that there are wars which, on one side at least, are necessary, and just, and holy. The Bible contains no express and unqualified prohibition of war; neither can such prohibition be said to be intimated or implied in any text or in the general tenor of Scripture, without making it subversive, at the same time, of civil government. Besides, I remember that the first person not a Jew, in whose favor our Lord wrought a miracle, was a Roman centurion; and that the first person not a Jew admitted into the Christian church, was also a Roman centurion; and not a syllable is said against their calling, neither is there a shadow of evidence that they ever changed it. Undoubtedly it is the legitimate and certain tendency of the spirit of the gospel, as it is more and more diffused in the world, to introduce universal peace; but the spirit of the gospel acts from within outwardly, and not from without inwardly. Thus the stop to be put to war is to be expected, not so much by chaining down those irrepressible instincts which lead men to resist wrong, as by eradicating the disposition to do wrong. Wars will cease when all men are Christians, and perfect Christians; but this will not be to-day nor to-morrow.

Accordingly, I am not surprised that the call to arms has been responded to with such enthusiasm,—or that it is sustained by the whole moral and religious sentiment of the community. Men are ready to offer up not only their money and their labor, but also their lives. Are you afraid that your sons and brothers will be cowards merely because they are not duelists? because they have never been engaged in a street-fight? because prayers were made at their departure? or because they have carried their bibles with them? Did Cromwell's soldiers flee before the cavaliers because they were sober and God-fearing men? Our people have no love for fighting, as a pastime; let it, however, become a serious business, and they will show that their veins are full of the blood that flowed so freely in other days.

These are some of the ways in which a people may manifest their public spirit, and in which our people are manifesting it now. "With such sacrifices God is well pleased." I have given a definition of public spirit from the jurists, but I like still better the Bible definition. In the words of the prophet, "They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage."

In looking back on what has been said, I find I have not spoken against anybody, not even against our enemies. Perhaps we have had enough of invective; at any rate the pulpit may spare it. God is my witness, I feel no vindictive resentment, no bitter hostility against those who have been swept away by this terrible delusion. Moreover, I confess to being greatly moved by the circumstance that in some respects what is true of us is true also of them. They seem to be of one mind; their religious men appeal with confidence to the righteous Judge; their women are working day and night to help forward the cause. If it were a mere question of interest, or passion, or prejudice between us and them, it might be said that one side is as likely to be self-deceived as the other. But it is not. By striking at the principles of all constitutional and free government, and this too avowedly for the purpose of founding society on the servitude of an inferior race, on whose toil the more favored races are to live, they have put themselves in opposition to the settled convictions and the moral sense of good men all over the world.

To the student of history it is no new thing that a whole community should be given over "to believe a lie,"—not the less mad, because all mad together. The process by which this state of things is brought about is always substantially the same. Egotism, vanity, disappointed ambition, sectional jealousies, a real or supposed interest or expediency induce them to wish that a wrong course