employed against wild beasts; but men should never forget that they are no defence against the traitor. They may irritate the wicked, and intimidate the simple. The man of peace has a much more sacred defence-his character."

Perhaps the severest test to which the peace principles were ever put, was infreland during the memorable rebellion of 1786. During the terrible conflict, the Irish Quakers were continually between two fires. The Protestant party viewed them with suspicion and dislike, because they refused to fight cr pay military taxes; and the fierce multitude of insurgents deemed it sufficient cause for death, that they would neither profess belief in the Catholic religion nor help to fight for Irish freedom. Victory alternated between the two contending parties; and as usual in civil war, the victors made almost indiscrimate havoc of those who did not march under their banners. It was a perilous time for all men; but the Quakers alone were liable to a raking fire from both sides. Foreseeing calamity, they had destroyed all their guns and other weapons used for game. But this pledge of pacific intentions was not sufficient to satisfy the government, which required warlike assistance at their hands. Threats and insults were heaped upon them from all quarters; but they steadfastly adhered to their resolution of doing good to both parties and harm to neither. Their houses were filled with widows and orphans, with the sick, the wounded, and the dying, belonging both to the loyalists and the rebels. Sometimes, when the Catholic soldiers were victorious, they would be greatly enraged to find Quaker houses filled with Protestant families. They would point their pistols at their enemies, and threatened, if they were not immediately turned into the street, to be massacred. But the pistol dropped, when the Christian mildly replied, "Friend, do what thou wilt, I will not harm thee, nor any other human being.' Not even amid the Bavage fierceness of civil war, could men fire at one who spoke such words as these. They saw that this was not cowardice, but bravery much higher than their own.

On one occasion, an insurgent threatened to burn down a Quaker house, unless the owner expelled the Protestant women and children, who had taken refuge there. "I cannot help it," replied the Friend; "So long as I have a house, I will keep it open to succor the helpless and distressed, whether they belong to thy ranks, or to those of thine enemies. If my house is burned, I must be turned out with them, and share their affliction." The fighter turned away, and did the Christian no harm.

The Protestant party seized the Quaker schoolmaster of Baltimore, saying they could not see any reason why he should stay at home in quiet, while they were obliged to fight to defend his property. "Friends, I have asked no man to fight for me," replied the schoolmaster. But they dragged him along, swearing that he should stand in front of the army, and, if Le would not fight, he should at least stop a bullet. His house and schoolhouse were filled with women and children, who had taken refuge there; for it was an instructive fact, throughout this bloody contest, that the houses of men of peace, were the only places of safety. Some of the women followed the soldiers begging them not to take away their friend and protector, a man who expended more for the sick and the starving, than others did for arms and ammunition. The schoolmaster said, "Do not be distressed my friends; I forgive these neighbors, for what they do in ignorance of my principles and feelings. They may take my life, but they cannot force me to do injury to one of my fellow creatures." As the Catholics had done, so did the Protestants; they went away and left the man of peace safe in his divine armor.

The flames of bigotry were of course fanned by civil war. On one occa

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sion, the insurgents seized a wealthy old Quaker, in very feeble health, and threatened to shoot him, if he did not go with them to a Catholic priest and be christened. They had not led him far before he sank down, from extreme weakness. "What do you say to our proposition?" asked one of the soldiers, handling his gun significantly. The old man quietly replied, "If thou art permitted to take my life, I hope our heavenly Father will forgive thee." The insurgents talked apart for a few moments, and then went away, restrained by a power they did not understand.

Deeds of kindness added strength to the influence of gentle words. The officers and soldiers of both parties had had some dying brothers tended by the Quakers, or some starving mother who had been fed, or some desolate little ones, that had been cherished. Whichever party marched into a village victorious, the cry was, spare the Quakers! they have done good to all, and harm to none." While flames were raging, and blood flowing in every direction, the houses of the peace-makers stood uninjured.

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It is a circumstance worthy to be recorded, that during the fierce and terrible struggle, even in counties where the Quakers were most numerous, but one of their society fell a sacrifice. That one was a young man, who, being afraid to trust to peace principles, put on a military uniform, and went to the garrison for protection. The garrison was taken by the insurgents, and he was killed. "His dress and arms spoke the language of hostility," says the historian, and "therefore they invited it."

During that troubled period, no armed citizen could travel without peril of his life; but the Quakers regularly attended their Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, going miles across the country, often through an armed and furious multitude, and sometimes obliged to stop and remove corpses from their path. The Catholics, angry at Protestant meetings being thus openly held, but unwilling to harm the Quakers, advised them to avoid the public road, and go by private ways. But they, in their quiet, innocent way, answered that they did not feel clear it would be right for them to go by. any other path than the usual high road. And by the high road they went unmolested; even their young women, unattended by protectors, passed without insult.

Glory to the nation that first ventures to set an example at once so gentle and so brave! And our wars— are they brave or beautiful, even if judged of according to the maxims of the world? The secrets of our cowardly encroachments on Mexico, and of Indian wars, would secure a unanimous verdict in the negative, could they ever be even half revealed to posterity.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.- The Navy Register for 1858 states the number of vessels in the American Navy to be 78, with a burden of 124,812 tons. This would seem to be a formidable fact; but an analyzation of the list shows that of the ten line-of-battle ships only two could be put into service, and of the ten frigates, only six; of the eight first class propeller frigates, two are on the stocks; of the six second class steam frigates, five are on the stocks; and the five permanent receiving ships are all unseaworthy. The remainder of the fleet consists of twenty-one sloops-of-war, two brigs, two schooners, four propellers of the third class, seven paddle-wheel steamers, and three store-ships. So that of the seventy-eight war vessels, only fifty are at the present time in condition for active service, and of those fifty, only thirty are now in commission.

PENSIONS FOR WAR SERVICES.

THERE is no class of public servants, except warriors, that are paid beyond the term of their actual services; but if a man, however steeped in vice, or reeking with crime, has once entered the army or navy for any length of time, it would seem as if there could never be an end of rewarding him, his widow, and his children for we know not how many generations. We copy the aggregate of such pensions, $86,376,687, (army $81,499,241, navy $4,876,846) from the origin of our government to June 3d, 1858, distributed in different sections of the country, as follows:

This amount was paid to the following classes, namely:

To army invalids...

To officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary war,...

To the widows of deceased officers and soldiers of the

Revolutionary war...

To widows and orphans (five years' half pay)..

At the Treasury, but not easily appportionable among the several classes

To invalids and widows and orphans of the navy

To privateer invalids

To widows and orphans of privateer invalids

$13,581,907 12 4,924,832 09

17,465,146 14

3,367,218 56

1,128,303 74

4,467,877 81

154,333 10

254,655 94

It seems from the above analysis, that nearly half a million ($409,189) has been paid in the way of pensions to reward privateers, our legalised pirates! Thus are we, a reputedly Christian people, paying at this hour a premium for what the growing civilization of the age is now branding as piracy, the very deeds for which individuals are deservedly hung!

It would seem, indeed, as if politicians were becoming perfectly insane on the idea of winning favor with the people by favors lavished on men of blood. At the very moment when our industry is prostrate, our treasury exhausted, and the Government living by borrowing, our House of Representatives recently passed, with a majority of nearly two to one, a sweeping pension bill, giving $96 a year, $12 a month, or more than a soldier's usual pay, to every man who served sixty days, or fought in a battle, during our war of 1812 with Great Britain, or in the wars with the Indians at that time. Thus, after nearly half a century, are politicians of every class digging open the graves of that war to find carrion wherewith to feed the supposed popular appetite. We should be glad if this proclivity were peculiar to any one set of political aspirants; but demagogues of every party, and men that would scorn the thought of being demagogues, North and South, East and West, seem to vie with each other in thus courting favor with the multitude. Is neither patriotism nor common sense ever to get the better of this insane, vulgar demagoguism?

This reckless extravagance the people must pay sooner or later, and it is quite time for them to count the cost. How much all this after-pay to warriors for services fifty years ago, will take in time from the national treasury it would be impossible to estimate or conjecture with any certainty; but the sum total must be reckoned by hundreds of millions. Some suppose it would absorb nearly a hundred millions a year, and none reckon it much less than two millions a year for we know not how many years.

The whole subject of pensions for war services demands much more than this passing notice; and we may hereafter give it, from the practice of our own government, and more especially of those in the Old World, a more extended and thorough investigation.

THE MILITIA.

THE assembling of our state legislatures will probably be a signal for new efforts by military men to secure legislative favors for the militia; but we hope they will all end as they did a year ago in Maine. "The militia bill." say the newspapers of the day, "passed both houses to be engrossed, but was killed in the house on its final passage. It provided for a volunteer force of two thousand men at $1,50 a head per annum, making an addition of $9000 to the other expenses of the military department. This bill was killed on its final passage."

OUR ENTIRE MILITIA. The returns of militia in the several states, made to the war department, shows an aggregate of 2,755,000, of whom all but 50,000 are infantry.

CONDITION OF THE MILITIA IN SOME STATES MISSISSIPPI. Senator Davis, of Missisippi, recently made a speech counselling that state to prepare for war against Northern agitation; and thereupon the Vicksburg Whig gives the following inventory of the arms belonging to the State, as ascertained by actual inspection to be on hand, showing what a mere shadow or skeleton our militia system is :

"Four flint-lock muskets, all rusty, and no breeches to at least two; one cannon; seven bayonets, rusty, with no points; a pile of belts and scabbards, but no swords; fifty cartridge boxes." The Whig adds:-"We now have five major generals, ten brigadier-generals, and sixty colonels, sixty lieutenant-colonels, sixty Majors, and will soon have six hundred captains, twelve hundred lieutenants, four thousand eight hundred sergeants, and four thousand eight hundred corporals. We are happy to inform them, however, that we have no privates! the legislature having dispensed with that useless portion of the army."

VERMONT MILITIA.-The war-spirits, both in and out of this State, have been, for some two years or more, making set and persistent efforts to galvanize the militia system there into some degree of vitality and vigor. The good sense of the people, however, will be sure in time to kill the bantling; but there seems now a fair prospect of its having a temporary run of popularity among the politico-military classes. The flood-wood of society will of course drift into the current; and politicians, who seem to have an instinctive affinity for any bubble of the kind which can so easily be made to win votes, will he eager, especially the weak and the unprincipled, to get astride of this hobby, to ride into a vulgar notoriety. The men of sense in Vermont must bear the infliction for a time; but, after trying the humbug a while at an expense of ten or twenty thousand dollars a year to the State, and perhaps five times as much more to individuals, the