and ourselves a cordial correspondence has been maintained for nearly two centuries, we have a special religious as well as national interest in the question; and though the Government of those States has long passed into less pacific hands, yet our brethren there still have a considerable influence on their State Legislatures, and their voice has often been heard with effect at Washington. We shall therefore at once apprize our American Friends of the step which we have now taken, and shall urge them also to use their influence in furtherance of the cause of Peace."

CONDITIONS OF PEACE WITH THE SOUTH.

It is true we could have had peace, but on what terms? Allow a few hundred thousand masters to govern the land, suppress free speech, place this Government which our fathers ordained for liberty on the side of slavery, imbue all its officers with the spirit of despotism, give all our forts into their hands, bow the neck submissively, and say with the beast of Balaam, 'Am I not thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day?' become slaves ourselves; allow what is evidently coming if the South is separate the African slave trade; and we could have had peace.

Peace? No, not yet; one thing more is demanded. We must change our honest convictions. The great grievance the South complains of is that of our consciences. We have no love for slavery. The world loathes it. It is the curse of the country. It is the great black blot on our country. It is the outlaw of civilization. We instinctively feel slavery to be wrong; and no fine-spun logic can overpower that honest conviction. It is a great ulcer, hateful and sickening. We wonder at the infatuation which tries to perpetuate it. Founded in man-stealing, a perpetual robbery, a worse than heathenish denial of natural right, accompanied by brutality, lust, and violence, indefensible for a moment, on natural or Christian principles; who can wonder that they who uphold this system, not as an evil to be borne with, but a good to be made permanent, can but complain of the conscience of the world? We cannot change. We cannot believe slavery to be right. Our fathers fought for liberty; and slavery is opposed to all our traditions. Our declaration says that all men have equal rights in the eye of the law; and slavery denies those rights. Our Constitution declares that our Government was instituted to "establish justice," and slavery is a horrible injustice; to "secure liberty," and slavery is thus banned. It is far from wonderful that they wish to get away from the great Declaration and the Constitution. We are with our fathers. They ask us to change. No! never!-A. H. Quint.

WAR UNCERTAIN.-The results of war are always uncertain, and the avowed object is seldom attained. Our last war with Great Britain was waged because that power claimed the right of impressing British-born seamen in American vessels, on the principle that a British subject could not renounce his allegiance to his own government by entering into the service of a foreign power, or becoming naturalized under it. After enduring the expense, loss and misery of war for a few years, our Government appointed Commissioners to negotiate peace, and they were instructed to insist upon an article by which the offensive claim of Great Britian should be given up. "If this is not done," said the instructions, "the war will have been waged in vain." It was not done; the treaty of peace contained no allusion to the alleged cause of the war !-Friend's Rev.

BOY SOLDIERS:

WAR HATCHING ITS YOUNG BROOD.

The war fever has reached the children. The very babies are in arms. Every street has its home-guard of juveniles. We saw, the other day, in Hudson street, a company of six-year-old "Continentallers" in full revolutionary rig, commanded by a gentleman about four feet high, attired in the uniform of a general officer of Washington's army, and wearing under his three-cocked hat a well powdered wig, with a formidable queue. The members of the company were all nearly of the same height and age; and the gravity with which they marched along the sidewalk to the music of a couple of real drums, would have done honor to veterans. The Zouave dress is, however, most in vogue with our Lilliputian infantry. Red pants and red caps, with gold tassels, are in universal request among heroic youths of from five to twelve years of age, and mothers and sisters find it difficult to supply the demand. We should say, at a rough guess, that Fourteenth street and Fifth Avenue could turn out to-day nearly twohundred Zouaves of tender years, fully equipped and eager for mischief. The uniforms of many of these youngsters are rich and costly; and they may be seen parading the up-town streets and squares every fine day after school hours, very much in the style of military children of a larger growth. It must not be supposed, however, that these little cadets of our "fist families" are a whit more ardent and enthusiastic in their soldiery than the rough and raged urchins that run wild about the streets. This is no silk stocking movement. The little gamins of our Rue St. Antoine have gone into it with all their childish hearts and souls. One sees them every day in the by-streets, mustering by scores, with sticks for muskets, paper caps for shakos, and cracked tin pots for drums, looking just as happy in their "looped and windowed raggedness," as if they had been born with silver spoons in their mouths, and formed a portion of the world's gilt gingerbread. N. Y. Ledger.

THE UNION AS IT IS, OR PERPETUAL WAR.-What better compromise than the Constitution is possible? Suppose we separate, ani form a treaty; then we become aliens, and directly we become enemies. We cannot divide these rivers that go coursing through our land. A treaty would only be a source of unending wars. Not a day would pass without causes of difficulty, and contests that would drench the border in blood. If we cannot live under the Constitution, we certainly cannot be safe by a treaty, nor rest upon compromise.-Senator Johnson.

FOOD FOR AN ARMY.-An army officer estimates that 50,000 men consume daily 311 tons of provisions. Assuming that the men could carry three days' food, 300 horses would be required to carry the food needed for each day after. Their baggage and ammunition would require at least as much more carrying material; so that an army of 50,000, properly supplied, and having a small proportion of horse soldiers, would need over 1,000 horses, carrying a ton each, for a single days' necessaries. The following is a careful estimate of the farm products required for a year by the great army of 500,000 authorized by Congress: 684,000 barrels of pork, 1,140,625 of beef, 5,239,563 bushels of wheat, and 456,250 of beans. For 75,000 horses, 101,625 tons of hay and 10,265,525 bushels of oats will be required If this amount was placed in wagon-loads of fifty bushels of grain each

and a ton each of the other articles, and the wagons placed in a continuous line, allowing thirty feet to each, they would reach about 3,000 miles; so that while the head rested in Washington, the rear might be watering their horses in the bay of San Francisco. This calculation makes no allowance for waste or loss by capture, nor for the consumption of those not belonging to the legitimate army, nor for the navy; nor does it include the rice, coffee, sugar, vinegar, candles, soap, and salt required by regular rations.

THE MANASSAS BATTLE FIELD.-Early yesterday morning I took a rapid ride over this famous battle field. The effect was terrible. The field stretched desolate, but not blank before the eye. Most of the Yankee dead had been merely covered up in shallow trenches; and from these broken mounds, black and putrified limbs stretched out to the sight. Here was a head partially uncovered, with the hair dropping off at the touch of the finger; there a bunch of ghastly and putrified fingers clenched over the shallow earth of its grave. The stench was almost intolerable, even in the morning air. An army surgeon, who accompanied us in our visit to the field, says that on visiting it but a day after the battle, he found the corpses with which it was strewn, black as negroes. The field itself shows no signs of the scars of war. The grass has grown again; but the torn and mangled timber in every direction, shows the terrible effects of the fire. Even in little trees, scarcely the thickness of the arm, five or six shots can be pointed out.

A HARVEST OF DEATH.-Dr. Lyon, Brigade Surgeon under Gen. Lyon at the battle of Wilson's Creek, was witness to the following extraordinary incident: A rebel soldier waved a large and costly secession flag defiantly, when a cannon ball struck him to the earth dead. A second soldier instantly picked up the prostrate flag, and waived it again; a second cannon_ball instantly shattered his body. A third soldier raised and waved the flag; and a third cannon ball crushed into his breast, and he fell dead. Yet a fourth time was the flag raised; the soldier waved it, and turned to climb over the fence with it into the woods. As he stood astride the fence a moment, balancing to keep the heavy flag upright, a fourth cannon ball struck him in the side, cutting him completely in two, so that one half of his body fell on one side of the fence, and the other half on the other side, while the flag itself lodged on the fence, and was captured a few minutes afterwards by our troops.'

AFTER-SCENES OF BATTLE AT WILSON'S CREEK.--Six of our wounded menlived nine days on the battle field at Wilson's Creek, Mo., before they were accidentally discovered by a Union man travelling over the field, who took them home and had them cared for. One of the men thus found, named Gronert, a German, was wounded at first in the leg; and, after lying about an hour, the wound becoming painful, he changed the position of the wounded leg by placing it on the well one, when he was again shot in the foot of the same ieg that was injured. These poor men obtained nourishment to prolong existence amid this scene of horrors by crawling about, and getting at the contents of the haversacks strewn about the field amid the carcasses of men and horses.

ATROCITIES OF THE REBELLION.

We are not at all disappointed in the moral character of the rebellion or civil war now raging in our country. War in any form, and for any object, is bad enough; but we early foresaw that a war by professedly Christian Slaveholders for the permanent support and extension of slavery-the only true designation of this contest-in such a land and age as ours, would probably be attended with outrages and horrors very like those of the first French Revolution. We deem it our duty to chronicle a few specimens too well attested to doubt their substantial truth.

HIRING INDIANS TO FIGHT US.-Rebel emissaries were early sent to enlist the Indians; and most of the tribes have caught the bait, and promised active aid. A body of 1300 Indian warriors, armed with rifle, bowieknife and tomahawk, and with their faces painted one half red, and the other black, joined at one time the rebel camp at Arkansas. In our Revolutionary war there were in the British Parliament men brave and humane enough to denounce their own government for employing Indians in their savage warfare; but the South is eager to get such allies, and to bring them, with their barbarous weapons, into the field.

THE REBEL MODE OF WARFARE.-"If, turning from this revolting spectacle, we fix our gaze," says the Washington Intelligencer, "upon the kind of war which the secessionists themselves wage in Missouri, and in a greater or less degree wherever they have the power, we shall be brought to the conclusion, that the presence of Indian savages cannot greatly intensify the horrors of the internecine strife into which they willingly plunge every State or community that they cannot entirely control or possess. The condition into which they have brought Missouri is thus described by the St. Louis Republican: The Secessionists of Missouri have undertaken to make this State too hot for those who love the Union and the Constitution of our fathers. Pretending to build the edifice of disunion on the doctrine of State rights, they wage war upon the State as well as upon individuals. And their way of waging war! Shooting into passenger trains; lying in wait in ambush and behind stumps, to fire upon some defenceless traveller; placing kegs of powder upon railroad tracks; calling citizens out of their beds at night to tar and feather or hang them; robbing fields of their crops, orchards of their fruits, farms of their stock; burning bridges and depots; setting fire to barns and dwellings, and establishing such a reign of terror as is making women and children frantic, and driving peace-loving inhabitants from their homes by scores and hundreds.'

"The condition of affairs in Southwest Missouri is deplorable. Numberless atrocities and excesses are daily committed by the rebel forces and those in league and sympathy with them. It is estimated that four-fifths of the horses in possession of the rebel troops, who are generally mounted, were stolen. Foraging parties levy their contributions on friends and foes alike. Frequent robberies of stores have been committed. Large quantities of grain have been taken, and all the flouring mills have been pressed to perform a share in the exactions. This system of plunder is but a small part of the aggravations which afflict the inhabitants in the region indicated. Their fears are excited by roving bands of Indians accompanying the rebel horde. It is averred that a Cherokee named Fry has a commission in his deer skin pouch ensuring him a reward of $50 for the scalp usually worn by Dr. Stemmer, of Jasper county."

TREATMENT OF THE WOUNDED AND PRISONERS.-A writer who " gives only accounts taken from officers of what they themselves saw" at Bull Run, avows that "the proofs are overwhelming and incontrovertible, that our wounded mer. were systematically murdered, that our surgeons were systematically shot down, that our ambulances were systematically blown up by shells, and that at the last, our hospital, a church building, was charged on by cavalry, who rode up and fired their revolvers through the windows at the wounded men as they lay on the floors, and at the surgeons who were attending to their wants, and that the enemy eventually set fire to the building, and burned it, and in it scores of wounded and dying men." During the battle "they carried American flags to deceive our men, and when small squads that had got separated from their regiments, approached these flags, they were fired upon and slaughtered. The Rebels, also, fired upon the wounded, standing them up for targets, and then firing at them. One of the Connecticut men saw this done. A number of the 2d New York saw the Rebels' sharpshooters fire upon and kill two vivandieres who were giving wine and water to the wounded. They also shot at ambulances bringing off the wounded, attacked flags of truce sent out to succor the suffering, fired point-blank at the buildings used as hospitals, and it is said by some, that they fired the buildings. Capt. Haggerty was killed in a charge. When his body was found, his throat was cut from ear to ear, and his ears and nose were cut off. Many of the wounded were found thus disfigured. The faces of our dead were found horribly mauled with the butt-ends of muskets, and their bodies filled with wounds, evidently inflicted after they had fallen on the field. Poor Capt. Downey, being overpowered by numbers, threw down his arms and surrendered. We take no prisoners, d-n ye,' was the reply; and he was literally blown to pieces, no less than sixteen palls entering his body."

“We have had," says the N. Y. Observer, " a conversation with a young gentleman who was an active participant in the fight at Bull Run. We have known him well for many years, and have entire confidence in his veracity. He confirms the statements that have been denied respecting the atrocities perpetrated by the rebels on our wounded. His own observation enabled him to testify that our wounded were butchered while they were lying helpless, and pleading for mercy. It is painful to repeat such statements; but, when they come to us in a way to compel us to believe them, it is a duty to make them known to the shame of the men who do such deeds, even in the excitement of war."

FEMALE BRUTALITY.-It would seem as if the rebellion made in some cases monsters even of women. "A benevolent (!) lady offers in one case a liberal premium for human scalps sufficient to make a bed-quilt!" The N. Y. Commercial Advertiser says on reliable authority, that "an officer took possession of the valuable trunks of a rebel officer, with his beautiful uniform, linen, watch, bowie-knife, Bible (!) and letters; and one of the letters, (opened to find a direction) written by a lady, closed with this sentence, If you succeed in killing a Yankee, I wish you would skin him and tan the hide; I have something in mind that I want to make of it.""

REWARDS FOR BRUTALITY.-The Southern Congress some time ago offered a bounty of twenty dollars for each person on board any armed ship or vessel belonging to the United States, at the commencement of any engagement, which shall be burned, sunk or destroyed by any vessel commissioned as aforesaid, for each and every prisoner by them captured and brought into port.' We believe that such a piece of barbarism as this never before disgraced the statute-book of a professedly civilized people.