Bible, dwindle into microscopic dimensions-bowed in profoundest veneration to their infallible authority.

Now this is the book which geology-a science of yesterday, having dug a fow holes one eight-thousandth part of the earth's diameter in depth, and extracted therefrom a few bones of extinct species of animals-would set aside as a forgery and a lie. The theories of geology, built upon this most superficial and narrow examination of the earth's monuments, have been legion. It has been the fate of one theory after another to explode, after new facts have been brought to light by further examination. Yet these structures of gossamer, rising, sparkling, and bursting, like the soap-bubbles which the child blows up for a moment's amusement, are to overturn the adamantine pillars of revelation, built on the moveless foundation of the Rock of Ages. And when the infidelity of Lowell peddles out at second hand these flimsy speculations, to discredit the truths of revelation, a "Sincere Inquirer," and those he represents, are ready to "beg for quarter!"

We have said nothing about the matter of the obligation of the Sabbath, because that question depends on the truth or falsehood of the Bible.

WAR.

One of the brightest revelations of Prophesy is the entire cessation of war. It is thus announced by the Prophet

Isaiah:

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

"And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

The time thus foretold is called by Christians generally, the Millenium. This is the time of the Lord's reign on earth, either personally and visibly, as some believe, or spiritually in the hearts of men, according to the faith of others. Before

this period arrives, war must universally cease, and the reign of peace extend over the earth. This consummation is to be brought about by the gospel of Christ. When the Christian religion shall become prevalent in the earth, and the hearts. and lives of all are brought under its power, 66 wars will cease unto the ends of the earth."

War is, therefore, opposed to the spirit and principles of the gospel. It is a practice which is undesirable, the existence of which all the good deplore, which no one with any feelings of love to God or men, desires to see extended and perpetuated. This is enough for our purpose. It is abundant proof that it is every one's duty to labor for the abolition of war and the war-spirit. It is an all-sufficient reason why no Christian should seek a justification of war, even in extreme cases, from the gospel of Christ. War is one of the Devil's favorite agencies for the ruin and misery of men. Satan, no doubt, never feels better pleased than when he beholds two armies engaged in slaughtering each other. How far Christians may adopt and employ one of his favorite instrumentalities would not seem difficult to determine. That this has been done extensively, by professing Christians is as much out of character, and as much a matter of wonder, as the fact that they have engaged in the foreign and domestic slave-trade, and in holding men in slavery; or that they are found engaged in the making, vending, and drinking of intoxicating liquors. Their conduct in these and many other instances, is a libel on the religion they profess; a gross misrepresentation of the teachings and spirit of Christ. Even though a plausible argument for war in an extreme case might be made out, it proves nothing. Extreme cases are not the rule of action, but the exception, and exceptions only establish the rule. We therefore, oppose war to the same extent that we oppose slavery, drunkenness, caste, polygamy, or any other organic sin. Ranking it with these, we would be faithless to our convictions of duty if we did not raise our feeble voice against it. There are different grounds of opposition to the practice. It appeals to different motives. We oppose it,

1st. On account of its fearful and wasteful expenditures. The wars of what are called Christian nations, have cost more than all other purposes of government besides. Confining our attention to our own land, and we find that the expense of preparation for war in time of peace, is four times greater than all other expenses of the Government. A few facts will abundantly establish this position; and we shall use only

revenue.

those which are familiar to all. The army and navy of the United States cost the nation eighty per cent. of all the public This percentage is higher than in any other nation on the globe. In Austria it is 33 per cent; in France 38; in Prussia 44; in Great Britain 74; and in the United States 80 per cent! That is eighty cents out of every dollar of the public revenue, paid by the laboring classes of the country, is swallowed up in making and sustaining preparations for the work of human butchery. The remaining twenty cents answers all the civil purposes of the nation. Pays the salary of all the public officers; the outfit and salaries of foreign ministers; the light-houses, from Maine to California; all public buildings of the nation; the complicated, extensive and most useful machinery of the post-office department, together with various other expenditures. A few items in this account may be looked at with profit. The military academy at West Point has cost the nation more than four millions of dollars. Each cadet receives, besides a gratuitous education, twentyeight dollars a month for the privilege of being educated at the public expense. There are kept there 100 horses, with grooms, blacksmiths, &c., for the accommodation of the pupils. A single lesson at target-shooting costs the nation fifty dollars.

The salary of a colonel of dragoons is $2,000; of a brigadier general $2,958; a major general $4,500; a captain of a ship of the line receives on service $4,500, out of service $3,500. A larger salary for doing nothing than any minister of religion, or president of a college, receives in the United States. A single regiment of dragoons costs annually $700,000. There are now at least three of these in the nation, costing yearly $2,100,000. The cost of two ships of the line has been $2,000,000. Every gun carried across the ocean costs $15, 000. The building and outfitting of the line ship, Ohio, cost $834,485. The expense of the same for one year is $220,000.

During the fifty years of peace from 1789 to 1843, there were devoted to the army and navy $538,964,000. A moderate estimate of the expenses of the militia for the same period gives the enormous sum of $1,335,000,000. Of these sums there were spent in time of peace more than seventeen hundred millions of dollars-a sum beyond the power of human conception. All this spent in peaceful preparations for war in times of profound peace!

These are a few of the facts and figures in the case. They are such as may well arrest the attention of every thoughtful

mind. Had this immense expenditure been devoted to the education of the people, and the dissemination of Christianity over the world, a Christian civilization would ere this have been attained which would render future wars utterly impossible.

Since the foregoing calculations were made the Mexican crusade has been carried through, involving the nation in a direct expenditure of probably two hundred millions of dollars. The actual sum of money paid, however, in sustaining military operations is but a small part of the waste of property in actual war. The withdrawal of troops from industrial occupations, and the consequent loss of their productive labor, and the destruction of property attending the march of an army, would swell the estimate to an amount beyond the power of human conception.

Resting our estimates of the cost of war and military establishments here, many serious questions arise to the mind. Could not the objects for which all the wars of this nation have been waged, have been attained by peaceable arbitration? Would not the nation and those with whom she has been at war, have all been immense gainers by such a mode of adjustment? Can a nation professing to be more completely under the influence of Christian civilization than any other on the face of the earth, fail to have incurred fearful guilt, by this destruction of those things which a beneficent Providence has provided for the wants and happiness of man? These questions we can not now discuss. They are indeed their own answer. Another question, full of important suggestions, immediately presents itself. What has been gained by all this fearful waste of property? By the Mexican war a vast territory, which has become the cause of more wide-spread agitation and strife than any that ever distracted the country. A strife that threatens to tear down the very pillars of the Government. Territory has been acquired, immense portions of which will be given up to the withering curse of slavery, if the purposes of the authors and supporters of the war be attained. In addition to this the nation thinks it has gained a little glory. A little empty fame. A crop of Presidential aspirants, in the shape of military commanders. And this is candidly and really all. On the other hand, what has been lost? What is always lost by the prosecution of war? All the immense amount of property of which we have spoken; thousands and thousands of precious lives; the respect of all other nations among whom any sentiments of honor prevail,

-the force and efficacy of a high and beneficent example to the nations of the earth. Depravation of public morals, and the prevalence of a military spirit among the people, have resulted; the disposition to give military renown the precedence to statesmanship and virtue, as a qualification for civil office. These evils every candid man must see as following inevitably in the train of wars, waged under circumstances similar to those attending that with Mexico.

But we must leave these considerations to a future article. We were speaking in this merely of the expense of war. The war debt of Christendom at this day would plant and sustain a school, with a competent teacher, for every thirty children in the world. It would build a church and support a preacher of the gospel for every five hundred inhabitants on the earth; sustain a printing-press, and endow and support a college or university for every county; feed the poor of all nations; sustain the alms-houses, hospitals, and other public charities, of the world. In short, it would supply and sustain all the instrumentalities needed for the redemption of the whole world from ignorance, superstition, idolatry, caste, slavery, and all other evils that afflict the race; and then be scarce half exhausted.

And all this incalculable amount of property, that might have been devoted to these beneficent objects, has been worse than wasted in the prosecution of the work of human butchery. Brethren-children of one father-made of one blooddestined in a few brief years to a common resting-place-have wasted money enough to furnish the means for flooding the earth with the light of science and salvation, in the fiendish work of each other's destruction! Terrible will be the reckonings of the Judgment Day for this.

Remarks on other aspects of the subject must be deferred to future numbers.

WAR.

There is an allegory which tells of one of the "Elder Spirits of Heaven being appointed to conduct a youthful angel down to earth, for the purpose of learning the character of this world and its inhabitants. The guardian spirit conducted his charge first to the scene of conflict between the fleets of two hostile nations. The battle was raging with fearful carnage. The roar of cannon was incessant; the wounded lay weltering in their blood, mingling their groans