it binds the angels of Heaven, Cherubim, full of knowledge, Seraphim, full of love; above all, it binds, in self-imposed bonds, a just and omnipotent God. This is the law of which the ancient poet sings, as _Queen alike of mortals and immortals_. It is of this, and not of any earthly law, that Hooker speaks in that magnificent period which sounds like an anthem: "Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy." Often quoted, and justly admired, sometimes as the finest sentence of our English speech, this grand declaration cannot be more fitly invoked than to condemn the pretence of one law for the individual and another for the nation. Stripped of all delusive apology, and tried by that comprehensive law under which nations are set to the bar like common men, War falls from glory into barbarous guilt, taking its place among bloody transgressions, while its flaming honors are turned into shame. Painful to existing prejudice as this may be, we must learn to abhor it, as we abhor similar transgressions by vulgar offender. Every word of reprobation which the enlightened conscience now fastens upon the savage combatant in Trial by Battle, or which it applies to the unhappy being who in murderous duel takes the life of his fellow-man, belongs also to the nation that appeals to War. Amidst the thunders of Sinai God declared, "Thou shalt not kill"; and the voice of these thunders, with this commandment, is prolonged to our own day in the echoes of Christian churches. What mortal shall restrict the application of these words? Who on earth is empowered to vary or abridge the commandments of God? Who shall presume to declare that this injunction was directed, not to nations, but to individuals only,--not to many, but to one only,--that one man shall not kill, but that many may,--that one man shall not slay in Duel, but that a nation may slay a multitude in the duel of War,--that each individual is forbidden to destroy the life of a single human being, but that a nation is not forbidden to cut off by the sword a whole people? We are struck with horror, and our hair stands on end, at the report of a single murder; we think of the soul hurried to final account; we hunt the murderer; and Government puts forth its energies to secure his punishment. Viewed in the unclouded light of Truth, what is War but organized murder,--murder of malice aforethought,--in cold blood,--under sanctions of _impious law_,--through the operation of an extensive machinery of crime,--with innumerable hands,--at incalculable cost of money,--by subtle