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Macedon, as many; those of Nopoleon, twice as many. Nor can it be doubted that all the wars which have blasted the globe, have swept from its surface as many human beings as now inhabit it.

Again, war inevitably produces a state of things most unfavorable to the advancement of knowledge. Literature and science can flourish only amid the calm and security of peace. The war-spirit awakens too much excitement, and brings into too powerful action the ferocious passions, to allow of the cultivation of the intellect. The public mind becomes a stormy sea, ingulfing every thing which eannot live in a tempest. Finally, the great pecuniary expenses of war, which fall most heavily upon the middling and poorer classes, deprive them in a great measure, and for a long time, of the leisure and money necessary for extending the blessings of education through the community. The agricultural and manufacturing interests of a country are left by war in a deranged state, and a heavy public debt is usually entailed upon the nation; and to pay this debt, and restore the business of the country to a healthy condition, demand the time and strenuous labors of the citizens.

A few facts may more strikingly illustrate this point. There is perhaps no part of the world where a more efficient system of general education is in operation than in the State of New-York. In 1830, with a population of 1,918,618, she expended $1,120,000 for common schools and academies, where nearly all her half million of children and youth were in a course of education. To provide the same means of instruction for the seventeen millions of the United States, in 1840, would cost ten millions of dollars; and to provide the same for the twenty-five millions of Great Britain would need fifteen millions, and for the eight hundred millions of the entire globe it would require four hundred and seventy millions of dollars.

Now, let us compare these sums with the expenses of war. The revolutionary war of this country with Great Britain cost our Government six hundred millions, while the individual losses by the citizens of both countries must have been many times as great. Suppose it the same; and here we have expended on the American side in seven years money enough to provide the present population of the whole country with instruction like that enjoyed in New-York, for one hundred years, and the population of Great Britain for eighty years. The 'last war with Great Britain cost our Government fifty millions; and, on the same principle as above stated, enough money was spent to afford similar instruction to both countries for ten years, although the war lasted but two and a half years. A single war with Bonaparte cost Great Britain five thousand two hundred and fifteen millions of dollars-sufficient to afford the means of instruction to all her population for three hundred and fifty years, and to give the same means to all the world for eleven years. In 1835, the national debt of Great Britain, incurred for war purposes, amounted to three thousand eight hundred and ninety millions of dollars. The interest on this is one

hundred and forty-two millions, and would furnish her inhabitants with the means of education for ten years; that is, she pays a yearly interest that would do this. The daily expenses of a man-of-war, when in service are about fifteen hundred dollars, or more than half a million for a year. Nineteen such ships would of course cost as much as to educate all the children in the United States. Ten such ships, to say nothing of the sum requisite for their construction, would require a pecuniary outlay as great as the income of all the benevolent societies in Great Britain and the United States, which in 1840 was five million one hundred and thirteen thousand four hundred and twenty-two dollars. The average expense of the Florida war, carried on with only a few hundred Indians in the swamps of that country, was from two to five millions, from 1835 to 1840 — a sum nearly equal to that collected, with vast labor, as the fruit of Christian benevolence among the forty millions of Great Britain and the United States.

But the expenses of war are not confined to the period during which it lasts; for it is the common maxim of rulers, in time of peace to prepare for war. The sum paid for this purpose by the United States from 1791 to 1832, a period of forty-one years, was seven hundred and seventyseven millions, or nineteen millions annually. This was twelve times more than all the other expenses of the government during the same period, and would give instruction to all the children of the United States for twice that number of years. In 1837 and 1838, we paid twenty-six millions annually for the same purpose. The expenses of the English government, from the same cause, from 1816 to 1837, a period of twenty-one years of peace, were two thousand and ninety-one millions of dollars, or one hundred millions per year-sufficient to educate her entire population for nearly seven years. If we suppose the expenses of the United States and the other governments of Europe to be only half as great as those of Great Britain for war purposes during peace, we should still have the startling aggregate of five hundred millions annually-a sum sufficient for the education of all Europe and the United States for more than three years, and all the world for more than one year. If the whole world expended as much in proportion to their numbers for war purposes during peace, it would form the frightful sum of one thousand six hundred millions of dollars-sufficient to educate all its population three and a half years. Truly this is a peace establishment with a vengeance.

These statements seem more like the dreams of disordered fancy than like sober fact. But they are most painfully true; nay, they fall far short of the reality. Instead of looking on the dark side of the picture, as I expected to do when I began these statistics, they have thrown a bright beam of promise upon the future condition of the world. They show us how immense are the pecuniary capabilities of the human family. They show us what an incalculable amount of funds the world will have at its disposal, for the promotion of science, literature and religion, when they shall be brought to act according to the principles of reason and religion; for all

that now goes into the war channel, will then be consecrated to the service of knowledge and benevolence. In spite of all the oppressions and disadvantages under which the human family have hitherto labored, they have been able to sustain this immense war tax which I have described. Nay, I have mentioned only the direct expenses of war. But the losses always sustained by withdrawing men from their regular pursuits, by blocking up the outlets of trade, by idleness and discouragement, and in a multitude of other ways, are far greater. In addition to all this, in most countries men have been compelled to sustain the extortions of tyrannical rulers. Yet has the world borne all these immense taxes; and a few years of peace are generally sufficient to enable a nation to recover its pecuniary independHow vast, then, will be its surplus pecuniary resources when war and oppression shall cease, and all its energies can be devoted unobstructed to the various pursuits of business? Instead of the stinted sums which men are now persuaded, with great difficulty, to bestow upon objects of education and benevolence, and which leave those devoted to such pursuits to discouragement and heart-sickness, because their hands are so tied, and their energies so cramped, there will then be ready for every noble object more than is wanted. Millions will then be substituted for thousands. This is indeed a bright page of human history, on which we are permitted to gaze in anticipation; and it affords a cheering resting-place for the eye, when placed in contrast with the terrific waste of mind which has been the consequence of war.

ence.

Do I seem to any to be indulging in dreams when I say that most assuredly such a bright period will come? But do they doubt that the Bible predicts unequivocally a period of universal peace, and the prevalence of general, if not universal benevolence? In such a state, why will not the vast treasures that have been wasted upon the destruction of men, be consecrated to the diffusion of knowledge and religion through all the earth? — objects that claim the first regard of every benevolent heart. Assuredly this vision is not imagination; and it looms up in the future, and I would fondly hope not in the distant future,-a bright star of hope for this abused and down-trodden world. The little which has hitherto been contributed to raise man out of the slough of ignorance and sin, has accomplished a great deal. What splendid results, then, will be witnessed when ample means shall be placed within the reach of every human being for the highest attainments in knowledge and holiness.

EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.-In the United States there is one child attending school to every five persons. In Denmark there is one to every four. In Sweden one to five. In Prussia one to six. In Norway one to seven. In Belgium and Great Britain one to eight. In France one to ten. In Austria one to thirteen. In Holland and Ireland one to fourteen. In Greece one to eighteen. In Russia one to fifty. In Portugal one to eighty.

THE CHIEF EXPENSE OF GOVERNMENT.

THE Governments of the Old World are justly thought to be very unnecessarily expensive, even in their civil administration; but only a mere fraction of their enormous expense is devoted to such purposes.

Take a few statements from the London Times :--"What are the necessary peaceful expenses of a nation? The answer is simple. We have a court which is among the most splendid in Europe, and have a wealthy aristocracy raising the tone of society, and causing people to live more expensively than is absolutely needful. We are obliged, therefore, to pay our official people well; and it is generally allowed that the higher functionaries are sufficiently rewarded. Yet, what is the cost of the whole civil government of this old, grand, aristocratic realm, with its numbers of so-called useless offices which are the abomination of economists ? In the year 1856, the whole expenditure for Civil List, Privy Purse, salaries of Household, allowances to Royal personages, allowances to the King of the Belgians, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Parliamentary expenses, annuities, superanuation allowances, pensions, and many other things, amounted to but £1,695,052; a sum which could be made away with, without the slightest notice from the public, in converting a few paddle-wheel steamers into screws, or erecting new machinery in the dock-yards, or defences on the coast of Wales, or in any of the warlike expedients which we are accustomed to glance over listlessly as they are detailed in a few lines of newspaper intelligence."

So of the criminal administration. "We are supposed to spend vast sums in punishing and reforming wrong-doers; but Total Justice,' as the phrase is, costs only £3,192,420; a mere trifle when compared with the disbursements for Baltic and Crimean campaigns, yet it must be confessed considerable enough, when compared with the expenses of the civil government. The greater part of this item is allotted to police, criminal prosecutions, and the correction of prisoners. The cost of correction'keeping delinquents in prison--rose in one year (1856,) from £765,653 to £1,424,907, nearly double, during the Crimean war.

"How small a proportion, then, do the expenses of even our pompous and courtly social system, our crowded and neglected lower-class, and our wellorganized and well-paid magistracy, bear to what we spend in war. Court, Minsters, and Parliament, the bench of Justice, the punishment of crime, diplomacy and the consulate, cost less than £5,000,000 a-year. The peace establishment of our forces is some £25,000,000, and during the last year of the late war we spent more than twice that sum. In fighting, or preparing to fight, we must calculate, therefore, on disbursing on an average nearly six times as much as in defraying all the expenses of the home government. In fact, in 1856 we spent on ordnance alone, -on cannon, mortars, shot and shell,-£10,411,544, or twice as much as all the civil expenses of the country put together."

How little, in comparison, is spent even in educating the mass of the

people. "Education in England is set down for a year at £323,500; the cost of a few days' fire at Sebastapol. Education in Ireland is rated at £157,073; the cost of a screw line-of-battle-ship. A year's expenditure on the National Museum would hardly build and equip the Glatton or the Etna. We find the army for 1855 costs £8,380,882, and for 1856 more than double as much, namely £17,395,059. The navy for 1855 cost £14,490,105, and for 1856, £19,654,556. Including ordnance, the total forces cost in 1856 no less than £47,461,188."

How vast the expense of the war-system! nearly $240,000,000 squandered by England alone on her army, navy and ordnance in a sigle year! The bare interest at six per cent. of this sum would exceed fourteen million dollars per year; more than five times as much as all the Christians on earth have on an average given annually for the last twenty-five or even the last ten years to spread the gospel among the heathen.

THE BEAUTY OF PEACE.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

"Power itself has not half the might

Of Gentleness."-LEIGH HUNT.

Men listen more coldly to the advocacy of peace principles than to other wise words. Few professing to believe the Christian Religion, venture to deny their truth, while at the same time all agree in giving them a sort of moonlight reputation, a will-o'-the-wisp foundation, as beautiful but impracticable theories. I cannot help feeling a strong hope, amounting to faith, that the world will be at last redeemed from the frightful vortex of sin and misery in which it has been drawn by the prevailing law of Force. And surely tis a mission worth living for, that the Chaistian doctrine of overcoming evil with good, is not merely a beautiful sentiment, as becoming to the religious soul as pearls to the maiden's bosom, but that it is really the highest reason, the bravest manliness, the most comprehensive philosophy, the wisest political economy.

The amount of proof that it is so, seems abundant enough to warrant the belief that a practical adoption of peace principles would be always safe, even with the most savage men, and under the most desperate circumstances, provided there was a chance to have it dietinctly understood that such a course was not based on cowardice, but on principle.

When Capt. Back went to the Polar regions in search of Capt. Ross, he fell in with a band of Esquimaux, who had never seen a white man. The chief raised his spear to hurl it at the stranger's head; but when Capt. Back approached calmly and unarmed, the spear dropped, and the rude savage gladly welcomed the brother man who had trusted in him. Had Capt. Back adopted the usual maxim that it is necessary to carry arms in such emergencies, he would probably have occasioned his own death, and that of his own companions.

Raymond, in his travels, says: "The assasin has been my guide in the defiles of Italy, the smuggler of the Pyrenees has received me with a welcome in his secret paths. Armed, I should have been the enemy of both; unarmed, they have alike respected me. In such expectation, I have long since laid aside all menacing apparatus whatever. Arms may indeed be

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