The following extracts will exhibit the nature of the argument used to illustrate the "Influence of War upon Missions :"

"The Missionary comes to the heathen, with that simplicity and purity of views appropriate to his character, and announces a new and better religion, full of benignity, love, and peace. It is, un. doubtedly, a great announcement, calculated to startle and arouse the attention of the most ignorant and prejudiced. But, unfortunately for the Missionary, the heathen whom he addresses are already too well acquainted with the character of those professedly Christian nations from whom he comes. The Missionary announces to them as one great element of the Gospel, that it induces men to renounce strife and contention, to love each other, and to treat all mankind as their brethren. But they at once exhibit their incredulity; they state to him, that the people from whom he comes, and who have heard the disclosures of the Gospel from their childhood, are continually in conflict; they themselves have heard the roar of their cannon; they have seen the flash of their swords; nay, more, their own families have been assaulted; their own houses have been rifled; their own beloved children have been torn away and carried into captivity by men, who called themselves Christians. This is not a mere picture of the imagination. Many are the Missionaries, beyond all question, who can testify with hearts rent and bleeding at the misconduct of their own countrymen, that it is even so. Mr. Medhurst, an English Missionary at Batavia, once presented a tract to a Malay. The Malay, on receiving it, said to the Missionary, Are you coming to teach me this new religion? Look at your own countrymen. They live worse than we do.' It is said, that the emperor of China gave as a reason for refusing the admittance of the Christian religion into his empire, that, wherever Christians go, they whiten the soil with human bones."

"We are at this moment endeavoring to give the Gospel and all the blessedness of the Gospel to the remnants of the savage tribes within our own limits. But what is the language, which, beyond all question, multitudes of these poor Indians utter, in their hearts at least, in answer to the most persuasive invitations? You bring us the Gospel of love and peace, but how can we accept it or have any confidence in its value, when it has so little ef fect upon your own countrymen. They have been among us, and we know what they are. They have cheated us out of our lands; they have violated the most solemn treaties, guaranteeing to us the little that was left; they have brought fire and sword; they have burnt our wigwams; they have killed our wives and our little ones; we are desolate; how can we receive your Gospel!"'

We have thus indicated, though very briefly, the course pursued by Professor Upham, in exhibiting the "Evils of War." We recommend to our readers, one and all, to read his chapters on this subject for themselves. If what we have said shall induce any to read them, who would not otherwise have done so, we shall have obtained our object. It is a matter of very high moment, that all men should have correct views on the subject of the evils which result from war. A sober estimate of them would, in our opinion, go far to free men's minds from the illusions of military glory, to render them extremely circumspect over their words and their acts in regard to any measures of a pugnacious character; indeed, if both the parties, in any international differences, were fully awake to the enormous evils which war occasions, they would be at no loss to find a pacific mode for their settlement. If governments would look seriously at these evils, in the light in which Professor Upham points them out, they would, to say the least, most studiously avoid the occasions on which war usually arises. They would be fully convinced, that contention better be let alone before it be meddled with; and they would study the things which make for peace. How few, alas, have ever devoted themselves to this study!

Professor Upham, in treating of the Remedies for the Evils of War, examines war by the light of Nature, of the Old Testament, and of the Gospel. We observe also two distinct Chapters on the subject of Capital Punishment. Having arrived at the conclusion that human life is inviolable, and that all war is wrong, he recommends societies formed on the principle of total abstinence from all military service, either by personal duty or by the payment of a military fine, "so long as such payment is in any degree subservient to the purposes of war." These he considers the most, if not the only efficacious measures which can be pursued, in promoting the cause of peace.

Here it is proper for us to say, that the American Peace Society as such, has no creed on particular points. Its object is to promote peace. All its members are supposed to be pledged to this object, but at the same time are left to the enjoyment of

their own individual opinions. We, as an individual, do not entertain the same views on the particular points above alluded to, as some others who are aiming at the same general object. We profess to be as deeply impressed with the idea of the momentous value of human life as any of our fellow laborers in this cause; but we are not sure that the best way, on the whole, to preserve it, in the actual state of society, is not for human government, in certain cases, to take it. Nor have we been able to satisfy ourselves, that, according to our principles of interpretation, the Scriptures forbid human governments ever to exercise the power of taking life. Nor, although we cannot doubt that all revenge, all malice, all hatred of enemies, are expressly forbidden by the gospel, and the exercise of benevolent feelings, in all cases, expressly enjoined, are we able to perceive that the same gospel, taken in its whole scope and extent, forbids the carrying of physical resistance, in all conceivable cases, to such an extent that it may result in death. It is admitted, that by the light of nature, resistance may, in certain extreme cases, be rightly carried to such an extent. We cannot conceive it possible, that the light of nature should ever teach one thing to be right, and the light of revelation teach the same thing to be wrong.-We know there is a theory in regard to the origin of human governments from which some have derived an argument against the right of such governments to take life. This theory supposes all men, antecedently to the existence of government, as living in a state of nature, and possessing certain natural rights and liberties. It also supposes, that convinced of the necessity of government, they enter into society, which is a compact by which they surrender up some of these rights and liberties to be exercised only by certain constituted authorities. The argument derived from this theory is, Man has no right to take his own life. He had no right to invest human governments with a right which he did not possess himself. Therefore, human governments have no right to take life. This conclusion is manifestly a non sequitur. It does not follow from the premises. If the major proposition had been, Man in a state of nature had not the

right in any case to take the life of another, (not of himself) the conclusion would be a legitimate sequence. But, this theory of government is a mere legal fiction; government, in point of fact, has grown up in the same manner as the common law. Like the soil of an alluvion, it is the result of the imperceptible accumulation of ages. The hand of man has been employed, it is true, to hasten the formation, or to supply its deficiencies, but this does not alter the general fact. Man is born into government as into the air and the light of heaven. Like the air and the light, it embraces him at the first moment of his earthly existence; but unlike the air and the light, it is susceptible of various modifications at his hands, the better to suit it to common use and enjoyment.-There is another argument which is sometimes used to prove that human life can in no case be rightly taken. It is said that life is the gift of the Creator; it is that which man, neither in his individual nor in his social capacity, can bestow; therefore, man, neither in his individual nor in his social capacity, has, in any case, the right to take it away.-By the same method of reasoning, we might show that all restraints imposed upon personal liberty by man, either in his individual or social capacity, is wrong. Personal liberty is the gift of the Creator; it is that which man, neither in his individual nor in his social capacity, can bestow; it "consists in the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or moving one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint." This power man cannot confer; therefore he has no right to take it away. Such a conclusion clearly denies the right of government to use any physical restraint. We imagine that those who adopt the same course of reasoning, in regard to human life, would, in this case, stop short of the conclusion to which it leads.

While our own views, and the views of many who are interested in the promotion of the same great object, are, as we have intimated, in regard to certain points, different from the views of others, we still perceive ground broad enough on which

* Blackstone's Com. Book I. Ch. 1. p. 136.

ALL may stand and labor together. We can all be united in awaking men to behold the unutterable miseries of war; in stripping off the gorgeous habiliments with which the imagination has clothed the malignant passions, and exhibiting their naked deformity; in pursuading mankind instead of borrowing the drapery of the imagination for the concealment of these passions, to bring the passions themselves into obedience to the precepts of justice, benevolence, and mercy, enjoined in the gospel. We can, with united voice, bear testimony against the maxims of false honor and vain glory. We can stand together and behold the life and immortality brought to light in the gospel, and so standing and beholding, we can, with one accord, proclaim the infinite moment of the period of probation, and the dread responsibility assumed by those who terminate it by inflicting death.

We can show the futility of the system of war as a means of obtaining what is wrongfully withheld from us. We can exhibit its utter absurdity as a means of deciding questions of controverted right; its utter inhumanity, as a system of penalty, when contrasted with the rules of the civil law. The most distinguished commentator on English law thus remarks, “It is a kind of quackery in government, and argues a want of solid skill to apply the same universal remedy, the ultimum supplicium, to every case of difficulty. It is, it must be owned, much easier to extirpate than to amend mankind; yet that magistrate must be esteemed both a weak and cruel surgeon, who cuts off every limb, which through ignorance or indolence he will not attempt to cure."* The advocates of peace are all perfectly agreed as to the sentiment here expressed. There is a virtue in moral power, systematically, perseveringly cultivated, with which governments seem but little acquainted. This virtue needs to be clearly, fully, and repeatedly, set forth.—International law is susceptible of amelioration and extension. Take, for example, the rule which allows of private war on the

ocean.

This is one of the nurseries of war. It appeals most

Blackstone's Com. Book IV. Ch. 1. p. 17, 18.