breaker? Only by a direct, specific application to their sins. In no other way can it cure any moral evil; and in like manner must we apply the gospel to war, before the spread of Christianity will insure a corresponding prevalence of peace.

5. But are you waiting for the millenium to come, and saying that when it does come, - never before, -peace will follow as a matter of course? Very true; and so will repentance and faith follow as a matter of course; but how are you to reach the millenium? Would you first get into the millenium, and then convert the world? Is the millenium alone to make men Christians, or is the making of all men Christians to be itself the millenium?. How would you introduce a millenium of repentance? Simply by first filling the world with repentance-with men penitent for their sins. How a millenium of faith? Solely by filling the world with faith-with believers in Jesus. How then a millenium of peace? In the same way; for peace, like repentance and faith, must come before the millenium, as one of its indispensable harbingers, or along with the millenium, as one of its inseparable concomitants; for unless men are converted to peace as fast as they are to God, such a conversion of the whole world plainly could not ensure its entire, perpetual pacification.

Remember, then, the absolute necessity of proper and adequate means; and use all in your power. Can you write, or speak, or pray for this cause? Then do so. Have you influence? Use it. Have you money? Be sure to give a portion of it; nor forget how much the cause needs such aid. We must support agencies, send forth lecturers, and scatter periodicals, tracts and other putlications through the land. Such operations, altogether indispensable, require a large amount of funds; and Christians should at length give to this cause as liberally as they do to other causes that aim in like manner at the glory of God in the present and immortal welfare of mankind.

BEARING OF PEACE ON THE WORLD'S CONVERSION.

The grand object of God in all his dealings with men is the salvation of their souls. For this he grants the day and the means of grace; for this he revealed his will in his Word; for this his own Son came from heaven to the Cross, and his Spirit is now at work on the hearts of men to renew them in his image, and ren

der them meet for heaven. The whole course of his providence converges to this same result, and the most important service o his children is found in their co-operation with him for the accomplishment of this great end.

It is in this view we take the deepest interest in the cause of Peace its bearing on the salvation of our race. There are indeed many other arguments to enforce its claims; but with us all the rest put together, have not half the weight or effectual force of this alone. We deem it an indispensable pioneer and auxiliary in the great work of the world's salvation; and never, till peace shall be permanently established wherever the gospel prevails, and the whole war-system be banished from every Christian land, can we hope to see any considerable part of the unevangelized nations converted to Christianity.

On this point let us learn wisdom from God's own example. He has always treated war as a most serious obstacle to the gospel, and peace as requisite to its spread and triumph. What time did he select for our Saviour's great mission from heaven? A time when the temple of Janus at Rome, in token of general peace and tranquility, was shut more than twenty years; a longer period of rest from war than had then been known for ages. Review the history of his church from that day to this; and where will you find her eras of zealous, successful evangelization? Not in war, but in peace almost alone; and during the last forty years of general peace, more has been done towards the world's conversion to God than had been done for many centuries before.

From the very nature of the case we should deem Peace es sential to this work. The missionary enterprise aims to spread Christianity in saving power over the whole earth; and if peace is confessedly one of its fruits and promised results, it certainly must of course go along with the gospel. We need a revival among ourselves of its pacific principles as indispensable to prepare us for this work. We can give to the heathen a Christianity no better than we possess at home. Ours must be the prototype of theirs. The character of the church must ever be the model of her converts; they will embrace the kind of Christianity exhibited before them; aud, if that is in any respect defective, its imperfections will all be stamped upon them in bold relief. So we find it everywhere. The converts to Popery among pagans have notoriously been a species of baptised idolaters, counter

parts of Papists at home; and, since whole nations in Europe were first driven into a nominal Christianity by the sword, it is no wonder that the religion of their descendants is now the patroness of a war-system the most terribly effective the world ever saw. If rum-drinkers ourselves, we shall spread a rum-drinking Christianity; if slave-holders, a slave-holding Christianity; if warriors, or abettors of war, a war-toierating Christianity. Every point of our faith, every aspect of our character, we shall be likely to impress upon our converts among the heathen; and, if peace is a part of our religion, we should of course prepare to enforce it aright all over the earth.

We must, then, inquire what the gospel teaches on this subject. "Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good to them that despitefully use you. Do good unto all men. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. See that none render evil for evil unto any man. Follow peace with all men; and let all bitterness, and anger, and wrath, and clamor, be put away from you. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. Avenge not yourselves; but whoso smiteth you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. Put up thy sword; for all they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." Such was the Christianity foretold by ancient prophets; and Isaiah, when portraying its millenial triumphs, represents it as constraining all nations to beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruninghooks, and cease even from learning the art of war any more.'

Surely, peace is quite essential to a full preparation of the church for the work of converting all nations to the Christianity thns foretold by prophets, and thus taught by Christ and his Apostles. This work he has assigned to his followers; but, if strangers themselves to the pacific principles of his gospel, or reluctant to inculcate them aright, are they duly qualified to teach all nations such a religion of peace? Christians they may be, and even excellent in other respects; but, while defective on this point, are they just the co-workers required by a God of peace for preaching his gospel of peace to every creature? They may teach a part of it; but will they the whole? Will they so

enforce its pacific principles as to uproot the Upas of war, and sweep away the entire mass of its abominations and woes? Will they not leave in their converts the moral gangrene of war?

We may well insist, then, on Peace as a part of the preparation needed by Christians in qualifying them fully for the work of converting the nations to a pure, unmutilated gospel. Had the men who first planted the gospel in Europe, trained their converts to such views and habits as would have put an end to the practice of war as utterly incompatible with our religion of peace, how different would have been the whole history of Christendem for the last fifteen centuries, and how much more sure and more rapid by far the world's conversion to God!

WAR A DESTROYER OF SOULS.

It is high time for Christians to consider what fearful havoc war makes of immortal souls. Too long has the poor soldier been permitted to dream of wading through all the atrocities and horrors of war up to the throne of an immaculate, merciful God. Far be it from us to say, that none have ever gone even from the field of blood to the realms of glory; but, if war is so confessedly notorious a hot-bed of vice and irreligion; if it breathes a spirit, forms a character, and absolutely enjoins atrocities utterly inconsistent with the gospel of Christ; if the field of battle is a theatre for the worst passions that ever rage in the bosom of man; if fleets and camps are, the world over, proverbial reservoirs of impiety, pollution and crime; I dare not suppose that such masses of moral putrefaction are borne up into the immediate presence of Him in whose sight the very heavens are not elean!

What a destroyer, then, of immortal souls! Scarce a war that does not slay its thousands, its scores of thousands; and how often have there fallen upon a single field of battle, ten thousand twenty, thirty, fifty thousand! a hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand! No uncommon number this in ancient warfare; and since the dawn of the present century, there perished in less than six months of the Russian campaign, half a million of the French alone; in the wars of Alexander and Cæsar, it is supposed some three millions each; in the wars of

Napoleon, six millions; in the wars of Jenghiz-Khan, some thirtytwo millions; in the wars of the Turks and Saracens, sixty millions each; and the lowest estimate I have ever seen, puts the sum total of its ravages from the first at fourteen thousand millions. eighteen times as many as all the present population of our globe!

Will Christians never awake to a subject so immensely important? Believers in the gospel, followers of the Prince of Peace, sons and daughters of the God of Peace, can you still fold your own hands, and let such a fell destroyer of mankind for two worlds, continue his work of death and perdition, unchecked by any efforts or prayers from you?

PAYSON.

THE WAR-PRINCIPLE NEVER FORGIVES.

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A friend of peace once asked a general on a muster-field, What do you mean by this array of swords, muskets and cannon? "We mean to be avenged on our enemies, should they insult or invade us." But we are bound to forgive our enemies, should they injure us.'-"So we will," said the general. But, if you really forgive them, what do you want of swords, rifles and cannon ?' – "To stab and shoot them." - But if you forgive them, how could you at the same time shoot and stab them ?" I think," said the general, "I can feel forgiveness in my heart towards my enemy, while I am shooting and stabbing him. Can I not ?"-'If you can, you take a queer way of showing it. How can you show your forgiveness by swords and guns ?'-"I am sure," he replied, "it's more than I can tell." 'Perhaps,' said the peace-man, 'you have the art of shooting and stabbing your forgiveness into the hearts of your enemies; and it may be the object of your review to perfect yourselves in this art. Is it so ?'-" I think," replied he very honestly and truly, "we are more likely to perfect ourselves in the art of killing them."

Could you,' inquired a peace-man of a military officer, could you, after a battle in which you had stained your hands with the blood of your brethren, ask God to forgive you as you had forgiven your enemies?'. "I am not a Christian," said he, "nor do I profess to forgive the wrongs done to myself or country; but I know I should be a hypocrite and a blasphemer, if I should ask God to forgive me as I had forgiven my enemies, after I had been killing them. When I ask Him to forgive me as I have my enemies, I will cease to kill them, or to encourage others in doing so."

GLIMPSES OF WAR AS IT IS.

The spade is now busy on the ground of Solferino and Magenta. The manumitted husbandman, now bidden to look up and be cheerful because he has been set free gloriously, ruefully takes thought how he shall remedy the disorder his deliverers have brought to him. Almost with despair he gazes upon his crops, trodden into a mash by swiftly-passing legions; upon the stumps of his vine-trees, cut down pitilessly to warm his benefactors' soup; above all, upon the memorials they have left to him of