THE SOLDIER. "Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, E'en in the cannon's mouth." THE soldier is a man of war, "of guns, and drums, and wounds, heaven save the mark!" and heaven save us from his horrid trade. Like the war-horse of old, he scenteth the battle afar off, and delighteth in the blood of his enemies. He goes upon the warpath, and, behold, the smoke of peaceful villages, the cries and tears of the innocent and the helpless, the fruits of long years of honest labor destroyed in an instant, and nature herself despoiled of her charms by the trampling of steeds and the feet of armed men. How ineradicable and how universal is the passion for war! How large a page of history is devoted to its annals! How has it overrun nation after nation, decided the fate of dynasties, setting up one in place of another, dethroning kings and emperors, establishing republics, and upon their ruins building monarchies ; now, in the service of religion, compelling vast regions to celebrate its rites, to be in their turn swept away by the same destroying power, and give place to a new worship, new prophets, and new rituals! What is Various are the definitions that have been given of man. Some have described him as a fighting animal, his natural state being that of war. The latter definition will hardly be accepted by our modern Peace Societies, and yet, when we turn over the pages of history, we can hardly deny its correctness. the history of Greece and Rome but the history of incessant wars, and what is the early history of England and France but a perpetual succession of wars? What was the history of Frederick the Great, and of Bonaparte, but a history of war? What was the employment of our aboriginal tribes but the use of the tomahawk and the scalping knife? In all ages and among all nations the practice of war has been so universal that peace seems to have been an exceptional state, the main purpose of which has been to repair the exhausted energies of the combatants, and enable them to enter with fresh vigor upon the work of destruction. "In peace prepare for war," has passed into a proverb, as though war was the real work of life, and peace only to be prized as affording the necessary preparation for renewed and more fatal contests. Whether or not war is to be considered the natural state of the human race, of one thing we may be certain, that all the great reforms which mark its progress through the ages have grown out of revolution, and been achieved on the battle-field. The present English Constitution originated in the force which wrung from King John the Magna Charta, and was made secure and perfected by the revolution which placed William upon the throne of his fatherin-law. This was all done by war, nor do we see how else it could have been accomplished. Our own liberties we owe to a long and severe contest. It was through a fiery and bloody ordeal that we passed from dependent colonies to an independent nation. "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" is the motto of our own State, and it may be safely said that peace, whether of longer or shorter duration, has been due always to the sword. The goddess Liberty is born ever amid the din and carnage of battle; her white robes are never free from the smell of fire, and she rewards her votaries only when they have buckled on their armor and risked their fortunes and their lives in her sacred cause. When the Turks appeared before Vienna the Christian religion was perhaps saved by the sword. The rights of conscience have been asserted and maintained through long and bloody wars. Protestantism was made secure only by the sword. Puritanism arose and hewed Agag in pieces, and out of the little Puritan colony in Holland sprang a mighty nation in these western wilds. So we see that Providence has worked out its greatest and most beneficent designs through the instrumentality of those fierce passions which belong in common to man and to the brutes that perish. These passions have their use, like the storm and the tempest, that destroy and lay waste the fair fields and the habitations of men, but leave for them a purer and more invigorating atmosphere. Out of evil good is ever induced, and, "better still, in infinite progression." When man's nature is essentially changed, but not till then, can we look for the time when wars shall cease; when "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." The soldier represents the warlike element in man, as the clergyman represents the peaceful and religious sentiment. The former is the sentinel, ever on the watch to protect our persons from danger, as the latter is the guide and guardian who warns us of the insidious attacks of temptation and sin. In our present imperfect condition we can no more dispense with one than with the other. The soldier should learn that it is not his mission to seek glory at the cannon's mouth, but justice; not to gratify an unhallowed ambition, but to relieve the distressed, to defend the weak, and succor the needy. His true model is not |