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paragraph in circulation that a machine has been invented to be driven by the force of circumstances. Our union in America has often been praised as a machine which has turned every thing into gold, and wrapt men with visions of enchantment and beauty. How strange that it should now turn everything into blood and heaps of blackened ruin. And how desperate the force of circumstances which impel it in such a course as this! How fearful is the love of country when it leads men to seek to merge all in common ruin, rather than put the curb on the spirit of aggrandisement and conquest. And how rancorous their malignity when, if they cannot continue to get the lion's share of profit out of the wicked compact with the South, the cry goes forth in the spirit of burning revenge, make the habitations of men desolate, lay waste their fruitful fields, burn their populous towns and peaceful villages, and turn their country into a wilderness to be the haunts of wild beasts and crocodiles! And yet, in a lecture recently delivered in Hull, we have been gravely informed by the Rev. Newman Hall, that such a war, with all its vast extremes of guilt and cruelty, and unparallelled in the misery which it is producing in both hemispheres, "is legitimate," because it is a war for empire, is invested with the sanction and gathers force from the "practices of European governments," and has "philanthropy at the bottom of it!”" horror of horrors, to contemplate such frightfnl butcheries of men-such diabolical outrages as have been committed in this war! Surely, if we could get

the above divine, with his coadjutors, John Bright, Peter Sinclair, and other misguided men, who are the advocates of this war-if we could get them to look down into the gulph of ruin into which the nation has been plunged by reckless men that they might get a glimpse of the sepulchral shades of repudiation which lies at the bottom of the dark abyss - the fragmentary glories of our grand republic-and the skeletons of the men who

"In blood

Stept in so far, that should they wade no more,
Returning was as tedious as go o'er,”

but never did get o'er, as they perished in the mad attempt.

Oh, yes! if we could get the above men to takė such a glance, and in such a case they did not exclaim, Citizen soldiers, put up your swords into their scabbards, we would join with the Hon. Edward Everett in the pathetic exclamation, "Throw open your doors, O just Bedlam, and send your abused philosophers, princes, and statesmen to their homes!

"Cease your dull prate, ye teachers of morals! There is no crime, there is no barbarism, there is madness."

Yours for truth as well as liberty,

J. R. BALME,

An American Baptist Clergyman.

82 Sun Street

THE TIP OF THE LAST JOINT; OR, GENTLE

MANLY HONOUR AND STANDING.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE LIVERPOOL MERCURY.

GENTLEMEN,-Thus far our expositions of monstrous falsehoods have referred to others; in our present communication we propose to examine the delusion into which you have fallen in the use which you have made of the words " Gentlemen of Honour and Standing" in your Editorial of June 26, 1863, where you say, "But we must consider it amongst the worst evils of the present civil war that it compels gentlemen of honour and standing, like Mr. Adams and Mr. Dudley, to keep such very indifferent company, as that of some of the persons with whom they have recently been associating!"

Some there are who write and speak as if they were influenced by the belief that gentlemanly honour and standing in society, or the world, was only to be found. in connection with prelacies and popedoms-deaconships and bishopricks-mitres and crowns! Will such worldly rank and title operate with greater force on the imagination and affections than the charms of moral goodness? And since the former are not always associated with the latter, there are many lowly

cottagers who dwell in the shades of their greatness, endowed with noble qualities of intellect and heart which make them happy and useful, invest them with a dignity, and shed around them a halo of glory which will hand down their names to posterity although their virtues and deeds may be passed over in silence by the nobles and grandees of this world, find no place on historic page, or in the niche of the temple of fame! Such have a moral superiority which no mere worldly rank or title can secure or confer on their possessors! Theirs also is a happiness which is associated with the perennial spring of contentment, the overflowing consolations of peace, the enheartening visitations of hope, and the joyous prospects of a blessed immortality, where faith ends in sight, and hope terminates in the fulness of fruition! But whose pen shall describe, or heart conceive, those magnificently glorious results which have flowed from their meek and quiet spirits-the uniform consistency of their lives-their acts of self-denial and unrequited toil—and the triumphs of their faith! How sublime is such a spectacle! what a point of communication such a scene opens up to the view of men between heaven and earth! And how attractive, since here is to be witnessed "the actions of the just, which smell sweet and blossom in the dust!"

Others still speak to us of a "gentlemanly honour and standing" that is exclusively worldly. This is based on integrity, civility, and generosity. But for the highest style of "gentlemanly honour and stand

ing" we must look to the Christian, since piety is the crowning link which is essential to form a genuine specimen of "gentlemanly honour and standing."

There are some worldly good men who set a noble example to many who profess to be truly Christian men. But where there is true piety, associated with intelligence, economy, punctuality, civility, integrity, and generosity, there must be the highest order of " gentlemanly honour and standing." The ties of consanguinity, the caprices of fortune, and the genius and skill of men in connection with plodding perseverance, may secure to men, in a worldly sense, “gentlemanly honour and standing." It, however, requires three things to make men of true honour, and the highest order of standing. These are a right principle, a right rule, and a right end. The right principle is the love of God. The right rule is the word of God. And the right end is the glory of God. These alone secure the honour which comes from God-invest men with the order of a rank which throws all others into the shade, and makes dim their lustre ; and also confers on them an heirship, and prepares them to enjoy the blissful inheritance of heaven.

Let us, then, unfurl the roll of American history in search of this "gentlemanly honour and standing," and see if we can find this precious commodity, whether in the worldly or christian sense, amongst the Fathers and Founders of our country and government. And here are the men, the deed, and the day,

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