been engaged during the last 500 years which might not have been avoided, and in avoiding which there would not have been prodigious advantage. Let these wars be ex, amined one by one, let them undergo a fair trial before the tribunal of reason and humanity, taking care that prejudice and prepossession shall not be foremen of the jury, and we shall be in no pain for the verdict. It is curious enough, that in proportion as wars are more ancient, men become more united in acknowledging their being unnecessary— that is, their folly and mischief. It is only by those that are near us, with which our existing passions are in some measure allied, that we are apt to be deceived. And distant posterity, by whom our passions will be forgotten, will pass the same or rather a much more enlighted condemnation upon the wars into which, by these passions, we are plunged, than are now pronounced upon the wars which, with so much zeal and so much pretended patriotism, our fathers carried on for the purpose of setting the crown of France upon the head of their sovereign, or for rescuing the grave of Christ from the hands of the infidels.

"It is not necessary for the support of this declaration, that it should appear we have always been to blame, and not our neighbours; for this is not the fact. Our neighbours have been as often to blame as ourselves; and sometimes the malignant cause has appeared most strongly on the one side, and sometimes on the other. Notwithstanding this, it will not so much as be disputed, that in by far the greater number of wars the calamity with infinite advantage might have been avoided. And with regard even to the rest, it may with confidence be affirmed that hardly is there one to which the same ground of condemnation does not apply.

"The modes, the easy modes of avoiding war, have never been studied. The devices, by which men may be cheated into wars, have been carefully studied and industriously practised; the devices by which a tri

fing provocation may be made to appear a great one; by which an imaginary injury may be made to appear a real one; by which a sufficient reparation may be made to appear less than sufficient; by which revenge may be made to appear a virtue, and national enjoyment and prosperity less to be desired than the infliction of misery upon an offending neighbour ;-contemptible devices by which the word glory, that unhappy sound, is made to appear an adequate substitute not only for humanity and even justice towards others, but for prosperity and happiness at home ;— devices, by which the word honour, which signifies only pride and revenge, is made to take place of all the virtues, and govern men and nations at the discretion, and for the interests, of those who have the skill to employ it.

"Ah! if equal pains had been taken to study and to practise the means of standing exempt from war, with the pains which have been taken to study and to practise the means of being almost perpetually involved in it, to what prosperity would not human nature have been advanced! What miseries, what causes of retardation would it not have escaped! What time, what motives would it have enjoyed, for the acquisition of knowledge, for the discovery and for the removal of all the causes by which happiness is prevented; and for the discovery and for the application of all the expedients by which it may be promoted! On what a secure and immoveable basis might that happiness now have been placed; and to what an elevation might it have been raised !"-Philanthropist, No. 15, p. 275.

Such is the language which an English writer dared to use in 1814 respecting the wars of that nation for the last 500 years; and with equal truth he might have included all their wars from the first settlement of their island. The same language may be applied to the wars of other nations during the same period. Let any judicious person seriously review the pages of history and observe the frivolous grounds or pretexts on which the most bloody and deso

lating wars have been commenced; and, he will with Mr. Jefferson, "recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man."

It is a solemn but humiliating fact, that the petty wars of robbers and pirates may be as easily reconciled to the principles of justice, religion and humanity, or to the "golden rule," as the wars in which Christian nations have been engaged since the days of Constantine. The most striking difference between these two kinds of warfare is, that the wars of Christian Princes have been a hundred fold more destructive to the morals and to the happiness of mankind, than the wars of the less celebrated robbers and pirates. If the former are at all more justifiable than the latter, it must be on the ground of the greater mischief and ruin which they have occasioned. For it is as conceivable that the captain of a band of robbers may make war from benevolent motives, as that this can be done by the ruler of a nation; and as to the right of making war, they stand on equal ground.

If assumption of power can give a right to make war, it might be possessed by Barbarossa, or captain Kidd, as well as by the sovereign of an empire Qr if the suffrages of a number of individuals can confer the right, it may be conferred by twenty men, as well as by twenty millions.

Not only so, one individual has as good a right to make war as ten individuals; and ten as ten thousand, or as all the individuals of the Chinese empire. Cain had as good a right to make war on Abel, as Napoleon had to make war on Alexander; or as any one nation of individuals has to make war on another.

As no one individual has the right of making war, it is impossible that any number of such individuals can confer such a right. Neither can the right be acquired by violence and usurpation, unless, by the right, we mean merely the will and power; and if these be what is intended, it is evident that they may be possessed by the pirate or robber, as really as by a prince, a potentate, or a congress.

Moreover, if Cain, in killing Abel, was influenced by a desire to remove an object of envy, that he might obtain his property; or by a wish to immortalize his own name by a bold and daring exploit, his motive was as laudable as the motives which have governed the celebrated conquerors of the world,-except on the detestable principle, that the greater the mischief, the greater the glory.

TELEMACHUS; OR THE ABOLITION OF THE GLADIATORIAL

SPECTACLES.

In a letter on war to Francis I. the King of France, Erasmus mentioned the "butchery of the Gladiatorial Spectacles” and the way in which the custom was abolished.

"Nothing, says Erasmus, can be more cruel and savage than single combats, and the butchery of gladiatorial spectacles; and yet our forefathers were so delighted with the sight, that an example, the basest of all left us by the Heathens, took such firm hold of the Christians, especially in the city of Rome, that they have not been able at this day to divest themselves entirely of this relique of Paganism. The abolition of that species of combat, which they distinguish by the name of tripartite, we owe to one Telemachus. This good man left the east and came to Rome; where entering the theatre, and seeing armed men rushing violently, with an intent to kill each other, he leaped into the midst of them, exclaiming-What are you doing, brothers? Why do you run headlong, like two wild beasts, to each others destruction?"

"In short while the good natured man was humanely endeavouring to save the lives of the combatants, he lost his own; for the people stoned him to death: So highly did the unthinking rabble value this cruel diversion, which afforded an object to stare at.

"What was the consequence? The Emperor Honorius,

as soon as he heard of the transaction, issued orders to abolish the exhibition of gladiatorial combats. Now reflect a moment with me, how base an amusement this was, how many thousand lives were lost by it; and you will imme diately see how much the world is indebted to the death of one individual. For a deed like this, Telemachus was deservedly canonized.

"But how much more richly would that man deserve this honour, who should put an end to the conflicts of the great potentates, who lord it over this suffering world ?"

KEFLECTIONS.

1st. What intelligent Christian does not now look back with amazement and horror on the gladiatorial exhibitions, in which men murdered one another to make sport for the multitude! What an influence must such a custom have had on the minds and morals of the Romans! What barbarians must the inhabitants of Rome have been, who could "delight" in such murderous amusements! But

2d. Will not Christians of future ages, in like manner, review with horror the history of our times! People of the present day have eyes to see, in some particulars, the barbarity of former ages; but are they not generally as blind as the Romans were to the inhumanity of their own customs? What better than gladiators are the armies of Christian nations who meet, each other in a field of battle for mutual murder? And for what more rational purpose do they generally meet than that of sanguinary sport or amusement? It would perhaps be difficult to name a single war that has occurred in Christendom which was not as perfectly needless, wanton, inhuman and unprofitable, as a gladiatorial exhibition; but it would be easy to name a hundred which were as perfectly inhuman and useless, and vastly more destructive.

3d How much more to be admired is the heroism and intrepidity of Telemachus, who exposed his own life in a benevolent attempt to put an end to a sanguinary custom,