conquerors from the earliest historic period. From the time of Alexander the Great to the invasion of India and China by the British Asia has been scourged by war, her cities burned and destroyed, her people pillaged and butchered. Her history shows war as the disturber and destroyer of the felicity of nations. If the dark cloud that hangs over Africa could be dissipated the same truth would appear. We know that African wars are the cause of the enslavement of her sons, and that they are the primal curse of that unhappy country.

Our knowledge of the history of Europe, leads us to the important conclusion, that a large portion of the taxes, the misery, the poverty, the ignorance and the crime of that Fatherland, are the natural and necessary result of wars and warlike establishments. They are the penalty of the violated moral law of nations, which enjoins peace, equity, and humanity. On the historic records of thirtyseven centuries, we read this universal, natural, moral law and its penal sanctions inscribed by the finger of God. When will man learn wisdom from on high, or from his own history?

May the statesmen of the nineteenth century observe and practise upon the great truth recorded on every page of history and write that force and injustice are the destroyers of nations.

Statesmen now behold in the history of the past and present generations, the waste of life and treasure, the oppressive taxes, and the consequent ignorance, poverty, and wretchedness of the people, as the natural and inevitable evils of wars. These obvious facts teach enlightened statesmen, that peace is the true interest of all nations; and that the princes and rulers of every state and kingdom ought from considerations of interest, as well as duty, to improve the code of public law, and ' hasten the happy era, when "Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation."

CHAPTER III.

THE SLOW PROGRESS AND PARTIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN EUROPE EXPLAINED ITS POWER AIDED BY A FREE PRESS ILLUSTRATED IN THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES, AND A PLAN OF EUROPEAN AMELIORATION SUGGESTED.

CHRISTIANITY, a gift of God to man, contains within itself the elements of civilization and refinement. Its heavenly doctrines of peace, justice, and equity, are the only solid basis of national improvement and felicity. Proclaiming as it does, the equality of all human beings before God their maker, and their duty to love their heavenly Father with all their 'soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbor as themselves; and prescribing to all men the celestial law of doing to others as they would have others do to them, the Gospel offers a perfect system for the civilization and improvement of the world. A sweet benevolence, a graceful hospitality, and a kind courtesy are enjoined by Christianity, as well as equity, peace, and good will among men. Its object, its natural effect is to free mankind from the control of their disturb

ing and destroying passions, and bring them under the perfect law of liberty, which harmonizing with their moral nature, insures happiness, individual and national. Such are the heaven descended doctrines preached eighteen centuries ago by the Prince of Peace.

In tracing the results of this heavenly mission, we inquire of the past in order to form an accurate judgment of the future as to its power and progress. The revelation of the Gospel was made in a Province of the Roman Empire, whose broad dominion covered one hundred and twenty millions of people, of whom only about four or five hundred thousand could read and write. To this ignorance was superadded the cruelty, the licentiousness, the superstition and depravity of paganism. The Gospel was directly opposed to these practises of heathenism. The good seed was thus emphatically sown upon sterile soil. As a consequence many of the Roman emperors persecuted Christians, and used their whole power to suppress Christianity. In three centuries Christianity, protected by Jehovah, spread over and beyond the Roman Empire, and, animated by the inspiring spirit of God it bid defiance to many persecutions, and especially to the systematic attempt of the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius at the commencement of the fourth century to destroy it root