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for battle. Still, even now on the very verge of actual hostilities, the people are scarcely able to believe that the whole thing is not a strange dream. They admit the crisis, and yet persistently refuse to credit it. Even the public journals, which speculate most about the war, do it with a coolness, a sang froid, which betokens anything but an actual realization of its horrid propinquity. And yet any month, indeed almost any week, may bring the whole continent into chaotic confusion.-N. Y. Cour.

FAILURE OF WAR MEANS.

Our land, if not the world, resounded not long ago with expectation of what was to be achieved by our fleet, a very large one for us, sent to chastise or intimidate Paraguay into acquiescence in our demands. What is the result? It seems that Lopez, the President of Paraguay, was quite ready to receive "any properly authorized and discreet commissioner" with favor, and that the chief difficulty in the way of a settlement arose from the very means we had thus employed to enforce it, from the fleet itself!

"It does not yet appear that our armed fleet, got together and equipped at great trouble, and costing in the whole not far from $5,000,000," has been of any use whatever. The first thing which Mr. Bowlin (our Envoy) says he had to do, on arriving in the South American ports, was to remove the reserve and enmity occasioned by the character of the fleet! It was only when he had effected the impression that his designs were not hostile, that he began to make any headway in his mission. Next time we have any difficulty with foreign rulers, let us try a commissioner without a fleet."

Such is the wisdom of war means in settling national difficulties. Here are millions wasted, and worse than wasted, on a fleet that just obstructed the object it was sent to accomplish; and yet this feat will be shouted all over the land, and paraded in the President's next annual message to Congress, as a signal triumph of "our gallant navy." When will common sense be applied to the intercourse of nations, as it is that of individuals?

ENLISTMENT OF THE PRESS AND PULPIT ON BEHALF OF PEACE. These are now the great moral forces of the world; and it has from the first been the aim of our cause to secure their habitual advocacy of its claims. Its chief reliance has been on them; and it is by this course that we have been able to accomplish so much with such very slender means as have been at our command.

We wish, however, to do vastly more in this way. There are in our country more than thirty thousand pulpits, and nearly three thousand periodicals; and all these we hope in time to see becoming steady, reliable co-workers with us on in the work of Peace. We have already secured some of them; and we now contemplate special efforts to enlist them all.

For this purpose our Committee hope to secure the means of sending our Advocate regularly, with some of our other most effective publications, to all the periodicals in our land, to all our higher seminaries of learning, and to leading ministers of religion in every denomination. This will require a large outlay for us, but will be worth vastly more than it can cost. Will not some intelligent, wealthy friends of our cause furnish from their abundance the funds requisite for this purpose?

GENERAL AGENT. - Rev. C. S MACREADING, has entered the service of our Society, as Lecturer and General Agent. We would commend him in his work to the confidence and co-operation of the Christian community. His labors will be chiefly at the East and North for the present. We trust he will meet a cordial welcome, an open door, and cheerful, ready responses wherever he may go.

ANNIVERSARY.-The American Peace Society will hold its Thirty-first Anniversary in Boston, May 23, in Park Street Church, at half-past 7 P. M. The business meeting will be at 3 P. M. The public services will consist chiefly of an Eulogy on the Society's late President, Hon. WILLIAM JAY, by the Rev. GEO. B. CHEEVER, D. D.

WILLIAM C. BROWN, Rec. Secretary.

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AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY.

CONGREGATIONAL LIBRARY BUILDING, CHAUNCEY STREET.