Of GLORIOUS WAR! -and through th' admiring throng, "If but some few life-drops Blush on the ground, for him, whose impious hand "How long shall it be thus ? say, Reason, say, When shall thy long minority expire? When shall thy dilatory kingdom come?" N. B. These are but extracts from a poem of considerable length, written by the celebrated Joseph Fawcett, and entitled Civilized War." The whole deserves the serious attention of rulers, and of all who patronize the sanguinary custom. ENCOURAGING FACTS. SINCE the fifth number of this work was published, it has been stated in the newspapers that Sweden, Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland, have acceded to the "Holy League," which was formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. If this intelligence be correct, SEVEN European governments are now allied for the preservation of peace. May we not hope, that our government will not be the last to accede to the pacifick alliance? From a speech delivered by Mr. Vansittart, the chancellour of the exchequer, before the British and Foreign Bible Society, it appears that the British government had full confidence in the sincerity of the three sovereigns who formed the league, and that the object was approved by the British cabinet. In several ways information has been received, that a Peace Society has been formed in England, and that its operations were commenced by republishing the "Solemn Review of the Custom of War." In a pastoral letter to the churches, the General Association of Massachusetts Proper, has approved and recommended Peace Societies, in a manner which is calculated to excite attention, and to promote the glorious object. An able and interesting work, on the subject of war, has been recently published in New-York, entitled "Letters addressed to Caleb Strong, Esq. late Governour of Massachusetts." These letters came too late to receive much notice in this number. Some copies of them are for sale at the Bookstore of Wells and Lilly; and it is hoped, that they will be read by Christians of every denomination. In compliance with the request of the Board of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and the desire of many others, the Rev. W. E. Channing has consented to publish the sermon on war, which was delivered before the Convention of Congregational Ministers, at their last meeting. By a letter to the Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Peace Society, information has just arrived, that a Peace Society was formed in the State of Ohio, Warren county, in December last, the same Month in which the Massachusetts Peace Society was formed, and the "Holy League" was published in Russia. The letter was from a Committee of the Society in Ohio. omnipresent. The God of Peace is THE FRIEND OF PEACE. No. VII. SIR, EIRENIKOS TO PHILO PACIFICUS. Letter II. THE limitation of Doctor Paley, to which I alluded in my last, and on which I proposed to remark, is as follows: "It is sufficiently apparent, that the precepts we have recited, or rather the dispositions which these precepts inculcate, relate to personal conduct from personal motives; to cases in which men act from impulse, for themselves, and from themselves. When it comes to be considered what is necessary to be done for the sake of the publick, and out of a regard to the general welfare, (which consideration, for the most part, ought exclusively to govern the duties of men in publick stations) it comes to a case to which the rules do not belong. This distinction is plain; and if it were less so, the consequence would not be much felt, for it is very seldom that, in the intercourse of private life, men act with publick views. The personal motives, from which they do act, the rule regulates." But from whence is the plainness of this distinction derived? Not, surely, from the letter, nor yet from the spirit of the able and excellent delineation, to which it is annexed. That delineation most impressively, and, in my apprehension, most justly exhibits the obligations imposed upon all that would learn of him, who was "meek and lowly in heart," to "follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another;" and, for aught that I can see to the contrary, the proper inference to be drawn from it, is not that these obligations are cancelled or even impaired by the enlargement of our sphere of action and influence; but that "to whom much is given, of them will much be required;" that men, capable of devising and commissioned to execute measures for the commonweal, are additionally bound to cultivate, exemplify, and recommend that "wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated; full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy ;" that, as the disastrous effects of an opposite behaviour in such men are more extensively felt, so they are chargeable with more atrocious guilt, when they adopt and pursue it, than can ordinarily be incurred by "personal conduct from personal motives." If, "with the founder of Christianity," a "meek, yielding, complying, forgiving" character "is the subject of his commendation, his precepts, his example; and if the opposite character "is so in no part of its composition;" if “no two things can be more different than the heroick and the Christian character;" and if it has been "proved, in contradiction to first impressions, to popular opinion, to the encomiums of orators and poets, and even to the suffrages of historians and moralists, that the latter character possesses the most of true worth, both as being most difficult either to be acquired or sustained, and as contributing most to the happiness and tranquillity of social life:" If "the case is clear," that "were this disposition universal, the world would be a society of friends ;" and that "were the other disposition universal, it would produce a scene of universal contention:" If "without this disposition, enmities must not only be frequent, but, once begun, must be eternal;" and if "in whatever degree it prevails, in the same proportion it prevents, allays, and terminates quarrels, the great disturbers of human happiness, and the great sources of human misery, so far as man's happiness and misery depend upon man:" If nothing more can be said in favour of the former, that is the heroick character, even in point of utility, "than what is true of many qualities which are acknowledged to be vicious;" nothing more than what is true of envy itself, that most malignant and disgraceful of human passions; and if "it was a portion of the latter," that is, the Christian "character, or rather of his love of that character which our Saviour displayed, in his repeated correction of the ambition of his disciples; his frequent admonitions, that greatness with them was to consist in humility; his censure of that love of distinction and greediness of superiority, which the chief persons among his countrymen were wont, on all occasions, great and little, to betray." If these things are so, and so they are represented to be by our author, whence is it "sufficiently apparent, that the precepts" on which he founds this representation, "or rather the disposition which these precepts inculcate, relate to personal conduct from personal motives? to cases in which men act from impulse for themselves and from themselves?" And that "when it comes to be considered what is necessary to be done for the sake of the publick, and out of regard to the general welfare, it comes to a case to which the rules do not belong?" Is a disposition, or, to speak more properly, a character on which "the tranquillity of social life" and "the happiness of man" confessedly "depend," to be confined to "personal conduct from personal motives?" Are Christians to relinquish the peaceful, forbearing, benevolent spirit of their Master, the moment they are called to act in |