MORAL EVILS OF THE WAR.
The malig-nant as well as the benevolent affections of our nature are strengthened by exercise. A volunteer, de- scribing in a letter his sensations on first going into battle, mentions that on discharging his musket, he was harassed with the fear that he might possibly kill somebody ; but that after a while he became as eager as others in the work of death.
From the commencement of hostihties, the public was almost daily served by the newspapers with details of battles, and bombardments, and mangled corpses, and all the varieties of human suffering caused by war :
*' Boys and girls, And women, that would groan to see a child Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war The best amusement of our morning meal :
And all are learned, fluent, absolute, And technical, in victories and defeats. And all the dainty terms for fratricide ;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues, Like mere abstractions—empty sounds, to which We give no feeling and attach no form. As if the soldier died without a wound As if the fibres of this godlike frame Were gored without a pang—as if the wretch ^ Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, Pass'd off to Heaven, translated, and not killed— As though he had no wife to pine for him, No God to judge."
This constant familiarity with human suffering, instead of awakening sympathy, has roused into action the vilest passions of our nature. We have been taught to ring our bells, and illuminate our windows, and let off fireworks, as manifestations of our joy, when we have heard of great