contrivances of cunning and skill,--or amidst the fiendish atrocities of the savage, brutal assault? By another commandment, not less solemn, it is declared, "Thou shalt not steal"; and then again there is another forbidding to covet what belongs to others: but all this is done by War, which is stealing and covetousness organized by International Law. The Scythian, undisturbed by the illusion of military glory, snatched a phrase of justice from an acknowledged criminal, when he called Alexander "the greatest robber in the world." And the Roman satirist, filled with similar truth, in pungent words touched to the quick that flagrant, unblushing injustice which dooms to condign punishment the very guilt that in another sphere and on a grander scale is hailed with acclamation:-- "Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, his diadema."[55] [55] Juvenal, Sat. XIII. 105. The same judgment is pronounced by Fénelon in his counsels to royalty, entitled, _Examen de Conscience sur les Devoirs de la Royauté_. While condemning the ordinary malefactor, mankind, blind to the real character of War, may yet a little longer crown the giant actor with glory; a generous posterity may pardon to unconscious barbarism the atrocities which have been waged; but the _custom_, as organized by existing law, cannot escape the unerring judgment of reason and religion. The outrages, which, under most solemn sanctions, it permits and invokes for professed purposes of justice, cannot be authorized by any human power; and they must rise in overwhelming judgment, not only against those who wield the weapons of Battle, but more still against all who uphold its monstrous Arbitrament. * * * * * When, O, when shall the St. Louis of the Nations arise,--Christian ruler or Christian people,--who, in the Spirit of True Greatness, shall proclaim, that hence-forward forever the great Trial by Battle shall cease,--that "these battles" shall be _abolished_ throughout the Commonwealth of Civilization,--that _a spectacle so degrading_ shall never be allowed again to take place,--and that it is the duty of nations, involving the highest and wisest policy, to establish love between each other, and, in all respects, at all times, with all persons, whether their own people or the people of other lands, to be governed by the sacred _Law of Right_, as between man and man? IV.