no public solemnities in which they were not sung or chanted. The praises which these poets gave to valor, the warlike enthusiasm which animated their verses, the great care men took to learn them from their infancy, being all of them the natural effects of the ruling passion of this people, served in their turn to strengthen and extend it."

“A people, who nourished so strong a passion for war, could seldom be at a loss for occasions of it. Accordingly the ancient Scandinavians were continually involved in one hostile dispute or other, and their whole history would have consisted of nothing else but melancholy and disgusting details of these wars, if they had been at the needless pains to write it." pp. 217–222.

"Their laws for the most part seemed to know no other virtues, than those of a military nature. And no other crime but cowardice. They inflicted the greatest penalties on such as fled first in battle.-Hence was formed that prejudice so deeply rooted among these people, that there was no other way to acquire glory but by the profession of arms and a fanatic valour."-pp. 199, 200.

"They looked upon war as an act of justice, and esteemed force as an incontestible title over the weak, a visible mark that God had intended to subject them to the strong.-They inferred that the weak had no right to what they could not defend. This maxim which formed the basis of the law of nations among the ancient inhabitants of Europe, being dictated by their darling passion, we cannot wonder that they should so steadily act up to it in practice.-And which after all is worst, to think and act as they did, or, like the moderns, with better principles to act as ill?" pp. 200, 201.

Those who will allow themselves to reflect on what has been quoted from the Northern Antiquities, and on the disposition which has prevailed in every succeeding age to extol the characters and virtues of ancestors, will be able to perceive some of the reasons of that blindness, in regard to war, which still exists in Europe and America. In some particulars, there has been a change or modification in public opinion and

prevailing opinions and usages were principally derived from a barbarous state of society, and from pagan ancestors.

The history of Europe and of our ancestors is, to a great extent, a history of barbarity and bloodshed. It is such a history as might have been expected from a people who derived their existence and their customs from the barbarians of the North. They have followed the trade of war from age to age, as though Odin were still their God, and the pleasures and honors of VALHALL, the chief objects of their pursuit.

In England, during the reign of Edward III, and less than 500 years ago, "the nobles and gentry were employed in tilts and tournaments, the amusements of this romantic age;" -and what, if possible, was still worse," an enthusiastic spirit of chivalry pervaded even the female sex; and nothing was more common than to see the ladies dressed like cavaliers, with swords by their sides, and their horses adorned with rich trappings, riding to be spectators of the tournaments." Bigland.

What better than a race of Cains could have been expected as the progeny of such military mothers! And how fatal the influence of such examples! "A people who nourished so strong a passion for war could seldom be at a loss for occasions of it." Hence the endless detail of murders, assassinations, duels, civil wars, and bloody contests with foreign nations, which disgraces the history of England, and other European powers. From such a bloody race the people of the United States descended; and the exploits of such ferocious ancestors have too long been the boast of every christian nation. The sanguinary exploits of ancestors, which should have been to their posterity matter of deep regret, have been the theme of eulogy and admiration-and thus the spirit of war has been transmitted to the present time.

What Mr. Mallet says of these ancient barbarians is truly applicable to their posterity :-the dreadful consequences of their sensibility with regard to what we falsely call HONOR.

extended often from private persons to a whole people; and nations, blind to their true welfare, waged long and cruel wars for such chimerical interests as really ought not to have armed one single individual against another." Of this barbarous character have been nearly all the wars in which the European nations have been engaged for the last thousand years. But as Bigland observes of the people of England in the reign of Henry VI, so it may be observed of other nations; The lower orders inured to scenes of blood and cruelty, were become unfeeling and ferocious; and the facility with which armies were raised by both parties on every occasion, shows the martial disposition, as well as the madness of the people, who were ever ready to take arms in a quarrel with which they had no concern, and to sacrifice their lives for the interests of the weakest or most worthless of mankind."

We have admitted that in some particulars the usages of war are less barbarous than they were among our pagan ancestors; but in one respect at least, barbarism itself has been outdone by modern refinements. The chiefs of our pagan forefathers compelled no one to engage in their wars; all their soldiers were volunteers, and while soldiers they were still freemen. But the chiefs of what we call civilized nations, compel men to become at once soldiers and slaves! This is something worse than Gothic barbarity.

May we not however indulge a hope that the time will come when intelligent Christians of every country and of every name will unite their efforts to put an end to the detestable trade of human slaughter? Shall Christians any longer consent to be the dupes of ambitious rulers, and to act on the principles of pagan savages? Let professed Christians but act on Christian principles, and the supposed necessity of war and military establishments will soon vanish; and the whole business of war will appear as odious and horrible as any other modes of robbery and murder. Is it not surprising that piracy and robbery should be punished, while rulers themselves authorize and practise these very crimes Vol. II. No. 4.

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on a scale a thousand fold more extensive and injurious than the culprits whom they consign to the gallows! And while too their own example and practice have been the principal causes of nine tenths of the crimes which they punish with death!

Mr. Mallet supposed that the custom of offering human sacrifices was formerly" almost universal." He says "the first inhabitants of Italy, Sicily, the Britons, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and all the nations we know of in Europe and Asia, are covered with the same reproach." p. 138.

This custom of offering human sacrifices is still retained in India, and probably in other countries, although it is abolished in Christendom. We do not mention this custom as being in any degree more barbarous, inhuman, or immoral, than the custom of war, which still retains its popularity. Indeed we verily believe that the latter custom is of the two the more barbarous, antichristian, and offensive to God. But as the less detestable of the two customs has already been abolished in Christendom, this fact affords ground to hope that the other will share a similar fate.

As the people of this age are shocked to find in the history of their Pagan ancestors, that they were so deluded as to offer hundreds of human victims to appease the anger of their blood-thirsty gods; so in a future age posterity may be still more astonished to find in the history of our times, that their Christian ancestors were so bewildered as to offer millions of human victims on the altars of Ambition, Avarice, and Revenge, or to gratify the insatiable appetites of blood-thirsty

men.

But when we seriously reflect on the ferocious character of our ancestors, prior to their professing the christian religion on the corrupt principles which they associated with Christianity on the fatal renown which at that period was attached to martial exploits-on the disposition which has prevailed in every succeeding age to look back to former times for the purest examples of virtue, and on the astonishing expense, and the variety of means which have been employed

to render the detestable trade of human butchery a glorious profession,-it may then appear less wonderful that so many millions of professed Christians have fallen a sacrifice to popular insanity, than that all the countries of Christendom have not been converted into deserts by the ravages of war.

THINGS WONDERFUL.

It is not strange that simple men should rear
The grassy altar to the glorious sun-

But that the Priest with solemn mockery,

Or monstrous faith, should call on God to lead
His armies forth, and desolate and kill,

And over the red banners of the war,
Even in the blessed name of JESUS, pour
Prayers of bloodlier hate than ever rose
At Odin's altar, or the Mexican,

The victim's heart still quivering in his grasp,
Rais'd at Mexitlis' shrine-This is most foul,
Most rank, most blasphemous idolatry!
And better were it for these wretched men
With infant victims to have fed the fire

Of Moloch, in that hour when they shall call
Upon the hills and rocks to cover them,

For the judgment day is come.

-Is it not strange, my friend,

If aught of human folly could surprize,

That men should with such duteous zeal observe

Each Ideot form, each agonizing rite

Of Pagan faith, whilst there are none who keep

The easy precepts of the Nazarene,

The faith that with it brings its own reward,
The law of peace and love?

Extracted from R. Southey's Epistle to A. S. Cottle.