history of virtuous, upright minds," says Mr. Lindsey, in his Historical View of the Unitarian Doctrine," and inquirers after truth, emerging out of the long night of antichristian darkness, seeking the great Source of being and benevolent Father of all; and having found HIM, yielding themselves to tortures and death, rather than disown HIM,-presents the most instructing, awful and animating spectacle and lesson, of all others." Mr. L.'s work but very partially accomplished this object. We stand in great need of an history of Unitarianism. Such a work might be thrown into a series of biographical portraits, connecting the most important events of each age or country with some leading character; commencing with those who, in the second, third and fourth centuries, withstood the tide of corruption then flowing in upon the Church; including the Polish and other continental reformers, and the advocates for truth and liberty in the Establishment of our own country; detailing, where authentic information exists, the different processes by which the faith of eminent individuals was changed or formed; exhibiting at large the progress of Unitarianism among the poor, especially in the conversion of whole societies, as Rossendale, &c.; and concluding with a complete view of its present state, as to numbers, institutions, legal situation, public opinion, &c. This plan would not only embrace much to command the attention of the theological inquirer, but would satisfactorily repel many objections to Unitarianism; and by furnishing the youthful part of our societies with information and examples of the most attractive description, would excite attachment to the religion of their fathers, veneration for its confessors and advocates, interest in its cause, and

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knowledge, from facts, of the best means for promoting its diffusion. We have men well qualified for such a task. I commend it to their attention.

NOTE (n)-Page 169.

The horrors of war are but slightly adverted to, either in the Lecture or the Appendix, for the obvious reason that the general design and the limits of the Lectures neither required nor permitted any extended illustration of them. In various publications on the events of the late war, and especially in Labaume's Russian Campaign, the reader, whose nerves will allow the steady contemplation of the most appalling pictures of human wickedness and misery, may sup full of horrors." Some extracts are introduced from an article in the Edinburgh Review for February 1815, on the above-mentioned work, not more on account of the facts, than of the remarks appended to them, which will not be ascribed to the influence of religious enthusiasm, or the weakness of an impracticable benevolence.

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"Our author, who was posted at a small village on the right in reserve, here learned that the town (Smolensko) had been stormed, after a sanguinary combat, during which it was set on fire by the Russians. On the 19th of August, he entered the place with his corps, and his description of the scene which he witnessed, presents an affecting picture of the horrors of war. • In every direction we marched over scattered ruins and dead bodies. Palaces, still burning, offered to our sight only walls half destroyed by the flames, and thick among the

fragments were the blackened carcasses of the wretched inhabitants whom the fire had consumed. The few houses that remained were completely filled by the soldiery, while at the door stood the miserable proprietor, without an asylum, deploring the death of his children and the loss of his fortune. The churches alone afforded some consolation to the unhappy victims who had no other shelter. The cathedral, celebrated through Europe, and held in great veneration by the Russians, became the refuge of the unfortunate beings who had escaped the flames. In this Church, and round its altars, were seen whole families extended on the ground.""

After the battle of the Moskwa, "the ground, for about the space of a square league, was literally covered with the dead and wounded. In many places, the bursting of shells had promiscuously heaped together men and horses. The fire of the howitzers had been so destructive, that heaps of bodies lay scattered over the plain; and where the ground was not encumbered with the slain, it was covered with broken lances, muskets, helmets and cuirasses, or with grape-shot and bullets, as numerous as hailstones after a violent storm. 'But the most horrid spectacle (continues our author) was the interior of the ravines, where almost all the wounded who were able to drag themselves along, had taken refuge to avoid further injury. These miserable creatures, heaped one upon another, and swimming in their blood, uttered the most heart-rending groans. They frequently invoked death with piercing cries, and eagerly besought us to put an end to their agonies.' Such are some of the details of this glorious battle, which we lay before our readers, not for the purpose of shocking their feelings, but be

cause we think they serve to place what is called military glory in its true light, and thus, in some measure, to correct those false impressions under which mankind have been in all ages so much blinded to the true nature of the warrior's exploits. They would answer a still greater purpose, if they would tend to soften the hearts of those cold and calculating politicians, who make war without any consideration of its miseries, and regard the plea of humanity as a vulgar common-place, altogether unfit to be taken into the account of their magnanimous deliberations."

During the conflagration of Moscow, the hospitals, which contained 20,000 wounded Russians, were consumed. "This (says Labaume) offered a harrowing and dreadful spectacle. Almost all of these miserable creatures perished. A few who still lingered, were seen crawling, half-burnt, among the smoking ruins; and others, groaning under heaps of dead bodies, endeavoured in vain to extricate themselves from the horrible destruction which surrounded them."

Often in the retreat, "they had no wood, and to make their fires they destroyed the houses in which the generals lodged; sometimes, therefore, when we awoke in the morning, the village which we had seen the night before had disappeared, and towns which to-day were untouched, would form on the morrow one vast conflagration."

The concluding remark of the Reviewer especially deserves attention: "By its very constitution, an army seems to be the natural instrument of violence and injustice. A thorough-bred soldier is the mere creature of command. His warrant is, in all cases, the order of his

superior, to whose views he blindly conforms, however adverse they may be to the peace and happiness of society; while the occupations in which he is engaged have a natural tendency to produce, in the lower orders, a disdain and impatience of peaceful industry; in the higher, a restless and turbulent ambition; and in both, a brutal contempt for the comfort and the feelings of every other description of men."

In the Christian Reformer for July 1815, are extracts from the letters of an officer serving in Spain and the South of France, which amply shew that war is much the same in the miseries it causes, wheresover and by whomsoever waged.

A work of fiction, published by Louis Bonaparte, has some passages upon this subject, which are curious, as coming from one who had filled a throne, and which are expressed in a tone and manner strongly indicative of their being the language of truth and real feeling. He is describing a field of battle: "A thousand voices addressed me in the most-rending manner, imploring assistance. One expired in asking for it; another in repulsing through the convulsions of death, the proffered hand! Our own wounded could not be distinguished from those of the enemy. I thought myself on those infernal plains, where the guilty groan for ever, and have no resource, because they are watched over by no providence! know not what secret voice arose within me against war. -I have seen a father, a brother and a son, even after the heat of battle, cut the throat of a defenceless old man ; I have seen the brains of an infant beat out in its cradle; and a young girl dying under bloody embraces. I have seen men go like sheep to certain death, led by the

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