SONNING: Church Services. Sundays 11 o'clock in the morning. ALL SAINTS': The Evening Service will be given up until further notice. Daily half-past 8 in the morning. Sundays: 11 o'clock in the morning; half-past three in the afternoon. AID TO THE SICK AND WOUNDED. On Sunday, September 11th, collections were made in Sonning Church, for the National Society in aid of the Sick and Wounded in the War, amounting to £37 10s. At All Saints' Church, £12 os 4d. was collected in the alms-box. The following parcels were also sent : I. From Mr. and Mrs. Brooks and the Miss Dashwoods, (Sonning,) containing, two pair sheets, four pillow-cases, eight shirts, four woollen shirts, twelve pair of socks, six Nightingale cloaks, lint and charpie, 36 bandages, linen and cotton, chloroform, and two boxes of essence of meat. 2. Mrs. Baker (All Saints',) containing, thirty pair stockings and socks, one pillow-case, two cases of charpie, twenty-nine bandages, calico and linen. 3. Mrs. Simmons, (All Saints',) containing, one case charpie, twelve bandages, linen. MONITOR'S EXHIBITION. We omitted to notice in a former number, that Alfred Griffiths, of Sonning School, gained the second Exhibition for Monitors at the Henley examination in July last. MOTHERS' MEETINGS. The first Mothers' Meeting will be held at Woodley School, on Wednesday, November 2nd, at two o'clock. THE WAR. For the last two months and a half, little has been thought about, or talked of in England, but the calamitous war now raging between France and Germany. It is doubtful whether any war, certainly none within the memory of those now living, has created such intense interest among all classes, high and low; you may see even the poorest men poring over their newspapers, reading the accounts of the battles, and the sickening details of suffering and misery, after they are over and everywhere you find people eager for the news. Í do not think this has been so universally the case in the other wars we can remember. Of course the Crimean war more nearly affected our national life and interests, and the names of Alma and Inkerman cannot be heard by Englishmen without a thrill of pride. We sympathised with France when in 1859 she helped to free Italy from Austrian tyranny, and we looked on with condemnation when in 1866, Bismarck cast treaties to the wind, and crushing weak kingdoms, carried out his ruling idea of a united Germany, but there Continued at end. Continued from Second page. never has seemed such a widespread realization of the wickedness of lightly going to war, or such a horror of the misery and sin and wretchedness that it entails, as now. One reason may be, that the weapons of destruction have been carried to such a fearful pitch of perfection, and do their deadly work so effectually, that, as the poor soldiers have constantly said after these fields of carnage, "this is not war, this is butchery." We shall none of us forget, how, in the early days of July this year, the announcement came with a sudden shock that France was prepared to go to war with Germany, on account of the acceptance of the crown of Spain by a German Prince; then came the news that by the advice of the King of Prussia, the Prince of Hohenzollern had withdrawn from the candidateship; then again the hope of peace dawned once more, and Europe began to breathe more freely, till the demand of France for further guarantees from Prussia, which Prussia would not give, ended in the declaration of war. If France, as I fear we must feel, pressed on the war, she has paid a bitter price for the wrong she has done. In two short months her army has been almost annihilated; the bloodiest battles ever fought have taken place on her soil. Some of her fairest provinces have been invaded and laid waste; and there is no capitulation on so large a scale on record, as that of Mac Mahon's army after the disastrous field of Sedan. But there is a party in France, who have neither approved of the acts of their Government nor sympathised with the national jealousy of Prussian successes, and the restless ambition, which have been the main causes of this disastrous war. The following extracts, translated from a small pamphlet, published on the declaration of war, by Count Agenor de Gasparin, represent the feeling of this party in France. M. de Gasparin says, "I "love my country too well, and I love justice too well, not to protest "against the pretended unanimity of the warlike passions which are now prepared to drag us away. 66 66 "No! these passions are not by any means unanimous. There is "in France, I know, a very considerable number of citizens, who "neither believe in the necessity, nor the legitimacy of a war with "Prussia. These citizens will not go about crying in the streets, nor "will they insert articles in the newspapers, but they love peace; they hold to it, they have voted for it, and they are a little astonished "that their representatives have already forgotten that they did so. "These citizens will not see a war begun which in their eyes is unjustifiable; they will not see rivers of blood shed, they will not as"sist in a conflict which wounds their consciences, and which "threatens perhaps, the future of a whole generation, they will not "submit to the agony in store for fathers of families, and besides all "this, the indefinite growth of our conscriptions, our debts, and our taxes, without taking more and more into account a sentiment, "which is at present, only an instinct, but which will soon pass into a powerful conviction, and an obstinate resistance. I think they "would do well to take some account of these people, little noisy in "general, and slow to come to a decision, but who, notwithstanding, "will have the last word." "No one has blamed more severely that I have done, several of M. de "Bismarck's proceedings in 1866; but the wrong doing of M. "de Bismarck in 1866, changes absolutely nothing of the fact, as "clear as the light of day; our Government in 1870 made war, be66 cause it wished for it." Up to this moment Prussia has been victorious, and we may, I think, say she has, on the whole, used her triumph with moderation and forbearance; but invasion and war must always bring in their train much hardship and misery and suffering. Victors will not always be forbearing, and captives cannot but feel bitterness and hatred against their captors. Fancy what you would feel if an invading army were on our own soil; if while mourning the loss of brothers and sons, sacrificed in defence of their country, you had the lesser but still keen grief of seeing your own village destroyed; all that has been so carefully done to beautify it, trodden down and defaced, the produce of your harvest eaten up, and famine and pestilence staring you in the face. If you realize what this would be to you, you would not refuse your sympathy to a great and high-spirited nation, now suffering from all these evils, and groaning under the misery of defeat and invasion. If we did not feel that "God sitteth above the waterfloods," not only of the natural waters, but the far more terrible ones of human passion and violence, and that He "still remaineth a King for ever," I do not know what comfort we could find while looking on at the dreadful scenes now being enacted, and in view of all this, with the thought of the thousands, who, during the last few weeks, have been hurried to their great account, how earnestly should the petition, "From battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us," rise from the countless Churches of England, to the Lord, who is still King, "be the earth never so unquiet. D. A. THE RIDERLESS WAR HORSES. "Only those who have seen a battle field, can form a notion of the extraordinary way in which the horses, as long as they have a leg to crawl on, will follow the regiment to which they belong. I saw, what evidently had been sergeant's horses, keeping their position in rear of their squadron, wheeling with it, and halting exactly as if their riders were on their backs, and all the time streaming with blood." "After the slaughter at Vionville, on the 18th of August, a strange and touching spectacle was presented. On the evening call being sounded by the 1st Regiment of Dragoons of the Guard, 602 riderless horses answered to the summons. jaded, and in many cases maimed. The noble animals still retained their disciplined habits." Sept. 16th, Louisa Adelaide, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Back. Sept. 25th, James Eggleton, son of Charles and Sarah Fowles. Sept 25th, Harry Eggleton, son of Charles and Sarah Fowles. Sept. 25th, William Francis, son of Thomas Panting and Mary Ann Russell. ALL SAINTS'. Sept 10th, (privately) Charles, son of William and Fanny Nutt. Sept. 11th, Caroline Ann, daughter of William Henry and Olive Snow. MARRIAGE. Sept. 3rd, at Sonning, Joshua Bailey to Fanny Wheeler, both of Woodley. ALL SAINTS!' Aug. 24th, Susannah Haines, aged 11 weeks. |