vic- tory ; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves, and birds of prey ; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying. And to set forth the valour of my own dear countrymen, I assured him that.I had seen them blow, up an hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship ; and beheld the dead -bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds to the great diversion of the speclators. Gulliver's Travels, part in. ch. v. F. S. Be La MOTTE FENELOK » ARCHBISHOP OF CAMBRAY. -A ll the human kind is but one family, dis- persed over the face of the whole earth ; all men are brothers, and ought to love each other as such. Curse on those impious wretches who seek a cruel glory in the blood of their bro- thers, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 95 thers, which is their own blood ! Say not, princes, that it is desirable in order to acquire glory : true glory is not to be found beyond the limits of humanity. Who prefers his own glory to the feelings of humanity, is a monjier of pride, and not a man : he will not even ob- tain more than a false glory ; for true glory is found only in moderation and goodness. Men may flatter him to gratify his foolish vanity; but they will always say of him in private, when they will speak sincerely, he merited glory so much the less, as his passion for it was unreason- able. Mankind ought not to esteem him since he so little esteemed mankind, and was prodi- gal of their blood through a brutal vanity. Hap- py the prince who loves his people, and is lov- ed by them ; who confides in his neighbours, and is confided in by them ; who instead of making war against tliem, prevents their having wars with each other, and causes all foreign na- tions to envy the happiness of his subjects in having him for their king ! Telemacluis, b. xi. War exhausts a people, and continually ex- poses them to the danger of being ruined, even when they obtain the greatest victories. With whatever advantages a man enters into a war, he is never sure of ending it without being li- able to the most tragical reverses of fortune. With whatever superiority of forces he engages 1 2 in 96 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. in battle,, the least mistake, a panic., a nothing snatches the viclory out of his hands, and trans- fers it to his enemies. And though he held vic- tory as it were in chains in his camp, yet he destroys himfelfm destroying his foes. For he depopulates his own country ; he leaves the lands almost uncultivated ; he interrupts trade ; and what is much worse, he weakens the best laws, and winks at a depravity of manners. The youth no longer addict themselves to let- ters. The necessity of the times tolerate a per- nicious licentiousness in the army. Justice, government, every thing suffers in the confusi- on. A king who sheds the blood of such mul- titudes, and causes so many calamities in order to acquire a little glory, or to extend the bounds of his kingdom, is unworthy of the glory he pursues, and deserves to lose what he possesses for having endeavoured to usurp what he has no right to. Telemachus, b. xiv. How blind a fury possesses wretched mortals ! They have but a few days to live on the earth, and those are days of sorrow; why then will they quicken the' pace of death which is alrea- dy so near ? Why will they add so many shocking evils to the bitterness with which pro- vidence has subjected their span of life ? Men are all brothers, and yet they tear each other in pieces. Savage brutes are less cruel than they : lions TOE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 97 Irons make not war upon lions, nor tygers upon tvgers ; they attack but animals of a different species. Man only, notwithstanding his rea- son, does what those creatures which are deemed void of reason never did. And then why theft tears? Are there not lands enough in the world to supply all men w T ith more than they can cultivate ? What a waste of desolate tracls which mankind can never stock with inhabi- tants ! What then ! does ambition, a prince's aiming at the vain title of a conqueror, kindle wars in countries sufficiently large ? Yes, a Jingle person, sent into the world by the Gods in their wrath, bru tally facrifices millions to his vanity. Every thing imift be destroyed ; every thing mustjzoim in blood; every thing must be involved in flames, that what escapes the sword and fire, may perish by famine still more cruel than they ; and all this, that afngle man who mocks at human nature, may gratify his humour and ambition in this general devastation. What a monjltous kind of vanity ! Can one too much detest and despise men who have thus far for- gotten humanity ? No, no, instead of being. demi Gods, they are not so much as men, and ought to be had in execration in all the ages by which they hoped to be admired. Telcmachus , b. xvii. A Prince, whose genius is entirely military will levy endless wars to extend his dominions, 1 3 an d 98 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. and ruin his people to add a new title to his name. If the nation, which he now governs, is unhappy, what is it to them how many more he conquers ? A foreign war, long continued, Gannot fail of producing disorder at home; the manners of the viclors themselves become cor- rupt during the general confusion. How much has Greece suffered by the conquest of Troy ! She was more than ten years deprived of her kings ; and wherever the flame of war is kin- dled, the laws are violated with impunity, agri- culture is neglecled, and the sciences are for- gotten. The best prince, when he has a war to sustain, is compelled to the same conduct which disgraces the worst, to tolerate licentiousness, and employ villainy in his service : how many daring profligates are punished in time of peace whom it is necessary to reward during the dis- orders of war ? No nation was ever governed by a conqueror that did not suffer by his am- bition. The victorious and the vanquished are involved almost in the same ruin, while the king grows giddy amidst the tumult of a tri- umph. As he is utterly ignorant of the arts of peace, he knows not how to derive any po- pular advantages from a successful war ; he is like a man that not only defends his own field, but forcibly takes possession of his neighbour's, yet can neither plough nor sow, and conse- quently reaps no harvest from either ; he seems born, not to diffuse happiness among his sub- jects by a wise and equitable government, but to fill the world with violence, tumult, and desolation . Beauties of Fendon. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 99 Rev. JOHjY WESLEY, M. A. 1 hat vice is more profitable and pleasurable than virtue, was the devil's first preachment to pur parents in paradise, u the day ye eat there- of (and disobey your kind creator) ye shall be as Gods I" wise, great, and happy. Thus man- kind's grand deceiver tempts us still, and ruins all the credulous like them. The doctrine preached last week by Tacitus* was similar to this : " can peace procure a scene comparable to sympathetic feelings, — fired by war?" To answer this enquiry, rise ye butchered multitudes! and whisper what your "sympa- thetic feelings" were, while bleeding ! dying ! agonizing bodies graced the fields of battle ! Languishing heaps of men breathing their last \ Embrace with "sympathetic feelings" their ex- piring friends! Loud instruments of music labouring hard, to silence sighs ! and drown their dying groans ! Last, whole and wounded victors shouting over the numbers slain ! (the more the better ! ) Then burying breathless enemies, (dear fellow mortals!) fifties, hun- dreds, thousandsf in one doleful grave ! What " sympathetic feelings" these ! How " moving is this scene !" Horrid to hear of ! much more to see, and share ! What seas of blood and sympathizing tears, has war ( infernal monster! ) Jkedon earth inftven and fifty centuries ! What * A writer in the Sherborne Journal, under that fignature. ■f i. Kings xx. 29. wouada, iOO THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. woundfc, woes, deaths procured ! Say, ye im- mortals, slain by fire and sword ! Have you forgot your violent passage to eternity ? Can seraphs count your numbers ! — speak your sor- rows ! — calculate your pains ? Can he who " weighs the iftoun tains// weigh the worlds of grief ! sustained by myriads massacred in war ? S( Silence in heaven there was !" — and needs must be ; Such queries solv'd not by infinity ! Shall christians then assist the prince of hell, who ff was a murtherer from the beginning-," by telling the world " the benefit of war ? Shall protestant publications proclaim to the nations, that " War is a blessing of providence ? Shall "sons of peace "turn advocates for offensive Hos- tilities, by asserting that "war is preferable to peace ?" Tell it not in Gath ! piiUijfh it not in the JIt 'eels of \AJkelon ! left imcircumcifed heathens blafpheme " the prince ol peace," because of the contrast in his peacelefs professors. O cease ye reformed ! to contradict by your conduct a christian character. Let Papist aggrejjbrs have the honour and glory of pleading for, and practising men-h/Jing Crusades ! O cruel war ! O cruel sin ! O cruel crown- ed heads ! W 7 ho slaughter their subjects by thousands for inanimate dust ! When one im- mortal far outzceighs in value, worlds of transi- tory wealth ! Surely, mighty men, says king Solomon, jliall be mightily tormented ! Jrminian Mag. Dec. 1781 p. 658. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 101 SAMUEL JOHNSON, L. L. D. It is wonderful with what coolness and indif- ference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a dis- tance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a. proclamation, an army, a battle and a triumph. Some indeed must perish in the most successful field but THEY DIE UPON THE BED OF HONOUR, resign tlltir lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death ! ! The life of a modern soldier is ill represent- ed by heroic fiction. War has means of de- struction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction ; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless ; gasping and groaning, un pi tied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery ; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remem- brance.' By incommodious encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless and enterprize impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away. Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the 102 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. the most part with little effecl. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the system of empire.* The public perceive scarce- ly any alteration but an increase of debt ; and the few individuals who are benefitted, are not supposed to have the clearest right to their ad- vantages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle grew rich by the victory, he might shew his gains without envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years war, how arc we recompensed for the death of multitudes and the expence of milli- ons, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and com- missaries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations. These are the men who, without virtue, la- bour, or hazard, are growing rich as their coun- try is impoverished; they rejoice when obsti- nacy or ambition adds another year to the slaughter and devastation ; and laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cypher to cy- pher, hoping for a new contra 61 from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest. Faukland Islands. Rev. J. BRADLEY RHYS. '.When. we lift our arm to plunge a dagger in a human breast, even in our defence, why does the * Th's fentence accords but 111 with what fol'ows ; or with lh* evcots of the laft twenty yearj. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 103 the hand tremble ? Why shudders the heart ? whence that JIM fmall voice within — that some- times (even in the tempest and whirlwind of passion) pleads for non-resistance ? Is it not the voice of power, under whose inspiration the apostle thus addressed those to whom he wrote — dearly beloved, avenge not your [elves; Jor it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay Jahh the Lord, (Heb. x. 80.) Why do men, who have been the cause of other's death, so often make excuse for their conduct, why are there so many arguments urged to justify such acts — and whv cannot men avoid recalling: them to mind continually ? It is not so with truth," that needs no apology : the practice of it leaves no anxiety on the mind. No doubts arise in the seasons of retirements, to lessen the satis- faction we enjoy from the conscientious per- formance of what we know to be right. — Truth will ever approve itself the parent of quietness, silence, and peace. Until we have experienced, in our own hearts, that love which worketh no ill to his neighbour, and which is the fulfilling of the law — that we are ready to forgive and pray for, even our most inveterate enemies — until the divine fpirit witneffeth icith our fpirit that we may in some degree consider ourselves as fons of thai God, who by the apostle, is emphatically stiled love, (i. John iv. 16.) — We know but little — we know nothing of practical Christia- nity, that religion zchich is pure and undefiled in thejight of our heavenly Father. ( James i. 27. ) What 104 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. What arguments can possibly be urged, that will prove to the satisfaction of the most illite- rate man, who is endued with common sense,, that he may, at the command of any human power, do that with innocence, which, were he to commit as an individual, he should consider as loading himself with guilt ; or that under any sanction, he can be authorised in the violation of the divine law ? What can possibly justify that man in bearing arms for the extermination even of his most inveterate foe, who professes a religion, which forbids him to go to law for his just rights, and requires him rather to suffer wrong — to permit himself to be defrauded, than to return evil for evil, or engage in contention and strife ? What expectation can a christian entertain (however apparently just the cause in which he is engaged) of passing from a scene of devastation and carnage, in which he has willingly taken a part, to the realms of ever- lasting peace ? This opinion, that war is unlawful to christi- ans, is not either a new or a singular opinion*; from the time in which it began to be preach^ ed by the apostles at Jerusalem, it has never been left without witness in any age from that to the present. For men of the most eminent abilities and extensive erudition, have never yet, nor ever will produce arguments sufficient to prove that the profession of a soldier, is consistent with the profession of Christianity, or to remove the * Se« jortin's Charge IV. Vol yii. p. 434. scruples THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 105 scruples of many pious well-meaning men, who can produce, and have produced, the most plain, unquestionable authority, even the ex- press words of holy writ, aided by the clearest and soundest reasoning, to testify that those scruples are not taken up upon light and su- perficial grounds, but are such as must necessa- rily arise in the mind of every honest man who reads the New Testament, unbiased by prejudice or partiality. dnfocer to the Bijhcp cf Rcclieftcr. The MARSHAL DUKE be BELLE ISLE. JCiVERY thing is now swayed, more by superiori- ty of force, than by circumstances ; and the sword, which was formerly called the last argvr ment of Kings, ultima ratio Region, is now be- come the beginning of disputes. A manifesto, that no one gives any credit to, and which is published only in compliance with an old esta- blished custom, is sent to all foreign courts. Hostilities follow next ; and this is the manner of proceeding of those whom a superiority of strength makes unfaithful to their engagements. To xhejhame of mojl crowned heads, it is a certain fact, that of all the wars that have been waged, since this dreadful scourge was first known among men, there has not been one which might not have been avoided, if the parties con- k cerned 106 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. rerned would have sincerely endeavoured after an accommodation. Suppose, for instance, two sovereigns have a dispute with each other, which tends to a rup- ture : in such a conjuncture, the means of re- conciliation should first be tried. If these fail, thro' the obstinacy of one of the parties, those powers who were willing to have concurred in the accommodation, should unite together a- gainst the oppressor, in favour of the oppres- sed. How glorious would it be, to see princes aft in this wise and prudent manner ! Political Testament, c. vi. M. Be VOLTAIRE. A _ genealogist sets forth to a prince that he is descended in a direct line from a Count, whose kindred, three or four hundred years ago, had made a family compact with a house, the me- mory of which is extinguished.. That house had some distant claim to a province, the last proprietor of which died of an apoplexy. The province; which is some hundred leagues from him, protests that it does not so much as know him* 'that it is not disposed to be governed by him;' that before prescribing laws to them, their consent at least was necessary ; these allegations do not so much as reach the prince's ears; it is insisted on that his right is incohtestible. He instantly picks up a multitude who have no- thing tofc and nothing ta fofk* clothes them with THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 107 with coarse blue cloth; puts on them hats bound with coarse white worsted ; makes them turn to the right and left ; and thus marches away with them to glory. Other princes, on this armament, take part in it to the best of their ability, and soon cover a small extent of country with more hireling murderers, than Gengis Khan, or Tamerlane and Bajazet had at their heels. People at no small distance, on hearing that fighting is going forward, and that if they would make one, there is five or six sous a day for them, immediately divide into two bands, like reapers, and go and sell their services to the best bidder. These multitudes furiously butcher one ano- ther, not only without having any concern in the quarrel, but without so much as knowing what it is about. Sometimes five or six powers are engaged* three against three, two against four, sometimes even one againt fi\e t all equally detesting one another, and friends and foes by turns, agreeing only in one thing, to do all the mischief pojjible. PMosoph. Diet. Art. War. Famine, the plague, and war, are the three most famous ingredients in this lower world. Under famine may be classed all the noxious food which want obliges us to have recourse to, thus shortening our life while we hope to sup- k e port 103 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. port it. In the plague are included all conta- gious distempers, and there are not less than two or three thousand. These two gifts we hold from Providence; but WAR'in which they are concentred we owe to the fancy of three or four hundred persona scat- tered over the surface of the globe, under the name of princes mnd minijlers ; and on this ac- count it may be that in several dedications they are called It ling images of the deity. The most hardened flatterers will allow, that war is ever attended with plague and famine, especially if he has seen the military hospitals in Germany, or passed through some villages where some notable feat of arms has been performed. It is unquestionably a very notable art to ra- vage countries, destroy dwellings, and one year with another, out of a hundred thousand men to cut off" forty thousand. An odd circumstance in this infernal enter- prize is, that every chief of these ruffians has his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before he goes to destroy his neighbour. If the slain in a battle do not exceed two or three thousand, the fortunate commander does not think it worth thanking God for ;■ but if, besides hilling ten or twelve thousand men, he has been so far favoured by heaven as totally to destroy- some remarkable place, then a verbose hymn is sung in four parts, composed in a language un- known to all thecombitants. All countries pay a certain number of orators to celebrate THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 109 celebrate these sanguinary a&ions,^ some m a long black coat, ana 1 over it a short docked cloak ; others in a gown with a hmd of shirt over it.— They are all very long winded in their harangues, and to illustrate a battle fought in Wateravia, bring up what passed thousands of years ago in Palestine, j Among live or six thousand such declamation^ there may be, and that is the most, three or four written by a Gaul, named M assillon, which a gentleman may bear to read, hit in not one of all these discourses has the author the spirit to. ani- madvert on wa r, that scourge and crime which includes ali others. These groveling speakers are continually prating, against love, mankinds only solace, and the only way of repairing it's losses; not a word do they say of the detestable endeavours of the mighty for its destruction. Bourdai.oue ! a vert/ Imd sermon hast thou made agabist impurity, but not one, either bad or good, on those various kinds of murders, those robberies, those violences, that universal rage,, by which the world is laid waste. Ye bungling, soul physicians ! to bellow for an hour or more against a few flea bites, and not say a word about that horrid diflemper which tears us to pieces. Burn your books, ye moraliz- ing philosophers ! While tile humors of a few. shall make it an act of loyally to butcher thou- sands of our fellow creatures, the part of mankind dedicated to heroism will be the mo ft execrable and definitive monfiers in all nature. Of what avail is humanity, beuevolenGe, modesty, temperance,, mildness, discretion, and piety,, when half a x 3 pound 1 TO THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. pound of lead, discharged at the distance of six hundred paces, shatters my body ? When I ex- pire at the age of twenty, under pains unspeak- able, and amidst thousands in the same misery lie condition ; when my eyes at the last open- ing see my native town in a blaze; and the last sounds I hear are the shrieks and groans of women expiring among the ruins, and all for the pretended interest of a man who is a stranger to us ? Philasopk. Diet. An. War. LITERAL PROSE TRANSLATION Of Voltaire's celebrated Poem entitled "Tactique. 1 went last monday to the shop of my book- seller, whose warehouses, with all their variety, pften afford me nothing to read. I have got fo-day said he, by good luck, a. new work, ne- cessary to the happiness of mankind, and as full of instruction as delight. No one ought to ueglecl the perusal of this performance ; the destiny of all depends upon it : let me send it you : it is entitled tactics.* Taclics ! said I. Alas? to this day I have been ignorant of the meaning of this learned noun substantive. It is a word answered my bookseller, Ik* is * The *ork alludut lo is die Tttlio «/ M. Guibert. descended THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Ill descended to us from the Greeks.f It signifies Hie great art, or the art by way of eminence. The sanguine wishes of the most daring genius find themselves here fully gratified. I bought his Tactics, and rejoiced in the pur- chase. I hoped to find in ;this divine -work, the art of lengthening rn^r life ; ofsurmounting the miseries with which it is infested ; of cul- tivating, my taste; of subduing my passions; of subjecting my desires to the'yoke of reason ; of being just towards all meri; without ever be- ing their dupe. I shut myself up in my study,, I read, I devour, I digest every word of so ad- mirable a work. Great Gods ! the object of this was to injlruci men to cut each others* throats. I learned that formerly, in Germany, a guile- less monk, to amuse his leisure, invented a cer- tain composition of brimstone and saltpetre ; that a large leaden ball, thrown out with a ter- rible report, ought to be directed to a certain height in order to descend to a certain level : and that this rule being attended to, death in- fallibly flies out from a brass cylinder in a cer- tain curve called a parabola, and overturns being once repeated and managed with sufficient skill, a hundred blue automata standing all in a row. In a word, musket, dagger, sword with a sharp edge or a sharp point, are all good, all worthy of honour, provided that they kill. In another chapter, the author describes a set of highwaymen prepared for nightly depre- dation, who having taken their stand in a hol- f It is derived from t Grctk word figr.ifying to airange or put in pr«er. low 112 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. low way, and being properly furnished with sabres and scaling ladders, proceed in the first place without sound of trumpet or drum, to the assassinations of five or six centinels; after- wards, having dextrously climbed the walls of a city, while each honest trader was sleeping securely in his bed, they spread from street to street fire and sword, stab the men, ravish their wives, knock out the brains of the young chil- dren, and aj: length, exhausted with so many efforts, carouse the; wine of another in the midst of bleeding bodies, . The next morning they proceed as in duty bound, to return thanks to Godfor their heroical enterprise; to tell him in Latin with ; a nasal twang, that he alone is their proteclor; that while the town was In flames, they could do nothing without him, that one can neither rob nor ravish to one's heart's- content, nor massacre the defenceless, without God to second our undertakings, Surprized as I was at the discovery of this boasted art, I hastened once more to my book- seller, out of breath with horror and amaze, re- turned to him. his volame, and exclaimed, my eyes flashing with rage : Begone, accursed bookseller of Beelzebub ! carry your Taclics to the Chevalienle Tot. He teaches the Turks to march ixi the name of the Lord ; he instructs unbelievers to cover the Dardanelles with their cannon, and kill the in- habitants of the christian world. Begone ! ad- dress yourself to the Count cle Romanzow ; to the pitiless conqueror olAzofm&Jiender; but chiefly THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 113 chiefly offer this admirable performance to the great Frederic. He knows more of this art than your author, and is upon more confidential terms with Lucifer. He is consummate master of this horrible science, more perfect in it than either Gustavus or Eugene. Begone ! I will never believe that human nature came out ( God knows when ) from the hands of its crea- tor, thus to insult its omnipotent benefactor, to be guilty of so much extravagance, and so much insanity. Man, with his ten fingers, unarmed either for attack or defence, was never formed violently to abridge a life which necessity has already rendered so short. The gout with its chalk-stones, and the hardened slime which forms itself into pebbles at the bottom of the bladder, the fever, the catarrh, and a hundred diseases more dreadful ; a hundred mountebanks in ermine, still more the foes of our peace, would have been sufficient to render this globe a valley of tears, without its being necessary to invent this sublime art of war. The whole race of heroes are my aversion ; from Cyrus the great, down to that illustrious prince* that taught Lerttulus to conquer. Talk to me as you please of their conduct, sagacity, and generalship, I fly from them all, and give them to the Poems. • Frtdefick II. King of PrufiU Mr 114 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Mr. JOHN WALKER, r he melancholy retrospect, that history affords of the calamities of past ages, has been augment- ed through the depraved tafie of men, who have, in all ages,Jznce the pra&ice of tear was intro- duced upon earth , unhappily lavished the be- witching reward of praise on the destroyers of men ; and the eager desire forfalfe glory, which has stimulated poor mortals to their mutual de- struction, and necessarily swelled the historic page with rueful feats of arms, seems to have al- most precluded, from the records of antiquity, any account of the sweet fruits of peace : na- tions have seldom desired to be accounted an inglorious people, living in quietness and ease, while their exploits in battle have been extra- vagantly delineated. The pious philosopher, spending his time and himself for the good of mankind, the husbandman, mechanic, and phy- sician, with a]l their useful labours, cut but a poor figure in the annals of time ; while the he- ro, the man of war, rises glaringly to view, mounted on trophies, the wreck of nations ; hence history, to a feeling mind, will appear little more than a catalogue of human woes. In one page we often see thousands devoted to the sword, and the victor's triumph, raised at an expence of blood, which a remote nation mourns with floods of tears ; while the sweet intervals of peace, which all nations have pro- bably THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 115 bably enjoyed a greater share of, than a mere superficial view of history would encourage us to believe, have often been passed over in si- lence, and buried in oblivion. The destroyers of the human race, the rava- gers of towns, and the dcsolators of countries, excite terror in their day, and spread extensive ruin, which it may take ages to repair ; such have been Alexander, Gcnghiscan, and Tamer- lane : such has been, in degree, every warrior from Nimrod to the present day. In their own life time these most mighty hunters set one tribe of men against another, and the battle is continued down to the latest times : children are nursed up in the prejudices of their fathers, and hence, instead of passing along together cordially through this life, which at best, is but a vale of tears, and therefore bet- ter suited to our present state of being, (for who has not experienced that affliction sweetens the spirit?) by our mutual strifes and animo- sities, our prejudices and bigotry, we convert it into an howling wildernefs ; many of the en- dearments of domestic life, or good neighbour hood, are stifled and unknown ; the peace and harmony of nations are interrupted and de- stroyed : and religion, pure and undefined reli- gion, which to let it have it's perfeel work in the world, would do away the confusion of Ba- bel, and melt down all the different nations and languages into one people and one language, in- to 116 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. to one family, with all its members mutually intelligible and agreeable to each other all over the earth, religion is driven from the societies of men, prejudice and fuperstition take it's place, and caufe, create, and multiply the evils of society. Elements of Geography. HENRY REDHEAD YORKE, Esq. In perusing the annals of ancient or modern story, we may easily discover the manner in which the decrees of nature have been violated and insulted. Ideots, knaves, and despots, have ordinarily decided the fate of men, and to gra- tify their criminal ambition and avarice, the Demon of Carnage has been let loose to wander in madness over the w r orld. Whole countries, where peace and plenty once smiled, have been converted into vast and fright- ful deserts, and the universe has suffered a de- population that philosophy contemplates in sorrow. During all ages, the repose of the world has been disturbed by the agitation of one great, though simple question,— not whe- ther there be power, nor whence it came, but who should Have it, The woeful chronicle of human miseries is filled up with the narra- tive of the quafreli of Kings, Priests, Nobles, and Prostitutes, dn this account, and of the mil- lions of .victims sacrificed to their caprice and brutal fury. > War THE WARRIOITS LOOKING GLASS. 117 Wah has ever been the wretched policy of courts, to uphold their government. Nations cannot war with each other, for nature forbids ir. During its continuance, Co mmerce droops her head, Population ceafes, and thoitfands cf Helpless families lose tlieir support. While mul- titudes perish on the horrid clay of confiicl, o- fhers are crushed beneath a dead weight of taxes, which are trip led and rigorously exacled, to defray its expences ; a vast portion of the earth remains uncultivated for want of husband- men, and the other part is laid waste, by the .marching or combat of armies. . The field cf 'victory is a vast burying place, — a dreadful j hid of desolation and of mourning) lihtrc it is pretended that laurels are reaped ; but a/as ! the rent harvest is qf human existence, TJi us under every aspect of War, nations have all to lose and nothing to gam, for even conquest is per iJJi able, and often as ruinous as defeat. It appeared to me from what I had read, and what I had seen, that vear can never benefit the people, because their happiness consists in order, plenty, and liberty, and as it discompo- ses all these, they must be plunged sooner or later into an abyss o£ misery. It is commonly proclaimed in liaste and always condutled in cruelty (for ivhat is honourable -war, bid honour- a l de butchery?) and its most inevitable conse- quence is, the loss of some portion or other of public liberty, by the influence of corruption and additional taxes. The appointment and regulation of ajland- h ing J 18 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. fng army give a great patronage to a minister and patronage always creates dependance. It cannot then be wondered at, that they should adjust in cold blood, where the thunder of arms shall be directed, and where guiltless towns, fe- males, infants, shall be devoted to plunder, vi- olence and slaughter. The glory and honour of antiquity, it is true, consisted in murder, robbery, and havoc ; but its example ought not to be a precedent for us, in these enlightened times, when all men sigh after peace. Tyrants are meddlers, therefore, from neces^ sity ; and history blushes when she records the lives of royal and noble Quixottes, who are e- ver sallying forth in quest of adventures, quar- relling with unoffending beings, and repairing injuries that have never been complained of. In the various contentions of human life, men peaceably recur to the arbitrations of Jus- tice ; and nations would be governed by the same principle, if individuals did not preside over the aclions and lives of men. Thky de- c/are wars at random — it is the wretched lot of the people to wage them. Commerce, which is nothing more than a peaceable and friendly intercourse between na- tions, must be suspended, if not destroyed, dur- ing a war; and a circumstance the most pecu- liarly aggravating is, that those who fight, pay also, and then the blood and gold of men be- come fynonimous terms. Privileged orders may roll in dissipation and security, in the midst of the din of arms, because they are the unceasing causes THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 119 causes of war ; even to priests, who, from their professions, should be the ministers cf peace, wars can never be deplorable, as long as their revenues and Ujthes are faithfully paid. It is not surprizing thatjfrcwn their pulpits they should vomit forth desolation and bloodshed, since they constitute a part of the privileged corps, and their political existence is ensured, so long as the rest of the craft uphold their authority by arms. Ever at war with nature, and with na- ture's favourite — the husbandman, the priest can calmly fiddle when Europe is in flames, elasp the military and honourable butcher to his arms or receive him with a solemn and starch- ed grimace at the altar of the God of Peace. The meek eye of religion turns aside In horror from this atrocious speclacle ! Happy had it been for the sons of the earth, if their crowned and mitred tyrants, instead of delivering up to massacre, millions of useful beings, to avenge their quarrels, and those of their harlots, had erecled a public theatre, and with poignards in their hands, exhibited to the world the utility and glory of war. One generous example would have curbed the unbridled fury of future heroes, the lives cf millions have been saved, and the world been this day in peace. Reafon urged again]} Precedent, p. 28. Mr. L 1 1£0 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Mr. — , MJJYDEFILLE. vV fat mortal that had never seen a soldier, could look without laughing, upon a man ac- coutred with so much paltry gaudiness and af- fected finery ? The -coarsest manufacture that can be made of wool, dyed of a brickdust color, goes down with him, because it is in imitation of scarlet or crimson cloth; and to make him think himself as like his officer as 'tis possible, with little or no cost, instead of silver or gold lace, his hat is trimmed with white or yellow worsted, which in others would deserve Bedlam ; yet these fine allurements, and the noise made upon a calf's skin, have drawn in, and been the destruction of more men in reality, than all the bewitching voices of women ever slew in jest. To day the swineherd puts on his red coat, and believes every body in earnest that calls him a gentlemen, and two days after serjeant Kite gives him a swinging rap with his cane, for holding his musket an inch higher than he should do. As to the real dignity of the em- ployment, in the two last wars, officers, when recruits were wanted, were allowed to Ikt fel- lows convicted of burglary and other capital crimes, which shews that to be made a soldier is deemed to be a preferment next to hanging. A trooper is yet worse than a foot soldier, for when he is most at ease, he has the mortificati- on of being groom to a horse that spends more money THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 121 money than himself. When a man reflecls on a]] this, the usage they generally receive from their officers, their pay and the care that is ta- ken o[ them, when they are not wanted, must he not wonder how wretches can be so silly as to be proud ol being called gentlemen soldiers? Pdblc of the Bees : Remark (R) M. De St. PIERRE, ± opticians consider war as necessary to a state because, as they pretend, it takes off the super- flux of mankind. In general they have a very limited knowledge of human nature. Indepen- dent of the resources of the sub-division of pro- perty, which multiplies the fruits of the earth, there is no country but what has the means of emigration within it's reach, especially since the discovery of the new world. Besides, even the best peopled states contain immense tracks of uncultivated land. China and Bengal are, I' believe, the countries on the globe which con- tain most inhabitants. In China, nevertheless, are many and extensive deserts, amidst it's fin- est provinces, because avarice attracts their cul- tivators to the vicinity of great rivers and cities, for the conveniency of commerce. Many en- lightened travellers have made this observation. Studies of Nature, St. vii. i,3 t. 122 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. T. JJRROLD, M. D. JVLan has sufficient liberty, sufficient power, to keep dozen the population of any country to any standard he may please by violence and blood- shed ; but God has not appointed him to that task; he is not an executioner by nature; and the office never becomes him. A man, covered with blood, destroying the labour of the hus- bandman, and sowing the seeds of pestilence, is not acting a usefid, consequently not a natural or becoming part. If the pages of history are sullied with such characters, their dependents are to be pitwd, and they execrated. Dissertations on Man, $. 73. Right Hok. EDMUND BURKE. "When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men* who either would sign no con- vention, or whom no treaty, and no Jignature could bind, and who were the determined ene- mies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigi- ble and predestinated criminals a memorable ex- ompk to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy * Seivaot* 9/ the Eaft-lndia Company. recesses THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 12S recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting mo- miment of vengeance ; and to put perpetual de- solation as a barrier between him and those aaainst whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protec- tion. He became at length so confident of his force so co'lecled in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Hav- ing terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual ani- mosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Ar cot, he drew from every quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart con- ceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every held, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, with- out regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or \?A THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. or sacredness of function ; fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirl wind of cavalry, and, amidst the goading spears, of drivers, and the trampling of pursu- ing horses, were swept into captivity, in an un- known and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tcwjore ; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Jli, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British Armies tra- versed; as they did, the Co-malic, for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not fee one man, not one woman , not one child, not one four-footed be aft of any defer iption whatever ! One dead uniform silence reigned over the whole region ! ! ! Speech on the Naboh of ArcoVs debts. CAUSES OF WAR. Mr. GORDON. How many peaceable nations have been rob- bed, how many millions of innocents butchered out of mere honour, princely honour ? His grace, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 125' grace, Villieks first duke of Buckingham, en- gaged his country in two mad wars at once, with the two greatest powers in Europe, because his honour had suffered a rebuff in his attempts to debauch two great foreign ladies. Europe was to be embroiled ; lives, treasure, and the Safety of kingdoms to be risqued and thrown a? way, to vindicate, forsooth, his grace's debauch- ed hon •-.:■. Cambyses, to revenge an affront put upon his father, many years before, by an Egyptian king in the business of sending him a wife, in- volved the world in a flame of vcar, and at the expence, perhaps, of a million of lives, and the destruction of kingdoms, did at last heroically vindicate his father's honour and his own, up- on the bones of a dead king, whom he caused to be dug up, and after many indignities, cast into the fire. V/ht.te elephants are rare in nature, and so greatly valued in the Indies that the King of fegu, hearing that the King of Siam had get two, sent an embassy inform, to desire one of them of his royal brother at any price : but be- ing refused, jie thought his honour concerned to wage war for -so great an affront. So he en- tered 'Siam with a vast army, and with tha loss of five hundred thousand of his own men, and the destruction of as many of the Siamese, he made himself at after of the elephant and retriev- ed his honour. In 126 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. In short, honour and victory are generally no more than white elephants ; and for white ele- phants the most destructive wars have been of- ten made. What man, free, either by birth or spirit, could, without pity and contempt, be- hold, as m a late French reign he frequently might behold, a swarm of slavish Frenchmen/ in wooden shoes, with hungry bellies, and no clothes, dancing round a may-pole, because their grand mo nar que 3 at the expence of a mil- lion of their money, and thirty or forty thousand lives, had acquired a white elephant, or in other words, gained a town or viclory ? Cato's Letters, v. ii, No. 48, # 57. Dr. GOLDSMITH. i *ra English and French are at present engag- ed i' a very destructive war, have already spilled much blood, are excessively irritated, and all upon account ofonejidea desiring to wear greater quantities of furs than the other. The pretext of the war is about some lands a thousand leagues off; a country cold, desolate; and hideous ; a country belonging to a people who were in possession for time immemorial.' The savages of Canada claim a property in the country in dispute; they have all the pretensi- ons which If) ng possession can confer. Here they have reigned for ages, without rivals in THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 127 dominion, and knew no enemies but the prowl- ing bear, or insidious tyger ; their native forests produced all the necessaries of life, and they found ample luxury in the enjoyment. In this manner they might have continued to live to eternity, had not the English been informed that those countries produced furs in great a- bundance. From that moment the country be- came an object of desire ; it was found that furs were things very much wanted in England ; the ladies edged some of their clothes with furs, and muffs were worn both by gentlemen and ladies. In short furs were found indispensibly necessary to the happiness of the state ; and the king was consequently petitioned to grant not only the country of Canada, but all the sa- vages belonging to it, to the subjects of Eng- land, in order to have the people supplied with proper quantities of this necessary commodity. So very reafonable a request was immediately complied with, and large colonies were sent a- broad to procure furs and take possession. The French who were equally in want of furs, ( for they are as fond of muffs and tippets as the English) made the very same request to their monarch, and met with the same gracious re- ception from their king, who generously granted what was not his to give. Wherever the French landed, they called the country their own ; and the English took possession wherever they came upon the same equitable pretensions. The harmless savages made no opposition ; and could the intruders have agreed together, they might peace- 128 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. peaceably have shared this desolate country be- tween them. But they quarrelled about th^ boundaries of their settlements, about grounds and rivers, to which neither side could show any other right than that of power, and which nei- ther could occupy but by usurpation. Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily* wish success to either party. Citizen of the World, let. r&i. MARSHAL BELLEISLE. A hs petty sovereignty of Herstal, which be- longed to the King of Prussia, was by that mo- narch thought a dead weight, as being at too great a distance from his dominions. He thought he had found out, that this territory, as bordering upon the country of Liege, might be of more service to the Prince, (Bishop) of that vState ; but this latter would not accept it. What does Frederick upon this occasion ? Making a bad use of his superiority, and after putting in practice the most oppressive means, he at length obliges the Prince of Liege, sword-in-hand, to purchase Herstal, and to pay him double the value of it. Polit. TeJ.p.MA. .Lewis XIV. incensed against the Dutch, for having compelled him to sign the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, grown weary of the sweets of repose, and, perhaps, still more acluated with . THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. ] a desire of filling all the universe- wit]} his fame, formed the projecl of conquering (he united provinces. JJouvpis, willing to colotircver this step of his master, in t! of other nations produces in council a medal thai was never struck in Holland, and was not so much a reflection en: L'czcis as a paiiegyrich on / o had obliged that monarch to res- ore- the iV Comtc. The council, fully eonvincedhy so au- thentic a voucher, did not hesitate a minute to declare for the utter subversion of the states general, because an obscure libeller had struck, no one knew where, a med?I in which Jofkua Van Beuning xcas represented /lopping the courfe of the Sun, which Lewis XIV. had, somewhat too arrogantly, taken for his device. The King dreading, with reason, the superior naval power of the Dutch, made a treaty of al- liance with Charles II. of England by the inter- tion of Madame, sister to that monarch. Lewis's army advanced into French Flanders, and began hostilities against the Dutch, without any previous demand of satisfaction, or authen- tic declaration of war. The Engl 'lift, on their side, sent a fleet to sea. The republic, in the greatest consternation at seeing itself on the point of being invaded, sent deputies to en- quire, into the reasons that had engaged these two monarchs to arm against them. The French ministry talked of nothing but the medal and Charles's council made use of an argument too singular in its kind to be passed over un- noticed. m The U0 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. The family ol Cornel/us cle Wit, brother to the Grand Pensionary, had caused a piclure .of that great sea officer to be drawn with the at- tributes of a warrior destroying an English fleet. This piclure which an English Nobleman had seen hanging in a private room, that was seldom opened, gave the alarm to England ; and the affair being brought before Charles's council, it was there determined, that a family had no right to have their relation's picture drawn taking and burning English Jkips, which he actually had taken and burnt ; and this same pi6lure deter- mined Charles II. to assist in the destruction of Holland. Such were the motives of war, which put all Europe into a ferment, ruined the greatest part of the United Provinces, and occasioned the loss of an infinite number of lives on all sides; a war the more attrocious, as that, supposing the grievances of France and England to have been justly founded, the whole might have been compromised, by destroying the medal, and defacing the picture. . - : These two princes were not ignorarit of the measures they ought to have taken to have pre- served the peace of Europe ; but the French Monarch was greedy of glory, and the King of England of money. These motives, condemna- ble in themselves, hurried bojth princes beyond the bounds of equity, and the sufferings of the public were the fruits of their enjoyment. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 13i DUKE be St. SIMOjY. 1 he war of 1688 was excited by Louxois, the French Minister,, to fecure his office, which he judged to be in danger from perceiving, as he thought, an alteration in Lewis, the 14th , s dis- position towards him. The stcry is thus rela- ted by the Duke dc St. Simon, in his memoirs. — « The castle of Trianon was just built when the king perceived a defect in the proportion of one of the windows. Louvois, who was na- turally insolent, and who had been so spoilt that he could hardly bear to be found fault with by his master, maintained that the win- dow was well proportioned. The king turned his back on him, and walked away. The next day the king seeing Le Notre, the architect, ask- ed him if he had been to Trianon : he answer- ed in the negative. The king ordered him to go thither, and told him of the defecl which he had discovered in the window. The next day the king again asked him if he had been to Trianon : he again answered that he had not. The following day the same question was a- gain asked by the king, and the same answer given by the architect. The king now saw clearly that Le JJotre was afraid of being under the necessity of declaring that either he or his minister was in the wrong, and with some an- ger, he commanded Le Notre and Louvois to meet him the next day at Trianon. No evasi- m 2 on 132 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS, on was now possible, accordingly they met, The window was immediately mentioned. Leu- vois persisted in his former opinion : Le Notre remained silent. At last the king ordered him to measure the window ; he obeyed, and while he was so employed, Louvois, enraged, that such a criterion was resorted to_, discovered his chagrin, and insisted with acrimonv that the window was exactly like the rest. When Le Notre had finished, Louvois asked him what was the result : Le Notre hesitated. The king with much passion, commanded him to speak out. He then declared that the king was in the right, and that the window was not proportioned to the rest. Immediacy the king turned to Lotf- vois, told him there was no enduring his obsti- nancy, and reproached him with much vehe- mence. Louvois, stung with this reprimand, which was pronounced in the presence of ma- ny courtiers,, as well as of workmen, and foot- men, returned home furious with rage,. At his house, he found St. Fquarige, Villneuf, the Chevalier de Nogerit,. the two Tilladets, and some other of his most devoted friends, who •were much alarmed at seeing the state of mind he was in. c It is all over/ said he, 'I mujl have ' loft all credit ivilli the king, from the manner m ivhich he has been treating me only about a :;v//- clozo. I have no resource but in war, which will diverting attention from his buildwgs, and wMl raider my assistance necessary ; and, by ..., war he shall have.' He kept his word : war was de- clared a few months afterwards, and he contriv- ed, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 133 ed, in spite of the king and of the other powers to render it general," Thus did a childifli difpule between a vain-gto- rious prince and an insolent minister, on the most trivial occasion, kindle a war which lasted for eight years; which raged in Ireland, in France, in the West-Indies, upon the seas, in Spain, m Savoy, in Flanders, and in Germany ; in which willions of treasure were spent, many thousand lives lost, all the towns and villages of the Pa- ir' ;ne burned, and that whole country reduced to a scene of desolation ! ! ! TRAGICAL EFFECTS OF WAR. (cHIEPLY EXTRACTED) From the works qf the King of Prussia. In the general war which began in the year 1755, and ended in 1763, Prussia lost 180,000 men ; her armies had fought sixteen pitched battles. The enemy almost destroyed three large corps, exclusive of five garrisons. It was further estimated that 20,000 souls perished in the kingdom of Prussia, by the ravages c,[ tlie Russians ; 6000 in Pomerania ; and 7000 in the other provinces. If the garrison above mentioned are estimated at 7>00^ the totrrl number of men destroyed in this wa, side of the Prussians will I e 220,000. In order (says tins Lord's anointed) to obtain a ;dea m 3 of ISi THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. of the general fulrcerfwn of the country, and to represent the desolation of the people, it is ne- cessary to imagine a country entire/// ravaged, where the traces of former inhabitants weird scarcely discoverable, towns almost erased from the earth, others half consumed by the flames ; thirteen thousand houses, no vestiges of which remained; fields lying fallow; the inhabitants destitute of the corn requisite for support ; the farmers in want of 60,CC0 horses for ihe plough, and a diminution of 500,000 inhabitants, sh.-ce the year 1756. The Noble and Peasant- had been pillaged, ransomed and foraged by so many dif- ferent armies, that nothing was left them ex- cept life ; they had not sufficient credit even to supply the wants of nature. There was no longer any police in the towns To a spirit of equity and regularity, disorder and anarchy had succeeded. The slumber of the laws pro- duced a licentiousness of spirit in the public, and all ranks only seemed active to effect their mutual ruin. Such was the fatal spectacle that so many provinces which had lately been so flourishing presented at the conclusion of the war. There is no description, however pathetic, that can possibly approach the deep, the afTe61ing, the mournful impression which the sight of them produced. If from Prujfiawe turn our attention to the other belligerent powers, we shall find the same tragical destruction of the human species. The Russians, had fought four grand battles; and it THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 135 it war, computed that the war had cost them 120,000 men. The Austriints had Sought ten regular batiks ; and they estimated their loss at 140,000 men. The Frencii made their losses amount to 200,000, the Eng/j/hand their allies to 160 a and the troops of the circles to 28,000. At the close of the war, the house of jiustna found itself one hundred millions of crowns m debt. In France the credit of government had been nearly ruined, and the people groaned un- der the weight of taxes by which they were o- vcrwhclnied. The English^ victorious by sea and land, may be said to have purchased their conquests by immense sums, which they had borrowed to carry on the war, and which almost rendered /hem insolvent. But Prussia suffered the most for all the powers at war committed ravages there ; and the state expended one hundred and twenty Jive millions of crowns, during the war. From this picture which we have sketched, the result is, that all the governments at war 3 o were overwhelmed with debts, and almost des- titute of credit. If it be required what vast and important e- vents occasioned all this waste of treasure, this destruction of human species, and all the accu- mulated miseries above described, perhaps the true answer may be, that Louis XV. the first instigator of it, thought it was for his gUn- ; or some proud minister of his had received an af- front and wished for revenge; some wanton con- 136 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. concubine wished to gratify her caprice, in making or disgracing generals or commanders. Other powers would be seized with contagion., or obliged to arm in self-defence ; and thus the; whole world became a field of blood for the plea- sure of a set of miscreants who, as the author of Cato's letters well observes, "Jkoufd he confined, in a madhoufe, with their beloved arms along with them tojight and tear each other's flesh, and spill their own detestable blood, as a sort of satisfacti- on to mankind, for so much human blood outra-* rageousLy fpilt." Patriot v. ii. p. 297. BARBAULD Mb AIKIN. *&•> t^> *^> v^ood news ! great news ! glorious news ! crim- ed young Oswald, as he entered his father's house. We have got a complete victory and kil- led I don't know how many of the enemy ; and we are to have bonfires and illuminations ! And so, said his father, you think that killing a great many thoufands of human creatures is a thing to be very glad about ? Oswald. No — I do not think quite so, nei- ther; but surely it is right to be glad that our country has gained a great advantage. Father. No doubt, it is right to wish well to our own country, as far as its prosperity can be pro- JUL WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 137 promoted wUJtout injuring the rest of mankind. But wars are very seldom to the real advantage of any nation ; and when they are deemed ever so qseful or necessary, so many dreadful evils attend them, that a humane man will scarce re- joice in them, if he considers at all on the ,ect. Oswald. But if our enemies would do us a great deal of mischief, and we prevent it by beating them, have not we a right to be glad of it ? Father. Alas ! we are in general very little judges which of the parties has the most mis- chievous intention. Commonly they are both in the wrong, and success will make both of them unjust and unreasonable. But putting that out of the question, he who rejoices in (he event of a battle, rejoices in the misery of ma- ny thousands of his species, and the thought of that should make him pause a little. Suppose a surgeon were to come with a smiling' counte- nance, and tell us triumphantly that he had cut off half a dozen legs to day — what would you think of him ? Oswald. I should think him very hard-hearted. Father. And vet these operations arc done for the benefit of the sufferers, and by their own desire. But in a battle the probability is, that none of those engaged on either side have any interejl at ail in t\\c cause they are fighting for, but many of them come there because they cannot help it. In this battle that you are so ced about, there have been ten thou [and men 1SS THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. men killed upon the spot, and nearly as many wounded. Oswald. On both sides ? Father. Yes — but they are men on both sides. Consider now, that the ten thousand sent out of the world in this morning's work, though they are past feeling themselves, have left probably two persons each on an average to lament their loss, either parents, wives, or chil- dren. Here are then twenty thousand people made unhappy at one stroke on their account. This however is hardly so dreadful to think of as the condition of the wounded. At the mo- ment we are talking eight or ten thousand more are lying in agony, torn with shot, or gashed with cuts, their wounds all festering, some hour- ly to die a most excruciating death, others to linger in torture weeks and months, and many doomed to drag on a miserable existence for the rest of their lives, with diseased and muti- lated bodies. Oswald. This is shocking to think of indeed ! Father. When you light your candles, tJicn, this evening, think what they ccfi ! Oswald But every body else is glad, and seem to think nothing of these things. Father. True they do not think of them. If they did, I cannot suppose they would be so void of feeling as to enjoy themselves in mer- riment when so many of their fellow creatures are made miserable. Do you not remember when poor Dickens had his leg broken by a loaded waggon, how all the town pitied him ? ; Ow Md. THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 139 Oswald. Yes, very well. I could not sleep the night after for thinking of him. Father. But here are thousands suffering as much as he, and we scarce bestow a single thought upon them If every one of these poor creatures were before our eyes, we should probably feel much more than we now do for all together. Evenings at Home, vol. ii. SENTIMENTS ON JFAR. He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows. Machiavel. Art of War. b. i\ War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of be- ing totally abrogated. Burke, Letter io Slier riffs of Bristol. When war begins hell gates are set open. Old Italian Proverb. War is death's feast. Old Spanish Proverb. Put together all the vices of all ages and places, and never will they come up to the mischiefs and enormities of only one campaign. Voltaire* Fhilo, Diet. Art. War. 140 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. To destroy a Jingle man., may be dangerous, but to murder whole Nations, is only a more glorious wickedness. What a shame it is for men to enterwcrry one another, when yet the fiercest even of beasts are at peace with those of their own kind ? This brutal fury puts philosophy itself to a stand. It is not the spoils of war and bloody trophies, ttiat make a Prince glorious; but the divine power of preserving itniiy, and peace. Seneca on Anger, c. ocii. FALSTAFF'S OPINION OF HONOUR. Well, 'tis no matter, honor pricks me on. But how, if honor prick me off, when I come on ? How then ? Can honor set to a leg ? No ; or an arm ? no; or take away the grief of a wound ? No : honor hath no skill in surgery then ? No : what is honor ? a word. What is the word honor ? air : a trim reckoning. Who hath it ? he that dy'd a Wed- nesday. Doth he feel it ? No : doth he hear it ? No : is it insensible then ? yea, to the dead : but will it not live with the living ? No : why ? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it ; honor is a mere scutcheon ; and so ends my catechism. Shakefpeare. THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 14 I ttfmtg from ©uwcnt ^ccts. HOMER Curs'd is the man, and void of law and right, Unworthy property, unworthy light ; Unfit for public rule or private care, That wretch, that monfter who deiights in war ; Whofe lull is murder, ami whofe horrid joy, To tear his country, and his kind deftroy. Iliad, b. ix. JOHN MILTON. He [Adam) Iook'd, and faw wide territoiy fpread Before him, towns, and rural works between, Cities of men with lofty gates and tow 'rs, Concourfe in arms, fierce faces threat'ning war, Giants of mighty bone, and bold emprife : Part wield their arms, part curb the foaming fteed, Single or in array of battle rang'd Both horfe and foot, nor idly muft'ring flood ; One way a band felecl from forage drives A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine, From a fat meadow ground, or fleecy flock, Ewe- and their bleating lambs, over :he plain, Their booty \ fcarce with life the fhepherds fly, But call in aid, which makes a bloody fray ; N With 142 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. **-£^-^^£?-> With cruel torneament the fquadrons join ; Where cattle paftur'd late, now fcatter'd lies With carcafes and arms th' infanguin'd field Deferted : others to a city ftrong Lay fiege, incamp'd ; by batt'ry, fcale, and mine, AfTaulting ; others from the wall defend With dart and jav'lin, ftones and fulph'rous fire ; On each hand (laughter and gigantic deeds. In other part the fcepter'd herald's call To council in the city gates : anon Grey headed men and grave, with warriors mix'd, AiTemble, and harangues are heard, but foon In faclious oppofition ; till at la ft Of middle age one rifing eminent In wife deport, fpake much of right and wrong, Of juftice, or" religion truth and peace, And judgment from above : him old and young, Exploded and had feiz'd with violent hands, Had not a cloud defcending fnatch'd him thence Unfeen amid the throng : fo violence Proceeded, and oppreflion, and fword-iaw, Through all the plain, and refuge none was found. Adam was all in tears, and to his guide Lamenting turn'd full fad ; O what are thefe, Death's minifters, not men, who thus deal death Inhumanly to men, and multiply Ten thoufandfold the fin of him who flew His brother : for of whom fuch maiTacre Make THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 143 Make they but of their brethren, men of men ? For in thof- clays might only fhall be' admir'd, And valour and heroic virtue call'd ; To overcome in battle, and fubdue Nations, and bring home fpoils with infinite Man-flaughter,'mall be held the higheft pitch Of human glory, and for glory done Of triumph, to be ityled great conquerors, Patror.s of mankind, gods, and fons of gods ; Deftroyers rightlicr call'd, and plagues of men. Thus fame (hall be atchiev'd, renown on earth, And what mod merits fame in filence hid Paradije Loft b.'xi. I. 638. They err who count it glorious to fubdue By conqueft far and wide ; to overrun Large countries, and in field great battles win, Great cities by afTault : what do thefe worthies But rob, and fpoil, burn, {laughter, and enflave Peaceable nations ? neighbouring or remote, Made captive yet deferving freedom more Than thofe their conquerors, who leave behind Nothing but ruin wherefoe/er they rove ; And all the fluurifhing works of peace deftroy ; Then fvvell with pride, and mud be titled gods, Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers, Wor(hip"d with temple, prieft, and facnfke : One is the fon of Jove, of Mars the other, n 2 Till 144 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. *Till conqueror death difcover them fcarce men ; Rolling in brutifh fin. Violent or fhameful death their due reward. Paradife Regained. SHAKESPEARE. Two thoufand fouls, and twenty thoufand ducats, Will not debate the queftion of this ftraw. I SEE, The imminent death of twenty thoufand men, That for a fantafy, and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot, Whereon the numbers cannot try the caufe, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the (lain. Hamlet, act w% MR. CHURCHILL. Stript of her gaudy plumes and vain difguife, See wheTe ambition mean and loathfome lies -> Reflection with relentlcfs hand pulls down The tyrant's bloody wreath and ravihYd crown. In vain he tells of battles bravely won, Of nations conquer'd and of world's undone : Triumphs like thefe but ill with mannkind fuit, And fink the conqueror beneath the brute. Night, vol i. p. 83, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. H5 Perplex'd with trifles through the vale of life, Man ft rives 'gainft m.w, without a caufe for ftrife ; Armies embattled meet, and thoufands bleed, For f >me vile foot where fifty cannot {ea.^ Squirrels for nuts contend, and wrong or right, For the world's empire kings ambitious fight: What odds ! — to us 'tis all the felf fame thing, A nut, a world, a fquirrel, and a king. Night , vol. i. p. 86. tin. ADDISOX. Thy dazzled eye Beholds this man in a falfe glaring light, Which conqueft and fuccefs have thrown upon him. Did'ft thou but view him right, thoud'ft fee him black With murder and crimes That ftrike my foul with horror but to name 'em. CatOy aft % Ik MR. THOMPSON. From yonder heath-crown'd hill I look'd and faw the progrefs of the foe, As of fome tempeft, fome devouring fire, That ruins without mercy where it fpreads. The riches of the year, the golden grain, That liberal crown'd our plains, lies tramp led wide, N 3 By 146 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. By hoftile feet, or rooted up, and wade Deforms ihe broad high way : from fpace to fpace Far as my (training eye could moot its beam, Trees, cottages, and caftles frncke to heaven In one afcending cloud. Alfred, aft. ME. ROWE. Yet, yet a little, and deftru&ive {laughter Shall rsge around, and mar this beauteous profpect ; Pafs but an hour, which Hands betwixt the lives Of thoufands and eternity, what change Shall hafty death make in yon glittering plain \ Oh thou fell monfter, war ! that in a mom ent Lay 'ft wafte the nobleft part of the creation, The boaft and mafter-piece of the great maker, That wears in vain the impreffion of his image Unprejudic'd from thee. Tamerlane aft. ME. HOME. They go forth, Gay in the morning, as to fummer fport ; When evening comes, the glory of the morn* The youthful warrior is a clod of clay. Thus fall the prime of either haplefs land. Douglas, aft* u When THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 147 MR GAT. When kindling war the ravag'd globe ran o'er, And fatten'd thirfty plains with human gore, At firn\ the brandiiVd arm the jav'lin threw, Or fi-nt wing'd arrows from the twanging yew ; In the bright air the dreadful faulchion {hone, Or whittling flings difmif^'d th' uncertain (tone : Now men thofe lefs deftrucYive armb defpife, Wide-waflful death from thund'ring cannon flies, One hour with more batallions ftrows the plain. Than were of yore in weekly battles flain. Poems. — The Fan* EDWARD YOLWG, L. L. D. While I furvey the bleflings of our ifle, Her arts triumphant in the royal fmile, Her public wounds bound up her credit high, Her commerce fpreading fajls in every fty, The pleafing fcene recalls my theme ag.^n, And ihews the madnefs of ambitious men, Who, fond of hloodihed, draw «he murd'ring fword, And burn to give mankind a fingle lord. The follies paft arc of a private kind \ Their fphere is fmall ; their mifchief is confin'd : But daring men there are (Awake, mv mufe, And raife thy verfe) ! who bolder virtue ch>>ofe ; Who (rung by glory, rave, and b und away \ The world their field and humankind their prey. The 148 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. The Grecian chief, th' enthufiaft of his pride. With rage and terror (talking by his fide, Raves round the globe ; he foars into a god ! Stand faft Olympus / and fuftain his nod. The pefl divine in horrid grandeur reigns, And thrives on mankind's miferies and pains. What flaughter'd hofls ! What cities in a blaze ! What wafted countries! and what <:nmUmfeas ! With orphan's tears his impious bowl o'erflows, And cries of kingdoms lull him to repofe. And cannot thrice ten hundred years unpraife, The boift'rou3 'boy, and Waft his guilty bays ; Why want we then encomiums on the farm, Or famins, or volcano ? They perform Their mighty deeds ; they, hero-like, can flay, And fpread their ample deferts in a day. O great alliance ! O divine renown ! With dearth and peftilence, to (hare the crown. When men extol a wild deftroyer's name, Earth's builder and preferver they blafpheme. One to deftroy is murder by the law ;. And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe ; To murder thoufands, takes a fpecious name, War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame. When, after battle, I the field have feen Spread o'er with ghaftly fhape c , which once were men; A nation crufh'd, a nation of the brave ! A realm of death 1 and on this fide the grave ! Are THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 149 Arc there, faid I, who from their fid furvey, This human chaos, carry fmiles away ? How did my heart with indignation rife ! How honed nature f well'd into my eves! How was I (hock'd to think the hero's tiade Of fuch materials, fame and triumph made ! Satires, fat. vlu Seven hundred millions of the human kind Are held in bafe fubjeclion ; and bv whom ? Why, (trangc to tell, and what futurity, (As children at the tales of witch or fprtto) Will blefs themfelves to hear, by a fmall Troop Of weak capricious defpots, fiends accurft, Who drench the earth with tides of human gore, And call the havoc glory. • # # • SAMUEL JOHNSON, L. L. D. The feftal blazes, the triumphal (how, The ravihYd (landard, and the captive foe, The fenale's thanks, the Gazette's pompous tale, With force reuftlefs o'er the brave prevail. Such bribes the rapid Greek o'er Afia whirl'd, For fuch the (ready Roman's (hook the world ; For fuch in defiant lands the Britons (hine, And (lain with blood the Danube or the Rhine ; This 150 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. This power has praife, that virtue fcarce can warm, Till fame fupplies the univerfal charm. Yet reafon frowns on war's unequal game, Where waited nations raife a fingle name, And mortgag'd dates their grandfireVs wreath's regret, From age to age in everlafting debr ; Wreaths which at laft the dear-bought right convey, To ruft on medals or on flones decay. On what foundation ftands the warrior's pride, How juft his hopes, let Swedifli Charles decide ; A frame of adamant, a foul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no dangers tire ; O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, Unconquer'd lord of pleafure and of pain ; No joys to him pacific fceptres yield, War founds the trump, he rufhes to the field; Behold furrounding kings their power combine, And one capitulate, and one refign ; Peace courts his hand, but fpreads her charms in vain 5 u Think nothing gain'd," he cries, " till nought re- " On Mufcow's walls till Gothic itandards fly, [main, u And all be mine beneath the polar iky." The march begins in military ftate, And nations on his eye fufpeuded wait ; Stern famine guards the folitary coaft, And winter barricades the realms of frofr. ; He comes, nor want nor cold his courfe delay ; Hide, blulhing glory, hide Pultowa's day : The THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 151 The vanquiuYd hero leaves his broken bands, And (hews his raiferies in diftant lands ; Condemn'd a needy fupplicant to wait, While ladies interpofe, and flaves debate. But did not chance at length her error mend ? Did no fubvertcd empire mark his end ? Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? Or hoftile millions prefs him to the ground ? His fall was deftin'd to a barren ftrand, A petty foitrefs, and a dubious hand ^ He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale. All times their fcenes of pompous woes afford, From Perfia's tyrant to Bavaria's Lord. In gay hoftility, and barb'rous pride, With half mankind embattled at his fide, Great Xerxes comes fp feize the certain prey. And ftarves exhausted regions in hi c way ; Attendant flattery counts his myriads o'er, Till counted myriads footh his pride no more ; Frefh praife is try'd, till madnefs fires hi- mind, The waves he lames and enchains the wind ; New powers are claim'd, new powers are dill beftow'd, Till rude refiftance lops the fpreading God ; The daring Greeks deride the martial mow, And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe ; Th' infultcd fea with humbler thoughts he gains, A fingle IkifFto fpeed his flight remains ; Th» 152 THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS Th' encumbered oar fcarce leaves the dreaded coaft Through purple billows and a floating hoft. The bold Bavarian in a lucklefs hour, Tries the dread fummits of Caefarean power, With unexpe&ed legions burfts away, And fees defencelefs realms receive his fway ; Short fway ; fair Auftria fpreads her mournful charms, The queen, the beauty, fets the world in arms ; From hill to hill the beacon's roufing blaze Spreads wide the hope of plunder and of praife. The fierce Croation, and the wild HuiTar, With all the fons of ravage crowd the war, The baffled prince in honour's flattering bloora Of hafty greatnefs finds the fatal doom ; His foes' derifion, and his fubjecV blame, And deals to death from anguifh and from fhame. Vanity of Human Wiflits, BE1LBY PORTEUS, D. D. (BISHOP OF LONDON.) First envy, eldeft born of hell embrued Her hands in blood, and taught the fons of men To make a death which nature never made, And God abhor'd ; with violence rude to break The thread of life ere half its length was run, And rob a wretched brother of his being. With THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 153 With joy ambition faw, and foon improv'd The execrable deed. 'Twas not enough By fubtle fraud to fnatch a fmgle life, Puny impiety ! whole kingdoms fell To fate the lud of power : more horrid dill, The fouleft (lain and fcandal of our nature Became its boaft. One murder makes a villain ; Millions a hero. Princes were privilege u To kill, and numbers fancufied the crime. Ah ! why will kings forget that they are men ? And men that they are brethren ? Why delight In human facrifice ? Why burlr. the ties Of nature, that mould knit their fouls together In one foft bond of amity and love ? Yet ftill they breathe deftrudtion, ftill go on, Inhumanly ingenious, to find out New pains for life, new terrors for the grave. Artificers of death ! ftill monarchs dream Of univerfal empire growing up From univerfal ruin. Blaft the defign, Great God of hofts, nor let thy creatures fall Unpitied victims at ambition's fhrine ! Poem on Death, WILLIAM COPPER, Esq. Great princes have great playthings Some have played, At hewing mountains into men, and fomc o At 154 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. At building human wonders mountain high, Some have amufed the dull, fad years of life, (Life fpent in indolence, and therefore fad) With fchemes of monumental fame ; and fought By pyramids and maufolean pomp, Short-lived themfelves, to immortalize their bones; Some feek diverfion in the tented field, And make \\- forrow, of mankind their fport. But war's a game, which, were their iubje&s wife, Kings would not play at. Nations would do well, To extort rtieir truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whofe infirm and baby minds, Are gratified with mifchief ; and who fpoil, Becaufe men fuffer it, their toy the world. In every heart Are fown the fparks, that kindle fiery war; Occafion needs but fan them, and they blaze, Cain had already fried a brother's bl'>od : The deluge wafti'd it out ; but left unquenched The feeds of murder in the breaft of man. Soon by a righteous judgment in the line Of liis defcendjng progen) was Foun x J fun* -rtinccr of death ; the fli ewd triyer, wfeo flrft fweated at the.forge, or the blunt and yet unblo died (feel ge, and made if brigh* • "-jr. rub 1 named, the Vulcan >i • i urnes, fword and falchion tjieir inventor claim ; And THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 155 And (he firft fmith was the firft mur derer's fon. His ait furviyed the waters ; and ere long, When man was multiplied and fpread abroad In tribes and clans, and had begun to call Thefe meadows and that range of hills his own, The tailed fweets of property begat Defire of more ; and induftry in fome To improve and cultivate their juft demefne, Made others covet what they faw fo fair. Thus war began on earth : thefe fought for fpoil, And thofe in felf-dsfence. Savage at firft The onfet, and irregular. At length One eminent above the reft for ftrength, For ftratagem, for courage, or for all, Was chofen leader ; him they ferved in war, And him in peace, for fake of warlike deeds Reverenced no lefs. Thus by degrees, felf-cheated of their found And fober judgment, that he is but man, They demi-deify and fume him Co, That in due feafon he forgets it too. Inflated and aftrut with felf-conceit, He gulps the windy diet ; and ere long, Adopting their miftakt, profoundly thinks The world was made in vain, if not for him. Thenceforth they are his cattle : driK'ge^, born To bear his burdens, drawing in r is ge.r , And fweating in his fervice his caprice, o 2 Becomes 156 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS, Becomes the foul that animates them all. He deems a thoufand, or ten thoufand live*, Spent in the purchafe of renown for him, An eafy reckoning ; and they think the fame. Thus kings were firft invented, and thus kings Were burnifhed into heroes and became The arbiters of this terraqueous fwamp ; Storks among frogs, that have but croaked and died. Tajk. L v. ON HEROISM. YE monarch*, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your caufe, Who (hike the blow, then plead your own defence— Gkry your aim, bnxjujiice your pretence ; Behold in ^Etna's emblematic fires The mifchiefs your ambitious pride infpires ! Faft by the frream that bounds your juft domain, And tells you where you have a right to reign, A nation dwells, not envious of your throne, Studious of peace, their neighbours', and their own. Ill-fated race ! how deeply must they rue Their only crime, vicinity to you ! The trumpet founds, your legions fwarm abroad, Through the ripe harvefl: lies their deftin'd road ; At ev'ry ftep beneath their feet they tread The life of multitudes, a nation's bread ! Earth THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 157 Earth feems a garden in its loveliefl: drefs Before them, and behind a wildernefs. Famine, and peftilence, her firft-boin Ton, Attend to finifh what the fword begun ; , And, echoing praifes fuch as fiends might earn, And folly pay?, refound at your return : A calm fucceeds — but plenty, with her train Of heart felt joy?, fucceeds not foon again. And years of pining indigence muft (how, What fcourges are the gods that rule below. Increafing commerce and reviving heart Renew the qu.irrel on the conq'ror's part ; And the fad lellon muft be learn'd once more, That wealth within, is ruin at the door. What are ye, monarchs, laurel' d heroes } fay — But Mtnas of the fuff'rhg world ye fway ; Sweet nature, flripp'd of her embroider'd robe, Deplores the wafted regions of her globe ; And (lands a witnefs at truth's awful bar To prove you, there, deftroyers as ye are. Oh, place me in fome heav'n-protected ifle, Where peace, and equity, and freedom fmile \ Where no volcano pours his fiery flood, No creftsd warrior dips his plume in blood. Cowper's Poems. o 3 Battle 158 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. BATTLE OF BLENHEIM, It was a fummer evening, Old Caspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was fitting in the fun : And by him fported on the green His little grand child Wilhelmine. She faw her brother Pete rk in Roll fcmething large and ronnd, That he befide the rivulet In playing there had found ; He csme to alk what he had found, That was fo large and fmooth and round. Old Caspar took it from the boy, Who flood expectant by ; And then the old man ihook his head, And with a natural figh :— — « Tis fome poor fellows y£«//, faid he, " Who fell in the great victory \ tf< I find them in my garden, for ° There's many here about ;] € * And often, when I go to plow, *' The plough-mare turns them out $ 4t For many thoufand men, faid he, u Weie (lain in the great victory." ".Now THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 159 " Now tell us what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries ; And little Wilhelmine looks up, With wonder-waiting eyes ; " Now tell us all about the war, " And zvhat they hlVdeach other for" " It was the Englifti, Caspar cried, " That put the French to rout ; " But what they killed each other for " / could not well make out ; li But every body faid quoth he, 11 That 'twas a famous victory ! " My father lived at Blenheim then, " Yon little dreams hard by ; " They burnt his dwelling to the ground,. " And he was forc'd to fly ; u So with his wife and child he fled, " Nor had he where tp reft his head : u With fire and fwcrd the country round,, M Was wafted far and wide ; " And many a childing mother then, " And new-bornJnfant died : " But things like that, you know, tnuft he y u At every famous victory. 11 They fay it was a mocking fight " After the field was won : " For many thoufand bodies here " Lay rotting in the fun ; " But 160 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. " But things like that you know, muji be> %t After a famous victory. " Great praife the Duke of Marlbro' won, " And our good Prince Eugene." — u Why 'twas a very wicked thing I" Said little Wilhelmine. tl Nay, nay, my little girl, quoth he, " It was a famous victory : " And every body prais'd the Duke, " Who fuch a fight did win " . " But what good came of it at lafi V Quoth little Peterkin. " Why, that / cannot tell, faid lie, " But 'twas a famous victory." Methodift Mag. Aug. i8cr. The BEAU mb BEDLAMITE. (by the kev. chahles wesley.) A patient in Bedlam, that did pretty well, Was permitted fometimes to go out of his cell : One day when they gave him that freedom, he Ypied, A beauifh young fpark, with a sword by his fide ; With a huge filver hilt, and a fcabbard of flee], Thatfvvung at due length, from his hip to his heel. When THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 161 When he faw him advance on the gallery ground, The Bedlamite ran and furvey'd him all round \ While a waiter fuppreft the young Captain's alarm, With — " you need not to fear, fir, he'll do you no harm." At the laft he broke out — "Aye a very fine fhow, May I a(k you one queftlon ?" — What's that ? faid the Beau ! " Pray, what's that long, dangling, and cumberfome thing, That you feem to be tied to, with ribbon and firing r" Why, that is my fword — M and what is it to do ? Kill my enemies, matter, by running them through :— "Kill your enemies !— Kill a fool's-head of your own ; They'll die of themf elves, If you 11 let them alone /" Armin. Mag. for 1 780, p. 6 1 9. MR. COJVPER. Ok for a lodge in fome vaft wildernefs, Some boundlefs contiguity of made, Where rumour of oppreflion and deceit, Of unfuccefsful or fuccefsful war, Might never reach me more. My ear is pained, My foul is fick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is fili'd. There 162 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. There is no flefh in man's obdurate heart, It does not feel for man ; the natural bond Of brotherhood is fevered as the flax, That falls afunder at the touch of fire. Lands interfered by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd Make enemies of nations, who had elfe Like kindred drops been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother and deftroys ; Then what is man ? And what man, feeing this, And having human feelings, does not blufh, And lung his head to think himfelf a man ! The Task, h. ii APPENDIX, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 163 APPENDIX. F all the calamities that disturb and dis- grace mankind, there is none comparable to WAR, which indeed is not only the greatejl but the aggregate of all evils : for treachery, mur- der, rapine, cruelty, injustice, intemperance, pride, idleness and ignorance, are the leading- lea tures of this infernal monster. There are said to be many wonders in the world, but cer- tainly the greatest of all wonders is, why man- kind have suffered this evil to exist from age to' age, without making any serious attempts to arrest its progress and terminate its career. Nay, so far have men been from attempting to annihilate the practice of war, that they have given it the sanction of system, science, laws, dignities, honours, titles and emoluments, by which it has been made a resort for every base and dishonourable motive. Among those whose province it is to attempt the dejirudjon of the destructive practice of war, are ministers of state; these are first in power, and therefore, ought to be first in effort. But these are generally gainers by war, they lien 1 164 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. fatten whilst others Jlarve, and grow in wealth and splendour, as the nation which they rule sinks in indigence and bankruptcy. The next are ministers of the gospel : these men are by profession Minijiers of Peace ; and therefore much, in reason, ought to be expect- ed from them : but some of these are indolent, others selfish, and others again downright vici- ous. Instead of lifting up their voices in the name of the Lord against war, they frequently go forth in their sacredotals , and, to the dis- grace of heaven and earth, consecrate its ban- ners, and in the name of the Prince of Peace, bid God speed to intsruments of destruction, and pray for the fuccefs of bloodjhed and de- vaftation. I have turned over the vast volumes of some eminent Divines, in expectation of finding some severe Philippics against the cursed evil in question, but I have been disappointed ; some of them have said nothing, and others nothing to the purpose : indeed it requires no uncom- mon degree of sagacity to perceive that they have studiously avoided the subject, the reason of which, no one needs be at a loss to compre- hend. This is one of the many evils resulting from the junction of church and Jiate ! The conduct of divines in relation to war, has given Infidels great latitude for invective and declamation against Christianity, and against all religion except what they call the religion of nature. They cannot conceive how the pro- mulgators ol Christianity who affect to be in r> j /? possession SLOCKING GLASS. 105 possession oi the mildest, • \, humblest anil holiest religion in : rid, bbouJd give to war, which is not only an evil, but the cvu- mmrmftian of a// evils, both moral sanction and physical aid. Voltaire, the fatneus French Irfdd, has mpt Veiled to ava ^advantage alTorekd by the conducl of -ministers cf ti.e gcspel, in this respeel : \,c h. reproached the iwo famous French Preachers, MamJlon and Bvnr- ■■% with- having itdt written one sermon a- srainfi ::ar. He thought their conduct con- ►tible in vociferating and declaintin-g a- gainst the sins of private chara&eis, whilst they were panegyrizing warlike Princes, and pre- oo rv i r ,>- a studied silence on the subiecl of war. I have examined Bishops Hall, and Tillotsov, Dr. Clark, Dr. Scott, Dr. Hammond, and other c client English Divines ; but I find nothing pointedly written against this greatest of evils.* Dr. Hammond, in his Practical Catechhm, allows war to be lawful, and the very nature of this subject requires hiin to adduce his reasons, which are as follows. " It appears so, fays he, 1. By the Baptiji^s answer to the soldiers, when they came to his baptism, Luke iii. 14. Where he forbids them not that calling as unlawful. 2. By Christ's commending the Centurion's * Dr. Clark in His paraphrafe on Luke xxii. 38. has rendered our Lord's meaning in a very chriltian-Hke manner j but the paraphrafe of a verfe of two is not like- ly to produce any material reformation in an evil of fuck magnitude and annuity as that of war. p faith, 166 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLA faith, who was then a soldier. 3. By Paul's using a band of soldiers against the treachery of the Jews. 4. Ey^ Saint Peter's baptizing of Cornelius, without his giving over the military employment." Verily one would have thought that the Doctor could have produced better premises for the support of inferences which involve such momentous consequences. These premises would scarcely satisfy an intelligent child : but; on examination, I find them to be all that can be advanced by many other d\\ who are also advocates for the practice of war. 3lr. Barclay and Mr. Clarkfon, have answered all these pretended grounds of war, and shewn* them to be weak and futile. Those who are thoroughly impressed wifh the purity and infinite importance of the gospel, will find too much reason to confess that there are many Divines who are not CJmsiitftis, ( I speak not here with reference to any particular sect) and many professors who neither posses nor practice pure Christianity : and numbers of those who have a measure of sincerity and ho- nesty, are yet not willing to go all the lengths of holiness required by the principles of their hhdi calling ; they are somewhat like the Sa- maritans, who would worship the God of heaven and Idols also. In short, they are a sort of temporizing, half-bred, mule-christians, who confound and paralyze simple and honest heart- ed professors, give umbrage to the enemies of all righteousness, and, betray the Saviour who in they seem to kiss. J Nor THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 167 Nor have .some of those who are deservedly reputed good men, failed to contribute their mite towards the diabolical system of war. Mr. John Wesley entered so far into the spirit of war, during our hapless contest with America, that he wrote a pamphlet against the Americans, called ' A Calm Addreft; and of course, a justi- ion of the conduct of England in seeking :• subjugation, In writing of this pamphlet he contradicted the whole gospel, and the ge- neral tenor of his own life : besides laving him- self open to some severe rebuffs from Dr. Price, and the Rev. Caleb Evans. But who could have expecled that he should sanction war, who had either written or adopted into his collection of Hymm> the following christian-like stanzas : Messiah, Prince of Peace, Where men each other tear. Where war is learn 'd they must confess, Thy kingdom is not there : Who, prompted by the foe, Dehght in human blood, Apollyon is their king, we know, And Satan is their God. Page 419. Likewise the Rev. John Fletcher of Madeley, who took Mr. W T esley both for his patron, and his pattern, wrote largely in vindication of Mr. W's Calm Addrefs : he also wrote a small Tract entitled the bible and the sword, (shocking compound) in which he endeavours to prove p 2 that i68 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. that war and Christianity are consistent with each other ! Now this same Mr. F. has written a book bearing the title of *jin appeal to matter of fact and en i «/&,•' in which he ennuzbe* rates a]], or most of the wicked enormities pre- valent in the world. Among the rest, - be expected, he adduces war, which he very properly ranks amongst " The most inhuman sins: 4 ** But, for what reason, must have been best Ithown to himself; he avoids saying at,f tiling oflu$ own on this important subject ; in- stead of which he brings Voltaire into the thea- tre to speak for him.* Now if Voltaire has spoken Mr. F's oivn sentiments, (and it would be highly uncandid to think otherwise) how could he vindicate the American war, and write the Bible and the Sword? Dr. Young has left some noble sentiments a- gaihst war and ambition, as may be seen in the former part of this book; yet he has written, likewise an Ocean and two Sea pieces, the ten- dency of which is net much calculated to re- press tae spirit of martial men, and allay the fury of ambition. Mr. Addison wrote an excellent treatise en- titled ' Evidences of Cliriftianity :' but he wrote also his Blenheim, the tendency of which is like- ly to make more Marlboro's, than advocates for Christiankif ! From these, and such like instances of the weakness and folly of good men, we may see * * Argument 34. Sc&ion 3. that THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 16£ th:\t the Redeemer's kingdom has often been injured by those In its o;-c/z bofom, even by its defenders and champions ! Vfe see too, that "great men are not always wife* and that uni- formly of character, though an excellency uni- versally admired, is but seldom attained. The deviation of some from christian rectitude, results from a coxcavdlii complaisant spirit which will incur no man's displeasure for want of confor- mity : of others, it is the \o\c of fame, and therefore War and Warriors must be panegy- {, tho' C Jurist and his peaceable kingdom - the skmnc of it : and others again make their aberrations from pure religion, lor the ■ •'. These arc truths which must be acknowledged, and ought to be lament- ed. But blessed is that disciple of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who will deny himself of all )dline$Sj and all worldly lusts, and main- tain his integrity, adorn his profession and be a child of peace, in spite of the sanction of exam- ple, or the allurements of interest. He that will lose his life in this world shall certainly find it in the world to come. It must be confessed that the obliquities of good men on the subjeel of war, have done much harm to the cause of Christ : I believe, far more than is commonly apprehended ; for hereby ambition is stimulated, war is patroniz- ed and the honest advocates for peace's being an essential part of Christianity, are stunned and confounded. Some have said that the ad- mired Homer, was the greatest apostle the p 3 Devil 170 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Devil ever had ; because he hath drawn out his/ characters of the grecian chieftains, engaged in the Trojan war, in such lively colours as to excite the martial spirit irt almost all his readers. The character of Acliilfes is so drawn as to have become a model for imitation; and it is well known that Alexander the Great, carried Homer's Iliad in his pocket, and was a special admirer of this grecian hero. If this be true, the match- less poet must participate both in the guilt and punishment of that conqueror, who was a pro- digy for his madnefs and a Jcourge to mankind. Caefar of Rome, pr oh ably imitated Alexander ; and Charles the XI t. of Sweden, who was such an intolerable pejl in his day, it is well known, had Philip's sen for his example. Where- fore the practice of writing Eulogies and songs in praise of generals, and in commemoration, of * Battles is highly cenfuralle, and the writers of such things will at length find themselves involved in a degree of guilt which they little apprehended ! Another description of men, who may not improperly be termed Philosophical Politicians, have, by their impious speculations and axioms, done much mischief to mankind. I shall only adduce one of their wicked positions by way of specimen, which is, " That zvar is necejjary to prevent an overgrown population in the world/' These men seem not aware., that they are whol- ly beside themselves, when they intrude their * Britannia,, opinions THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 171 opinions and interference into the divine CEco- nomy. To obtrude our vain whims and idle speculations into human legislation, would be thought IttSiifferabH; but to interfere in the defection or supcrflux of mankind, the manage- ment of which, belongs entirely to the supreme being, argues a degree of vanity and presump- tion not common even to had men. The rising; and setting of the sun, the seasons of the year, the ebbing and flowing of the tides, the pro- portion of males and females, and the number of inhabitants in the world, and all such things, are and ought to be, subject to the divine go- vernment alone. " Shall not the judge of all the earth do right" without the puny assistance of these pigmy cosmographers ? He who makes men, fails not to make also the means of their subsistence. It were to be wished that those who recommend war as a salutary measure for the reduction of the world's population, would make a more practical use of their own opinions. But as these men have but sorry notions of God, and perhaps, no faith at all in a superin- tending providence, we will reason with them up- on their own dear human principles. First, then, a supcrflux of mankind supposes that all the inhabitable parts of the world are stocked with people : but is this the case ? certainly not. On the contrary, we are told by some geographers, that it is not half peopled, nor e- ver was :* certain it is, that there are vast tracts * By the labours of geometricians, we are enabled pi cry nearly to afcertain the dimenfions of our &lobe ; and ac~ of 172 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. afland uninhabited; still more, perhaps, but thinly occupied ; even in Euro])?, which is deemed to be full of inhabiiants, there is a great deal of uncultivated grotitod ; and more- over, it is highly probable that if all land hold- ers r vere land owners, that the earth would s do nble h e.r trie rease ! For the un rve rsa 1 m o n o - polv erf fended property in some countries, and the' systems of vassalage in others, have unner- ved the arm of industry, and retarded the in- crease of the fruits of the earth. But there is one consideration more, which is as weighty as all the rest put together, and which is, that whenever mankind shall submit themselves to the divine influence and pure precepts of the gospel of peace, and shall, as they ought, make purity of body, and temper- cording to the mod ex-.ct calculations,, the furface of the earth contains 1^99 millions, 512 thouiand, 505 fquartf miles. The feas and unknown parts, bv a !ne;.i.urcmcnt of the beft maps, contain i6j millions. 522 thoul'^ml, ?.nd 26 fquare miles ; and the inhabited par 1*3.8 millions, 550 thousand, 569 fquare miles, in the following proportion. Europe contains 4 millions, 4 5&thoufand, anc-1 65 nrilcs; Aha 1© millions, 768 thouiand, 823; Africa 9 millions, 6^4 thoufand, 807; ; Ameiica 1^ iruuions , no thoufand, 874 — Fhrgu^on's Astronomy. Thefe calculation's pfOVt, that fcarcely a third part of the globe is inhabited. If has been calculated that there might beat leaft threk thousand millions of men upon the earth, at once \ whilft in reality there are no more than one thoufand and eighty millions.— Sturm's Reflections. Guthbrie, in hit Geography, Hales the number of the inhabitants of the world lower than Sturm, viz, 9ooo ; ooo. DIE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 173 constituent parts of their religion, then shall they subsist on nearly one half of what is at tiro present consumed, and withal they shall Te health of body, more peace of mind, utellecls and longer life, besides uni- tl peice with all ii^c world. Thus it appears that there is not, any neces- sity I ng one part of the human race in order to make room and eonveniency for the cor subsistence of the other ! There is yet another set of men, who, with a few exceptions, ought fo rank amongst the vilest of the vile, I mean JSezcs-Pr inters. These men have been deceffhry to all the blood that has been shed within the last twenty years, to say nothing of former wars; they have prophesied /ies i\>r hire, and disseminated deception for a rezcard. In plain terms, they have sold themselves to be the iod/n of the enemies of all righteousness ; they have rekindled the dying embers of war, when it would have died away ; they have inflamed ambition, fomented pride, and aggravated party rage; they have made themselves an abomina- tion to all honest men, and have given discern- ing philanthropists just reason to question whether the Press, with all its boasting, has been a greater curse or blessing to mankind ! f feel no scruple in asserting, as my own opi- nion, at least, that had ail the Pulpits and Presses in Europe, been occupied by hone/I men and delivered nothing but the truth, during the last hundred years, there would have been no wars for at least ninety years back ! And I believe, more- 171 THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. moreover, that were they even now to make truth their refuge, and abide by principle at the risk of interest, they would soon efrecl art universal peace. Solomon says, " life and death are in (he power of tlic tongue" * How much more then are Peane and War in the power of the Prefs and the Pulpit, which may be called the two great? tdngues of the world ! But the advocates for war have one or two arguments which they deem unanswerable : '• Suppose/' say they, Ci a foreign fee shall come and invade our territory, with the instruments of war in their hands, must we Iran motives ol piety, Suffer our property to be seized, our wives and daughters ravished, and our liberties taken from us?" The answer to this important question, might be speedily given in favour of those who generally ask it/provided there were neither a God nor a Bible. But warring Chris- tendom professes to believe in both ; yea, the very term Christendom, supposes that they be- lieve in Christ the Son, as well as in God the Father ; consequently they must believe in both the Old and New Testaments, properly called the Word of God ; and this word they affirm, contains God's will towards men, with respect to both faith and practice. Now, what savs this word of God ? Hear it ye fighting christians ! He sJuiH deliver thee in sir troubles : yea, in fe- lt en there fliall no evil touch thee, In famine he fli:ill r?.xhem thee from death; and hi war, from the power of thefword." Job v. 1 % 20. These co:nforting words are evidently spoken to those who, THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS. 175 who, by faith and obedience are truly the chil- dren of God. " The name of the "Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into it and isfafe." Prov. xviii. JO. "The name of the Lord/' here, implies his power, wisdom, truth and goodness, into which all truly enlightened christians run, in the day of trouble : hutjight- fng christians run to ships of w(ir 3 fortresses, cannon, muskets, swords, powder and ball I " The Lord is good: he is a /iron g hold in the day of trouble, and lie ktioweth Hum ihal trust in linn.*' Nah. i. 7. "' And who is he that jhall harm you if ye be followers of that which is good ¥" i. Let in. 13. These are but a small sample of the innumerable declarations of God's overruling providence, and of hhpromiscs in favour of his people : but they are sufficient. Now, thc.^e declarations and promises are either true or / if they be false, Jet us not be the dupes of false- hood any longer ; but let us become free-think- ers, and adopt such principles and axioms as may best accord with our humour or our inte- rest, or both; but then, let us not retain the name of Christianity while we deny the thing I But if they are true, (and Ave ought to enter into a serious investigation on a point of such infinite i-mportance) is it not at cur peril, th^t we acl according to thern, in casting ourselves upon the dhine protection, and having by our faith and obedience made the Lord our frierd and protector, " stand still and sec the salvation of God?" Shall we pretend to be the follow- ers of the Lamb and yet imitators of the wcjf and 17G THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING and tijger ? Shall we call cur master the F vf Peace, and still -practice war ? Can w e br- ibe disciples of him who is culled by the en- dearing name of Saviour, and be ourselves, de- stroyers ? Nor is it ofanv avail to sav, that there is no instance en record in history, where God has preserved a nation in a miraculous manner. This is not true ; but if it were, it would prove nothing, unless we could first prove that there have been whole nations living in the fear of God. Let such a nation be pointed out, and then let it be shewn that God has suffered them to become a prey to their enemies ! Since the world began, such an instance cannot be found. The case o£ Nineveh, proves the very reverse. The dealings of the Divine Being with nati- ons, mav also be seen in the xxviii. chapter of Deuteronomy. And with regard to things pure- ly moral, God is the same, yesterday, to day, and for ever. Neither can it be admitted as a sufficient plea for the justification of war, cr of r\uftrian, French, arid ntfeejr troops quartered in u from the ioth September 1805, to the 15th Novem- ber 1806, amounted 33 follows. Generals --.,-. a 93^ Staff Officers 18,117 Officers iri' General - - - 110,27a Members of Adminiftratipn 11.227 Private Soldiers - - - - 1,115,811 Total 1,257,325 Befides Horfes f .o the amount of 298,494 Lciccder Journal, Jan, 9. [807. com- , 186 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. commiseration and moral principle, as the De- vil himself could wish them, and they will see in the course of a day or two, especially a mar- ket, or a fair day or two, fathers, mothers and wives, besides brothers and sisters, all grieving and many of them weeping after those who have got under the magic touch of an en- chanted Jhilling ; or, what may be far worse, they are sorrowing for such as have pasted the gulph, that is, have taken an oath that they will kill or be killed) without asking any questions wh© are their enemies, and, for what reason. Having done this, the next scene of their lives is to be cloathed like fools, after which they learn the art and tnyfiery of Devils, who were murderers from the beginning. Now, is it a small matter that so many of our fellow creatures should have the bitter cup of life made still more bitter by the diabolical passions and prac-. tices of men who live in rioting and delight in war? But these sufferers are generally toor ! and this is reason sufficient why their tears should be unseen, and their sighs unregarded. How often have I known poor wives and mo- thers pawn their necessary cloathing to redeem their husbands or their sons from the gripe of a rascally unrelenting crimp ! O heavens! what hardships are poor men doomed to : with great labour and much anxiety they bring up their sons to manhood, and then very reasonably ex- pect some requital for all their pains ; but, no : — an unprincipled fellow called a recruiting Ser- jeant, or indeed any of his gzng, can in a single moment THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 187 moment, and with the bare touch of current coin, blast all the views of an affectionate fa- ther, and even break the heart of a tender mo- ther ! On the other hand there are many men in the army, whose dispositions are so averse to a military life, that they pine away and die through grief,- and with longing to return to their friends and their homes. These poor crea- tures are often unknown and always unregard- ed. But, maugre all the articles of zvar in the world, and all the opinions of Courts Martial, even allowing them more than their due, name- ly, that tear is /awful, yet, there can be no rea- son assigned why men should be compelled to pine and grieve away their time and their lives in a profession into which they have probably been cajoled, and for which they have neither genius nor inclination. In all other callings it is allowed for young men to go for a few weeks at least a liking j but the folilier's trade, though men so commonly follow it to their lives' cud. dees not admit of this indulgence. Perhaps it is wisely foreseen that the granting of this would ruin the trade. It is no difficult matter to as- certain the discontent and despondency which prevail in the army ; the number of defeiiers annually, is sufficient to silence all contradic- tion on this subject. In the year 1805 the number of deserters from the English army, was 7,081. In the year 1806 the number was 5,425 * * Copied from the Statesman (Newfpaper) for Thurf- day February 36, 1807. The 188 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. The .pva&ice of ' impr effing seamen is anoth of the disgraceful and anti-christian effe&s of war. This practice is so utterly repugnant to every idea which men have of justice and liber- ty,, that the veriest clown upon earth feels his bosom hum with resentment upon the mere re- cital of it; and, if there can be a people anv where found, who can hear of the impressing of men without feeling emotions of indignation, they are themselves a standing proof to ihc world that familiarity with oppression will take away the enormity of it, and that they are ci-' ther now enslaved, or on the point of being so. This, is a species of oppression that falls jbtely upon poor men ; for, if a rich man, or a rich man's son should be imjjrefjed, he is rekafed the instant his circumstances are known, and an a- pofogy made with a scrape and a bow, for the unlucky mistake. O poverty ! lliou art the un- pardonable offence ! Thou art a crime against aJl lams, made, making, and to make ! Thou hafi neither rights, charters, immunities nor liber - tie 6 ! 'Tis thine to build the gallant bark and frrcerfe.ihe faiMess ocean to dijlant lands and different climes, to bring home the luxuries of 'life ; 'tis tidne to 'plant the vineyard and cultivate the field; to raise the homely' cot and stately dome; to ply thejickly trade, and mini fief to all the com- forts of human life. Yet, after all, the crime of 'being poor, shall make thee scorned, friendless, and often unprotected, and exposed to lofs of liber- ty, limhs and life ! The conduct . of Nexv.s Printers, in reference to THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. IS9 to the practice of impressing seamen and others, is alone, a keen satire on the boasted liberties of mankind. How often do we see it announced, in a style of the utmost indifference, that, " a 'very hot impress took place here fast >u\<;ht, pjhen government picked up marrg ufejul hands" And yet, these News Printers would have us believe ih'dt they are the Pa/iicd/ums of the constitu- tion, and the guardians of public liberty .! But the practice of Manstealing is condemn- ed by a higher authority then any upon earth ; bv the law of Mofes the Manjlealer was to be put to death: Exod. xxi. 16, And »S7. Paul ranks men flea! as anion;;-:-., murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, whore-mongers, sodo- mites and perjured persons, i. Tim. i. 9, 10. Now, if manstealing ever was morally wrong, it is so now, and ever will be. Moral principles, or those fundamental truths which exist in the very reason and fitness of things, and on which all laws and moral actions ought to be founded, are as permanent as the throne of omnipotence itself; and this kind of truth, tho' infinitely- more interesting to mankind than all philoso- phy and science, is yet the most stubborn and inflexible; it will neither yield to the customs of the world, the humours or interests of men, nor even to the reasons of state. A Russian Ukase, a French Edit or an English Proclama- tion, can never nullify the immutable obligati- ons of morality. In matters of mere human prudence, both governments and individuals may shift for themselves, but in cases purely R morale 190 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. moral, woe unto thai man or that government that dare put forth their hands to sin. Now, man-stealing, is so repugnant to every senti- ment of equity and humanity in the breast of man, (and pure nature never lies,) so plainly forbidden in the Bible, and so clearly opposed to the meek and heavenly spirit of the Gospel,, that he must have a Hottentot's head or a Man* stealer's heart, that would even attempt it's justification. I am aware that some persons will pretend to make a wide difference betwixt Mcmstealmg and Iniprcssing, alledging, that manstealers stole in order to keep or sell, for life, but impressed men are always liberated at the conclusion of war. So far this is true : but impressed men are compelled into a service for which they have a great aversion, are obliged to serve for less than half the wages they could obtain elsewhere, and, very frequently, they lose, their limbs or their lives : and how much is this better than being stolen and sold ? It were to be wished that governments could be persuaded that " righteousness exaJleth a na- tion, but that sin is a reproach to any people/' Would they but examine the bible, they would find that nothing provoked the Lord to anger and vengeance, against nations, families and individuals, so much as the oppression of the poor. Idolatry, unrighteous dealings and grind- ing the faces *>f the poor, were the principal crimes that drew down the judgments of hea- ven upon the fallen nations in Bible-History ; and THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 191 and the terms of reconciliation which God ge- nerally proposed were, " to put away lying va- nities, that is, Idofc; to judge the fatherless, plead for the widow, and let the captive go 'free." Now, that which pleased the Lord an- ciently will please him now, for "he changeth not," but is "the same yesterday, to-day and lor ever." Another of the manifold evils of war, is, the system of robbery and destruction; which the belligerent parties reciprocally practice upon the seas, by privateering and otherwise ; for, to &av nothing of the murder that is commonly added to the plunder, it must prove extremely ruinous. A ship frequently contains property to a great amount, and therefore, its capture must be severely felt, even where it is not at- tended with utter ruin. But this iniquitous practice is still more deplorable, en account of its commonly affecting peaceable people, who have neither heart nor hand in warfare, and whose sentiment it is to deprecate all wars. If the losses sustained by sea robberies were al- ways to fall on the authors and abettors of war, it would be matter at joy rather than regret, and we might soon expect a plan to be laid down for a universal and permanent peace ! Nor do the mischiefs of sea robbing subside when war terminates ; for men, who have been for several years together, living by violence and plunder, and have sometimes earned fifty or an hundred pounds in half an hour, will hardly fubmil to work twelve hours for -a few 'JitiHngS '■ r 2, Where- 192 THE WARRIORS LOOKING GLASS "Wherefore, some of these disciples 'who have got their education in time of n-ar, make excel- lent him ft breakers and hijr/twar/men in time of peace ! Vvarrioks are a nuisance to the world, even in time of peace ; for they spend the prime of their lives either in hllerifss, or in learning nris- clifif and murder, which is much worse; be- sides consuming the bread that others have earned, and wearing the clothing which them- selves never laboured to produce. Let a man of mere common sense, be brought from a country where soldiers are not in being, and let hrm see a regiment parade all in a row, and face to the right and left ; and wheel, and form a straight iine again ; then learn to prime and load, and fix their bayonets, &c. &c. then let him observe these soldiers spend the rest of the day r some betaking themselves to cleaning of gaiters, and buttons, and muskets; others to combing and tying each other's hair, and daub- ing their heads with soap or tallow, and then w T irh flour. Others of them to mounting guard and placing ceiuinels to take care, generally", where no care is wanted. Others, again, to playing at cards, or eribbage, or drinking, or talking all manner of profaneness. Then, let him behold Dragoon soldiers spend much of their time in currying and brushing, in comb- ing the manes and clipping the tails of idle horses, which are daily eating the children's bread, and are kept for the fote purpose of de- siroi/;?ig mankind and devastating the zcor/d. Would THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 12 J Would he not exclaim, and is it thus that rati- onal beings are spending their precious time 3 beings who are to give an account of the deeds done in the bocty ; and who are sent into the work! (not. to clean muskets and clip horses' tails, but) to learn wisdom and practice ]io2i* ness ?" Cdcbacij, is another of the pernicious eiTecls. resulting from the profession of a soldier. The: situation of a military man renders marriage al- most impracticable, at least an imprudent step : wherefore, we find the greatest part of these men are batchelors from necessity. But whaN ever constraint? political systems and human devices may force upon men, the bent of na- ture cannot easily be changed ; the propensity remains even when < he power is gone : hence the soldier, who is but too frequently devoid of religion, often adds the enormous sin of debqu- $iery f * to those of murder and plunder. As to commissioned officers, many of them are in times of peace, through idleness, and fulness of bread, a sort of Licensed Gallants, ranging a- bout almost where they please, cc fioivn with in- solence and winC)" robbing wives of their virtue, * A foldier going into a Chop in Manchester, one e- vening, to purchafe fome trifling article, was addreflTed by the {hop owner, with, * well, what they are going to (end your Regiment away to-morrow, I hear ;' i yes,' re* plied the foldier, with much more (ruth t hart mode fty,. ■ We are going away, but we {hall leave you three Regi- m"'its in our (lead.* « What Regiments are thev, pray?* * Why a Regiment of W****t, a Regiment of Cuckolds , and a Regiment of Bajiards /' b 3 ancl f$* THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. and bereaving maids of their innocence. Let not this language bethought too severe, for,: I have seen more of this description of men than falls to the lot of many to witness. Be- sides, as a sort of popular proof, of what I have • advanced, I advert to the judicial trials that have taken place within the last twenty years,- for Cn'n. Con., and, it will be seen in a moment, that military men have had more than their proportionate share in the guilt of them. I have often wondered that those Gentlemen who have money enough to purchase a commis- sion, have not zvisdom enough to prefer a do- mestic and philosophic life. The s*tudy of the works and word of God, afford unknown de- lights, even m this world, and in the world to come life everlasting. What hair-brained mad- ness then must it be, to pay down a large sum of money for a piece of paper called a commis- sion, and which confers no higher a prerogative on the possessor than that of a power to kill or be kilied, or to "Jeek the bubble reputation even fa the cannon's mouth." Very few commission- ed officers come to be Generals, for in times of peace there is a general stillness in regard to promotions, and in time of war the many pro- motions which take place among officers, arise from the slaughter made of them ; and it is well known that officers are more the objeds of de- Jtrutlion in the field of battle, if known, than private soldiers; and, if they do not go to the field of battle when called, they are disgraced and contemned. Finally ; THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. Idj I Finally; there is another evil inseperable : from war, which is worse than all the rest; namely, that rear fjegei&war! In the natural world, whether animate or inanimate, we ob- serve every thing to beget or produce il's own likeness. Now, as it is in the natural, so it is in the moral world; Love begets love; kind- ness begets kindness ; and sympathy awakens sympathy: On the contrary, Pride, Avarice- and Revenge, which are the fundamental prin- ciples of all wars without exception, beget their likenesses respectively ; or, sometimes the pride or avarice of one nation begets wrath and re- venge in another. Nor is the termination of a war any proof of the subsiding of these dia- bolical passions. It is incapacity. for war, and not the love of peace, that favours the world with the short intervals of tranquility, which it sometimes enjoys. If reason* for war might be admitted, then, there are almost invariably more and more reasons as the war goes on, for its con- tinuance; and that nation which pretends to have one poor reason for entering into a war, may, at length, be compelled to makepeace, when it has twenty better reasons for going on; with it. It appears like a retaliation of the: Divine Providence, on the " dejlroyers of tlie earth," that every war should, Phoenix-like, leave in it's ashes an embryo for another. For, let us suppose a Prince to be successful in bis wars, cr to have had a successful predecessor, then, this Prince imagines he must do some great thing, in order to keep up the dignity of his illustrious family, and to excite the admiration of 196 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. of all the world ; and, in the estimation of Princes, a great thing, is a great war ! On the other hand, if a Prince or his ancestors, have been unfortunate, and have lost cither honour or territory by past wars, he must retrieve lost honour and reconquer lost possessions, and these are ~ocry good reasons for involving both his own and some other nation or nations, in all the hor- rors of carnage and devastation. Thus we sec that wars may and do beget, but never did nor ever can destroy the reasons for war ! These observations are amply justified by re- cent events. In the year 1793 the English ministry had their reasons for entering into a war- like confederation with the continental powers, against France; what those reafons were I am not competent to say ; but those who knew them and acted upon them, must answer for all the con- sequences resulting from their activity, at the peril of their souls ! However, the year. 1801 , brought with it some reasons for a general Peace ; and all the world seemed to rejoice. But, only two years elap-ed before it was dis- covered that the recent war had left in its con- sequences both more and better reasons than ever were known before, for the recommence- ment of hostilities ; accordingly, war was again proclaimed in the year 1808. Among other reasons alledged in justification of it, were, the cc ambition, and views of agrandizement, together with the undue influence of ihe rulers of France", We will suppose, then, that these allegations were true. Now, lias the late five years war, which has been wholly unprecedented for car- THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 197 nage, distress and national ruin, rectified any of these all edged wrongs ? Can the English Mi- nistry and their Continental Confederates now say, " we have seen of the travail of our souls and are satisfied ?" Nay, is it not notorious to all the world that if ever they had one just rea- son for entering upon the present war, they have now a thoufand for its continuance ; and that now, when the reasons for war are at their summit, the prospect of success by war, is for ever at an end ? The balance of power, is also an old and stale pretext for war : but it is now needless to hold up this chimera to ridicule ; the present pos- ture of Europe is a sufficient caveat against all that can be said in its justification. For the last eighteen years we have seen the scale-beam vacillating many times, but at length the great Sca/e-incn of Europe, have contrived to shove nearlv all the world into one end, while the other scale is " mounted up aloft and kicks the beam I" But, I cannot conclude, with satisfaction to myself, without giving a gerterdl Jkttch of the christian world. — Now, I suppose myself suspen- ded in the air, in a Lunardidn Chariot, and, ho- vering over that part of the world commonly called chriftendom. I look down — and what do I see ? — I see, in the first place, a description of men called dmba(fadors, who have kissed the Bible, to prove that they are chri/lians : these men are going from nation to nation, and from court (o court, "playing the game of faces," in- trigueirig; 193 THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. trigueing, bartering, and bargaining for armies to take the field, and fleets to range the seas> and for loans and subsidies, in order that they may, in the true spirit of brotherly love, alias kingly love, let loose the dogs of war, and mur- der and plunder, among those of their neigh- bours who have the least power, and generally the most innocence. — I see thousands and tens of thousands of christians, taking oaths upon a book called the Bible, that they will consign themselves over to act quite contrary to the spirit and whole design of the book they swear by ! — I see whole armies of christians, arid fleets manned with clirifians, doing nothing which their religion enjoins, but every thing that it for- bids ! — I look and see the motley appearance of enristendom ; where, on the one hand are chur- ches and chapels erected, on purpose to pro- claim peace on earth, and be emblems of hea- ven ; and on the other hand, barracks, encamp- ments, fortresses, and fleets, the harbingers of murder, and the emblems of hell ! — I see some christians go to one of those edifices called churches, and I hear them say in a solemn tone "Rebuke the company of spearmen, — scatter thou Hie people that detight in war." Psalm lxviii. SO. These ehrifliam return home without any signs of remorse or designs of reformation, tho' they subsist solely by making drums and trum- pets: instruments exclusively used not to scatter but to cof'etl those that delight in war ! — I be- hold many other chnflians whose daily employ- ments are to make Gunpowder, Musket:;, Bayo- nets, THE WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. 199 nets. Pikes, Swords, Cannon, Mortars, Shots, Shells, Carcasses, and even Mr. Congrcve's di- ll ne invention, Pyro-tcclinic Rockets, go to church, and with a sanctimonious face and ca- dence, exclaim, in the presence of God, of An- gels, and of men, " That it may please thee to viie to all nations unity, peace and concord ;" and to give further solemnity to the pious petition, they very properly add, " We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord." « Come hither, old Satan, old JMurtherer, and I will do by thee as thou once didst by a better than me: I will take thee, in turn, into "an ex- ceeding great and high mountain, and I will shew thee all the kingdoms of this chriflian world and the glory of them/' On to which of the high mountains shall we go ; the Alps, the Andes, Caucasus or Teneriff ? Perhaps it would please thy infernal majesty best to go on to the sum- mit of Mount jEtna or Vesuvius, at least it would suit thy character more, if it did not agree with thy humour better. But, the last of these, be- ing nearest to the seat of Infallibility and the chrijlian world, we will take this burning moun- tain for our observatory. — Now, satan, look down upon chrifiendom, and behold the motley group ; Bibles, Swords — Churches, Barracks — Chapels, Fortresses — Ministers of peace in black, and men of war in red and blue — a jew men who a6t as Saviours; millions of men whose sole business is to systematize and practice the destruction of men and the accommodations of life. — Many books which inculcate the spirit and practice of peace ; and others that teach with 200 THE- WARRIOR'S LOOKING GLASS. with great display of science, the art of mis- chief and war. — The true Sons of Peace lightly esteemed, obscure, neglecled and scorned. — The Heros of Murder and Plunder, exalted, extol- led, honoured, pensioned and immortalized by Slat ties and Monuments ! — Behold, Satan, ' the millions of habitations now in chrijlcndom., with at least, one instrument of murder in them, respectively; instruments made for the express purpose of killing mankind ! Behold, Satan, how many ehrijlians there are who know h^W to fight, but not how to pray! Who kfYow how to dejir oy, but not how to forgive ! Be- hold, Satan, the universal distress that pervades Christendom at this moment, and let it rejoice thine heart to reiiecl, that it is neither God nor good menthzt have had any share in these ge- neral calamities; but that it is thyself, in con- junction with anti-chrisfian christians, who have brought all these evils among mankind, Now, Satan, all the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, will I give thee, and fall down and worship thee into the bargain, if thou wilt shew me one kingdom of real christians ! But, Satan, as I have detained thee from thy christian friends so long, I cannot, consistent with the laws of equity, dismiss thee, without giv- ing thee some acknowledgements of distinction : and when I contemplate on the general spirit and practice of mankind, I am constrained to renew thy charter, and to acknowledge, that as thou hast long been, so thou art, even now— -the PRINCE OF THIS WORLD ! G. BEAUMONT. J