"A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged; Without unspotted, innocent within, _She feared no danger, for she knew no sin_." _The Hind and the Panther_, Part I. 1-4. At the thought of such a change, the imagination loses itself in vain effort to follow the multitudinous streams of happiness which gush forth from a thousand hills. Then shall the naked be clothed and the hungry fed; institutions of science and learning shall crown every hill-top; hospitals for the sick, and other retreats for the unfortunate children of the world, for all who suffer in any way, in mind, body, or estate, shall nestle in every valley; while the spires of new churches leap exulting to the skies. The whole land shall testify to the change. Art shall confess it in the new inspiration of the canvas and the marble. The harp of the poet shall proclaim it in a loftier rhyme. Above all, the heart of man shall bear witness to it, in the elevation of his sentiments, in the expansion of his affections, in his devotion to the highest truth, in his appreciation of true greatness. The eagle of our country, without the terror of his beak, and dropping the forceful thunderbolt from his pounces, shall soar, with the olive of Peace, into untried realms of ether, nearer to the sun. * * * * * I pause to review the field over which we have passed. We have beheld War, sanctioned by International Law as a mode of determining _justice_ between nations, elevated into an _established custom_, defined and guarded by a complex code known as the Laws of War; we have detected its origin in an appeal, not to the moral and intellectual part of man's nature, in which alone is Justice, but to that low part which he has in common with the beast; we have contemplated its infinite miseries to the human race; we have weighed its sufficiency as a mode of determining justice between nations, and found that it is a rude invocation to force, or a gigantic game of chance, in which God's children are profanely treated as a pack of cards, while, in unnatural wickedness, it is justly likened to the monstrous and impious custom of Trial by Battle, which disgraced the Dark Ages,--thus showing, that, in this day of boastful civilization, justice between nations is determined by the same rules of barbarous, brutal violence which once controlled the relations between individuals. We have next considered the various prejudices by which War is sustained, founded on a false belief in its necessity,--the practice of nations, past and present,--the infidelity of the Christian Church,--a mistaken sentiment of honor,--an exaggerated idea of the duties of patriotism,--and finally, that monster prejudice which draws its vampire life from the vast Preparations for War in time of Peace;--especially dwelling, at this stage, upon the thriftless, irrational, and unchristian character of these Preparations,--hailing