Such were some of his labors for liberty. The mind instinctively recalls the parallel exertions of John Milton. He, too, was a defender of liberty. His "Defence of the People of England" drew to him, living, a larger fame than his sublime epic. But Channing's labors were of a higher order, more instinct with Christian sentiment, more truly worthy of renown. Milton's _Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_ was for the _political_ freedom of the English people, supposed at that time to number four and a half millions. It was written after the "bawble" of royalty had been removed, and in the confidence that the good cause was triumphantly established, beneath the protecting genius of Cromwell. Channing's _Defensio pro Populo Africano_ was for the _personal_ freedom of three million fellow-men in abject bondage, none of whom knew that his eloquent pen was pleading their cause. The efforts of Milton produced his blindness; those of Channing exposed him to obloquy and calumny. How justly might the Philanthropist have borrowed the exalted words of the Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner!-- "What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied _In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe rings from side to side_." The same spirit of justice and humanity animating him in defence of liberty inspired his exertions for the abolition of the barbarous custom or institution of War. When I call war an institution, I mean international war, sanctioned, explained, and defined by the Law of Nations, as a mode of determining questions of right. I mean war, the arbiter and umpire, the Ordeal by Battle, deliberately continued in an age of civilization, as the means of justice between nations. Slavery is an institution sustained by municipal law. War is an institution sustained by the Law of Nations. Both are relics of the early ages, and are rooted in violence and wrong. The principle, already considered, that nations and individuals are bound by one and the same rule, applies here with unmistakable force. The Trial by Battle, to which individuals once appealed for justice, is branded by our civilization as _monstrous_ and _impious_; nor can we recognize honor in the successful combatant. Christianity turns from these scenes, as abhorrent to her best injunctions. And is it right in nations to prolong a usage, monstrous and impious in individuals? There can be but one answer.