1848.] Extracts. 123 holiness has not taken the place of pleasure in their idea of life : whether for them, too, the toils of nature are not lightened by some eternal hope, and their burden carried by some angel of love, and the strife of necessity turned into the service of God. The present tyrannizes over their character no more, subdued by a future infinitely great: and hardly though they lie upon the rock of this world, they can live the life of faith; and while the hand plies the tools of earth, keep a spirit open to the skies." pp. 261-263. After the specimens which we have already given, we need say nothing of the extraordinary brilliancy of these sermons. They abound in passages of rare descriptive power, in keen satire, and terse expressions of wisdom. "In the shipwreck, where Death seizes the storm as his trumpet, and, with the lightning as his banner, comes streaming down the sky."-p. 135. "The very child, of too transient stay, may paint on the darkness of our sorrow so fair a vision of loving wonder, of reverent trust, of deep and thoughtful patience, that a divine presence abides with us for ever, as the mild and constant light of faith and hope." pp. 155, 156. "To walk beneath the porch is still infinitely less than to kneel before the cross. We do nothing well, till we learn our worth; nothing best, till we forget it. And this will not be, till, besides being built into the real veracious laws of this world, we are also conscious of the inspection of another: till we live, not only fairly among equals, but submissively under the Most High; and while casting the shadow of a good life on the scene below, lie in the light of vaster spheres above.”. - p. 205. "Aptitude for business is not power of Reason; and a grandee on the exchange may be a pauper in God's universe." p. 66. "They live and die on principles purely mercantile; and the book of life must be a common ledger, if their names are written on its page." - p. 6. "We seem to have reached an age of soft affections and emasculated conscience, full of pity for pain and disease, of horror at blood and death; but doubting whether any thing is wicked that is not cruel, and reconciling itself even to that on sufficient considerations of advantage."-p. 182. Men "who, having made up their minds that Christianity is useful in many ways, and of excellent service in managing the weaker portion of mankind, resolve to patronize it. Well; -it is an ancient arrogance, lasting as the vanities of the human heart. The Pharisee, it would appear, belongs to a sect never extinct he lives immortal upon the earth; and in our day, like Simon of old, graciously condescends to ask the Lord Jesus to dine !" - p. 166. With such men life would be "a monster of incongruity; its first volume, a jest-book; its second, a table of interest; and its last, a mixture of the satire and the liturgy."-p. 187. "Religion is not a didactic thing that words can give, and silence can withhold. It is a spirit; a life; an aspiration; a contagious glory from soul to soul; a spontaneous union with God. Our inward unfaithfulness is sure to extinguish it; our outward policy cannot produce it. To love and to do the Holy Will is the ultimate way, not only to know the truth, but to lead others to know it too.' p. 236. He who can write in this manner must be a master of our English style, and have at the same time a brilliant, elevated, far-reaching, and vigorous mind. The style, however, though more natural than that of the volume which precedes it, is not well sustained, and is often hard and forced, nor is the thought always consistent with itself. But such flashes of light, such gleams and intervals of clear and holy faith, such moments even as are here revealed of religious elevation and repose, are enough to stamp the volume as an uncommon one, and to mark it out for high uses among men. It has altogether exceeded our expectations, and we rejoice to learn that it has just been republished here. J. H. M.: ART. VIII. THE MEXICAN WAR.* THE war between the United States and Mexico is the great political and moral fact of our times. There is no other among the movements, or the results, of the present period, be it ever so hopeful, instructive, or alarming, which equals this either in the immediate interest of its character, or in the importance of its possible, if not probable, consequences. The condition of Ireland is suited to attract the regards of the civilized world, having its causes, as it doubtless has, in political mismanagement and social degradation reacting on each other. The financial distress of England presents a subject for profound meditation, suggesting, as it does, so * Peace with Mexico. By ALBERT GALLATIN. New York. 8vo. pp. 34. 1848.] War an Evil. 125 many thoughts respecting the principles of trade and the laws of production that underlie the intercourse of modern nations. The position of the Roman Catholic Church, evidently aiming at a recovery of its ancient power, on the one side, by accommodating its domestic policy to the liberal tendencies. of the age, and, on the other side, as manifestly bent on establishing its ecclesiastical pretensions to the overthrow of Protestantism in Great Britain and America, offers a spectacle of the deepest interest to the religious or philosophical observer. And the relaxation in the East of those customs which have for ages excluded Christianity from China, and the Mohammedan countries of the Asiatic and African continents, cannot but fill the Christian heart with eager expectation. Still there is no point in the passage of events over the present age which will so signalize it in future times as the war which is now waged between our country and the republic of Mexico, none to which the historian of a century hence will so confidently refer as the great moral and political fact of the age. Our present interest in the subject arises out of its moral significance. On account of its relations to the right and the good, and its connection with the character of the people, we believe it may be examined from a point of view above all merely political or party questions. It has been most unhappily admitted or assumed on all sides, that the war cannot be discussed without committing one's self to the support of some one or other of the parties which divide the country. This is a mistake, a palpable and gross mistake. We doubt that we shall say any thing in this article to which men of all parties will not give their assent. At least, we mean to take those positions which shall place us far above the strifes of the partisan orator or the political leader. There is a ground on which all can stand, and from which, looking down upon facts and principles, all must come to the same result. We begin, then, by saying, what no one will deny, that war is an evil. No one will deny this, for it never has been denied. All persons acknowledge that war is an evil; a necessary evil, some say, inevitable in the present state of the world; a useful evil, others maintain, yielding beneficial results that outweigh its pernicious consequences; but still an evil, as truly an evil as a pestilence or a conflagration. No one would think of including war among the blessings for which he would give thanks. The man who should stand up in public and thank God for the war which is devastating Mexico would be accounted more fit for a lunatic asylum than for a pulpit. War is an evil, and every body knows it. But, further, war is a tremendous evil. It produces and scatters abroad all other evils. It is the real Pandora's box of society. Let loose the energies of war upon a land, and you let loose the worst passions of the human heart and the worst miseries of human experience. War is so great an evil, that it can be justified on principles of morality or of sound policy only in extreme cases, - the most extreme cases. There is not a man from Maine to the mouth of the Mississippi who will hesitate to acknowledge this. State the principle in this form to the military heroes of the world, to Scott, to Wellington, to Soult, and they will assent to it instantly. It must be an extreme case, that shall justify war on principles of morality or of sound policy. We do not need to press this argument further. We do not ask our readers to adopt the conclusion, that all war is unjustifiable. This may be our private opinion, but we are not anxious to establish a theory of non-resistance, because we are persuaded that short of this point it can be made clear, that the war in which we are now engaged should unite the hearts and efforts of the whole people in bringing about its termination Does any one, then, pretend that this is an extreme case, that the United States entered into the present war because things had come to extremity? Whatever view may be taken of the circumstances in which it had its origin, or of the motives of those by whom it was encouraged, no one will presume to say, that, on our part at least, there was an actual necessity for the war. Whether it began with an act of aggression on our side or on the side of Mexico, whether they who advocated its commencement hoped to extend the domain of slavery or to enlarge the area of freedom," whether Mexico owed us an apology or owed us money or owed us both, or whether she had threatened or had committed a trespass on what we considered as our soil and she claimed as hers, no one will affirm that it was one of those extreme cases in which the alternative is war or a worse evil, a case, for instance, like that presented in our Revolution, as that is usually viewed. An extreme case! Why, 1848.] Continuance of a War. 127 suppose that Mexico, poor, feeble, distracted by internal divisions, owed us some little money which she refused or was unable to pay, and that she had actually sent a few soldiers across a line which we were pleased to adopt as the boundary of our republic, and that she had treated with indignity some of our official agents, does all this constitute one of those exigencies in a nation's affairs which compel her to take up arms? All this, which did not affect the prosperity of the land, nor endanger its liberty in the least, nor disturb the comfort of one out of ten thousand of its citizens, nor indeed was known by one in a thousand except as it was brought to notice in the annual messages of the President! No; there was nothing extreme about it. The very supposition is ludicrous. And however honestly some minds, lost in the mists of diplomatic correspondence or executive responsibleness, may have believed that there was no escape from a war, let those same minds now calmly review the circumstances out of which grew the first fatal conflict, and they must confess that there was no need of a war, - that an extreme case did not exist. But the war has been commenced, and been carried on with great determination on both sides. And now it is said, that, however much we may condemn or regret its existence, since it does exist, it must be maintained till its objects are secured. Such a conclusion, however, will not bear the test of morality or of sound policy. We need not pause to inquire what are the objects of the war, though this is an important and pregnant question; for it is sufficient to repeat, that it did not grow out of circumstances creating a moral or political necessity. The same principle, then, which we have already laid down in regard to entering upon a war, holds good in regard to continuing it. That which ought not to be begun, unless an extreme case can be made out, should not be continued, unless the strongest reasons can be presented in justification of its continuance. An evil never becomes less by growth. If it be wrong to open a channel for the passage of a stream, it is wrong to keep that channel open when the stream is every day wearing it deeper and wider. If it be wrong to plant the Upas tree, it is wrong not to cut down the sapling. Now the evils of war increase with its continuance, and increase both with an uninterrupted augmentation and at a fearful rate. Unless, therefore, it can be shown that its continuance involves an extreme case of na |