3. There is a topic which I approach with diffidence, but in the spirit of frankness. It is the influence which War, though condemned by Christ, has derived from the _Christian Church_. When Constantine, on one of his marches, at the head of his army, beheld the luminous trophy of the cross in the sky, right above the meridian sun, inscribed with the words, _By this conquer_, had his soul been penetrated by the true spirit of Him whose precious symbol it was, he would have found no inspiration to the spear and the sword. He would have received the lesson of self-sacrifice as from the lips of the Saviour, and learned that by no earthly weapon of battle can true victory be won. The pride of conquest would have been rebuked, and the bawble sceptre have fallen from his hands. _By this conquer_: by patience, suffering, forgiveness of evil, by all those virtues of which the cross is the affecting token, _conquer_, and the victory shall be greater than any in the annals of Roman conquest; it may not yet find a place in the records of man, but it will appear in the register of everlasting life. The Christian Church, after the early centuries, failed to discern the peculiar spiritual beauty of the faith it professed. Like Constantine, it found new incentive to War in the religion of Peace; and such is its character, even in our own day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head of the Church, Vicegerent of Christ upon earth, whose seal is a fisherman, on whose banner is a Lamb before the Holy Cross, assumed the command of armies, mingling the thunders of Battle with the thunders of the Vatican. The dagger projecting from the sacred vestments of De Retz, while still an archbishop, was justly derided by the Parisian crowd as "the Archbishop's breviary." We read of mitred prelates in armor of proof, and seem still to catch the clink of the golden spurs of bishops in the streets of Cologne. The sword of knighthood was consecrated by the Church, and priests were expert masters in military exercises. I have seen at the gates of the Papal Palace in Rome a constant guard of Swiss soldiers; I have seen, too, in our own streets, a show as incongruous and inconsistent,--the pastor of a Christian church swelling the pomp of a military parade. And some have heard, within a few short weeks, in a Christian pulpit, from the lips of an eminent Christian divine, a sermon, where we are encouraged to _serve the God of Battles, and, as citizen soldiers, fight for Peace_:[56] a sentiment in unhappy harmony with the profane language of the British peer, who, in addressing the House of Lords, said, "_The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War_, and that in the manner we are taught to worship our Creator, namely, by carrying it on with all our souls, with all our minds, with all our hearts, and with all our strength,"[57]--but finding small support in a religion that expressly enjoins, when one cheek is smitten, to turn the other, and which we hear with pain from