Much, indeed, from this point of view, does our national behaviour in the East during unparalleled difficulties redound to the _glory_ of that God from whom all “holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed.” Never have we been in such straits. Never have we acted so graciously and so in accordance with the spirit of our Gospel. Before us stood—a sickening and never-to-be-forgotten sight—a vast army in deadly and rebellious array—an army made up of men with whom we had gone side by side to victory over a common foe—men our familiar friends, to whom we had extended, and were learning more and more to extend, the right hand of social fellowship—men whom we had not only treated kindly, but, as was reported and believed, had verily spoiled by forbearing gentleness. There they stand—a rebellious horde—raging “furiously,” and imagining a “vain thing,” doing all they can, by slaying the innocent and dishonouring the chaste, to tempt us to forget our nature and our nature’s God, and to assimilate ourselves to their unholy and fiendish temperaments. Nothing, however, that they do disturbs for a moment the balance of Christian power and influence in our national and common mind. To war, indeed, do we sally forth in saddest necessity and from a sense of duty, but it is to a war of a _purely defensive_ character on our part, and nothing more. No hunting down the adversary, no trampling upon him, no tearing away the suckling from the breast, for the sweetness of being revenged, have characterized our doings. Vengeance have we repudiated, or rather, I should say, not dared to handle, being, as we conceive, an attribute belonging solely to God, and too fearful to be entrusted to fallen man. Here and there, it is true, the pulpit and the press, losing their moral self-possession, raised awhile in our hearing that ancient Christ-condemned cry of retaliation—“an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;” but soon, very soon, was that harsh and ugly sound let die away and for ever perish in the softer strain of the Son of God—“But I say unto you, _that ye resist not __evil_; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Yes. No vengeance, no retaliation—God’s holy name be praised—have stained the banner of England. We fought honourably and for noble ends. We have slain, alas! but only those on whom the law of God and the law of man would have passed sentence of death, if required so to do. We have fought, who can deny it? but fought that we might “live and let live”—that the world might be peaceably ordered—and that “peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety,” might be established amongst us, amongst the people committed to our charge, even the hosts of India, “for all generations.” We are ashamed neither of our deeds nor our motives. They, indeed, are not ours; this is _why_ we are not ashamed of them—but as we have said, they are God’s—God’s, that is, so