THE INFLUENCE OF PEACE.

491

Although the spirit of modern warfare has been very muchsoftened, war still continues to be the greatest calamity withwhich a righteous Heaven punishes the guilty nations, which calldown its wrath upon themselves. It is still the most desolatingof all national scourges. It is desolating, in its destruction ofhuman life, in its interruption of all the chief employments andpursuits which adorn society, and, especially, in the demoralizationby which it strikes at the root of national prosperity and happi-ness. Christianity does not positively forbid war, but its spiritand tendency are adverse to violence of every kind, and to therousing of the evil passions, which is an almost inevitable conse-quence of a resort to violence and strife. It enjoins its mild andpeaceable spirit on every individual, and trusts, that, as this divinespirit becomes more and more generally the rule by which men’s' actions are governed, this mode of terminating national disputes,condemned, as it is, by right reason and enlightened policy, asmuch as it is opposed to its own spirit and precepts, will eventu-ally be discontinued, and will ultimately be known only as matterof history, among other records of the crimes, follies, and absurd-ities of mankind, and of the calamities and sufferings, with which,under the promptings of their evil passions, they have been will-ing to afflict themselves and one another.

But, while we may console ourselves with the reflection, thatthe fierce and unrelenting spirit of war has been mitigated byChristianity, since the days when Dicaearchus wrote his treatiseconcerning the destruction of mankind, and, trusting in God, mayrefresh ourselves with the belief, that “peace on earth, good-willtoward men,” will, in a preeminent sense, at “the times andseasons, which the Father has put in his own power,” prevailuniversally ; still the destruction of human life, the waste of treas-ure, and the misery of every kind, entailed by war, continues tobe most lamentable and indescribable. It has been calculated, inthe Paris “ Quotidienne,” * that the French revolution, from1789 to 1815, cost a loss in lives of 25,707,139 men, slain inbattle, killed in popular tumults, and executed. The waste oftreasure to France, during the same period, has been estimatedat £ 600,000,000 sterling, — nearly 3,000,000,000 of dollars.

* Walsh’s National Gazette, for March 12th, 1829, and December 23d, 1830.