officer s regiment having got a bracelet which will probably be worth from $500,000 to $1,000,000. Another letter from younger officer received at Clifton, states that the writer has got three superb embroidered shawls of rare workmanship and great price."

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

In 1823, when the allied despots of Europe were inclinded to interfere in behalf of Spain for the recovery of her American colonies, and to prevent their becoming permanent republics, our government, under President Monroe, entered into an understanding with England to resist such interference and gave a distinct, significant and effective intimation that we would not consent to it. It was a wise and beneficent use of diplomacy, and served for the time an admirable purpose. But a wild, reckless use has since been made of it by filibusters and unprincipled demagogues. It has been assumed even by some statesmen of whom better things were to be expected, and by no small party of our people, very much as if the American Contitinent belonged to ourselves.

Of this doctrine, the National Intelligencer sometime since gave a long and elaborate history, concluding thus:

:

"We have thus endeavored to lay before our readers a faithful history of a much mooted topic in American politics. Let us briefly recapitulate the points we have, as we think, established beyond successful controversy:

1. That the Monroe declaration of 1823. in both its phases, had its origin in the changed relations and new responsibilities imposed on the several states of the American Continent, arising especially from the emancipation of the Spanish Colonies, and rendering it conducive to the interest of all that the American Continent should not be subject to future colonization by any European power as waste and unoccupied territory; and that no foreign State or States should be allowed to intervene in the domestic affairs of any American people, for the purpose of suppressing republican institutions.

2. That the Monroe declaration, in so far as it related to the threatened intervention of the Holy Alliance in the concerns of the Spanish-American States, was intended to meet a particular contingency of events, and therefore passed away with the occasion which called it forth.

3. That the Monroe do ctrine, in so far as it relates to the colonization o the American Continent by any European Power, was not intended to bind the United States to guard the territory of the New World from such occupation by European States; but was intended to indicate, as an important principle of American public policy," that each State should guard by its own mears against the establishment of any future European colony" within the jurisdiction of its flag. That is, the American Continent was no longer held open to colonization as derelict territory, capable of occupa tion by right of discovery and settlement.

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4. That the "Monroe doctrine" was not, in any proper sense, pledge," and as such was especially discarded by the democratic party. The current interpretation of the "Monroe doctrine," has, therefore, no found tion in the truth of history, and, if defended at all, must be defended on its intrinsic merits."

COST OF REPAIRING WAR-SHIPS.

Repairing seems to have risen to the dignity of a main business in the Navy Department. Building is only an accessory, a contingent, a sort of mold into which repairs are to be conducted. We have before us a report of the Secretary of the Navy, in answer to a resolution of the Senate calling for information as to the time at which each of the vessels of the navy were built, their original cost, the cost of repairs, and their present condition.

A glance at these statistics will show the propriety of our remarks above. For instance, the ship-of-the-line North Carolina, built at Philadelphia in 1820, cost originally $431,852, but has since cost in repairs $199,814, and now needs more repairs. The Ohio, built in the same year, for $309,769, has been repaired to the amount of $764,252, and is not in good condition now. Several other ships-of-the-line have the same history; in fact, it is the general rule. It applies as well to the modern as to the ancient built. Thus, the Germantown, built at Philadelphia in 1846 for $142,956, had over $14,000 repairs in '48, $6,000 in 49, $23,000 in '51 $48,000 '53, and nearly $49,000 in '57. The brig Perry displays a still more remarkable case. She was built at Gosport in 1843 for $42,672, but her repairs have already amounted to over $115,000! They appear to have put repairs on her to the average amount of 15,000 from year to year, until at last in 1857, they got tired of this slow process, and laid out at once $47,870 — $5,000 more than her first cost, and the Secretary is compelled to add in a note: "Complete accounts have not been rendered!"

But where ships have been built in sufficient numbers, it would look as if they had been purchased for the sake of repairing. Thus, the schooner Fennimore Cooper was bought for $8,000, and received immediate repairs to the amount of $7,261. The storeship Release was bought for $17,000 and double that amount, or $34,116, was used in repairing her. The Department, a dozen years since, gave $45,000 for the Supply, spent $59,000 in getting her into shape, and has since laid out in her repairs over $70,

000!

So the list goes on, repairs, repairs, repairs! The question is suggested whether it would not be better policy to destroy the old vessels at once in many of the cases, and build anew, instead of reconstructing them under the name of repairs. The present process does more than illustrate the old joke about the stocking that was darned until not a thread of the original fabric remained; for, if we were to judge by the figures above, we should say that the child sock of common yarn had gradually given way to one of the hugest specimens of the celebrated "silk stocking" family.

WAR IN EUROPE.

The political sky of Europe has been supposed for some months past to portend war; and meanwhile all sorts of rumors and speculations have be come more or less current. We profess no special wisdom or forecast in such matters; but we must own that we have not, to any considerable extent, shared these alarms. Yet they certainly develop facts and tendencies connected with the war-system, to which public attention ought to be turned in earnest :

1. This system, on which nations seem chiefly to depend for security, is clearly their great source of danger. If Europe, with her millions of soldiers, and hundreds or thousands of war-ships, were not so well prepared for war, there would now have been little, if any, thought of appealing to the sword. The effect of these enormous military preparations on the

question of actual war, is very like that of individuals in society going armed to the teeth with revolvers and bowie-knives, just to prevent violence and blood-shed! Every body knows, the semi-savages themselves who indulge the practice, admit that it increases the general danger more then ten-fold. So with the system of ful and constant preparation for war. It provokes ten wars where it averts one, turns all Europe into a vast camp with her three million warriors all sleeping with their armor on, and makes her so-called peace little better than an armed truce, to be broken by any and every party at pleasure. Yet such is the climax of Christian statesmanship in the nineteenth century; the application made of the gospel for the cure of this immemorial and world-wide evil, the greatest and most deeply rooted, paganism alone excepted, that ever afflicted the human race!

2. We see how very difficult it is to change the war-habits of Christendom. At the close of the Crimean war, there was made, in the Congress of Paris, a set effort to break up the practice of relying on the sword for the settlement of international disputes, and to substitute in its place a resort to some form of arbitration. All the great powers of Europe gave their assent to this principle; and, had it been wisely as well as honestly applied, it would have obviated all danger or idea of war in the present emergency. We do not accuse the parties of insincerity; for, however sincere they may have been, it is quite impossible to change at once the old, immemorial reliance on the sword. It must take many years, if not ages, to cure, in either rulers or people, those deep-seated war-habits; a result hat will alone require a hundred-fold mure effort than the friends of peace have yet made.

3. Meanwhile public opinion, such as has already been created in behalf of peace, or may be rallied for the emergency, must be our chief reliance to hold nations back from actual war. We own it is a very slender, precarious dependence, a broken reed at best, and it may prove a piercing spear; but it is all we have for the present, and should be turned to the best possible account. Nor would it be without much hope of success, if all the professed friends of peace-the Christian Church, the Christian Pulpit, and the Christian Press-would only do what they might and should to keep the sword in its scabbard. Nay, they alone might, if they would, insure, even under the present miserable war-system, the actual peace of all Christendom to the end of time. Will not God hold them to a heavy responsibility for the result?

HINTS FROM CORRESPONDENTS.

IN our last, we gave from business correspondence some very suggestive extracts, and we are quite inclined to add a few more in the present number.

A Western Pastor, after referring to a service for our cause which he had undertaken with only partial success, says, "Your cause I still love ; and, if you do not receive a collection from my church, and only a trifling

pittance from me," the letter contained his own annual donation - "bear in mind that the Western field is crying aloud, oh, how loud, for help, and we are all the while planting churches, and building meeting-houses, which duty devolves upon comparatively few. I hope you will hear from Illinois hereafter."

Another friend, enclosing his donation of three dollars, writes from Wisconsin in the following strain “Christian friends, the cause in which you are engaged, is the cause of truth and righteousness, and must be established on earth before the full tide of millenial glory can be ushered in." There never was a truer sentiment, but quite unlike the way in which the mass of Christians seem to reason. They tell us, first spread the gospel everywhere in its full efficacy, and peace will then follow as a matter of course. But how can the gospel be thus spread, so long as war continues as it has among all Christians for more than fifteen centuries? The idea is absurd, a practical contradiction in terms. We may just as well think to convert the wicked without repentance or faith as without peace. Another excellent friend ($5 enclosed) says, "Some people ask, what • good does the Peace Society do? Such inquirers evidently have not been in the habit of reading its publications, and take no note of the progress which the Peace Cause has made in our land, and in Europe. Those who have kept themselves well posted on the subject for the last twenty or thirty years, know that great good has been done; and the friends of the cause have no reason to be discouraged in their labors, but ought rather to take courage from the progress already made, and go ahead in patience and faith. All reforms are slow at the beginning. Only think how very little after near nineteen hundred years, has been done for the world's conversion to Christianity! Nineteen-twentieths of the human race are probably now in their sins. Why not say, 'can't do anything must give it up?''

Another intelligent, steadfast friend, enclosing his two dollars, and regretting it could not have been more, exclaims, "O! what a shame that so few ministers and Christians take any active part in this great work of beating swords into plough-shares, and spears into pruning-hooks! It seems as if most Christians, as well as a wicked world, expect that God will bring about a state of Peace on earth without their agency. Truly, the cause of Peace is an uphill business; and I do not wonder you are sometimes almost discouraged. But still they that are for us, are more than those that be against us. Be of good courage, and stick to the ship of Peace. Our Father is at the helm; and she will yet outride the storms of war, and arrive at last safe in a haven of universal PEACE."

Such is the unusual strain of our correspondence; but we sometimes find among professed friends of peace modes of reasoning that seem strangely preposterous, and utterly fatal to any and every enterprise of Christian reform. When one stops the Advocate because forsooth he "has no time to read it," we are always sure to find him more or less wrong on the general subject, and much in need of information on it, though he thinks he knows all about it, or so much that he has little occasion to read or hear any more.

.

Here is one such case: "I feel that, if the gospel is carried by faithful servants, and in kindness explained to all people, peace will follow, and therefore we must give our aid to assist in that great work first." God speed and largely increase all efforts in every such work; but that these efforts do not supersede the necessity of specific means in the cause of Peace, is proved, beyond all controversy, by the fact that the gospel, without such efforts as we are making, has not in fact put an end to the practice of war in any land, and still more by the strange fact, that the very Christians who reason in this way about there being no need of any more effort in the cause of peace than what will follow as a matter of course, still cling to the war-system as a necessity, and seem to have little, if any real idea of ever abandoning it, unless it should chance to cease somehow, without effort or means, in some vague future called the millenium! If the gospel is carried "aright;" but will it, or can it ever be, without such an application as we are trying to make of its pacific principles ? Never; and such an application will never be made by those who reason in this way. So another, who has been an "advocate of our cause for twenty years," aid sends "his best wishes and humble prayers for its prosperity," still indulges a sort of logic that would kill ere long, not only this cause, but every enterprise of benevolence or reform. "If the professed ministers of the gospel of Christ, which is a gospel of peace, will do their duty,-and they are paid for doing it, -more can be accomplished by them than by all other means now in use." Be it so; but how can you make sure of their doing so? What have they been doing in all these long ages of blood, and, if left to themselves, what will they do hereafter to abolish the custom of War? If they do so little, after all the light we are spreading on the subject, what can we expect of them when peace societies shall all cease? Our friend would "trust to other means, such as the press, enlightened public opinion, and especially the promise of God in the Gospel of His Son, to carry on and complete the work." But how does God usually "carry on and complete" any such work? Without any means? Never. Does our friend trust God to support his own family without suitable means on his part? No more right have we to expect He will "carry on and complete" the work of Peace without the means he has appointed for the purpose. Christians as a body are almost entirely neglecting these means; and, so long as they continue such neglect, it would be just as preposterous and suicidal to leave the cause of Peace with them, as it would be to leave that of Temperance with a set of Christians who are wont, and deem it right, habitually to make, and sell, and drink alcohol as a beverage. Every such proposal is a practical abandonment of our cause. Our friends, here quoted, do not mean

so; but such would surely be the result of their logic.

A NEW LABORER.-Rev. C. S. MACREADING, who has been for some time under commission as one of our lecturers, but has thus far performed only incidental labor for us, is expected early in March to enter our service as our General Agent, and devote his whole time to our cause. We would bespeak for him a cordial welcome from the friends of Peace.