So we, a most Christian nation, with abundance of Christian prelates, and a church which is to watch over the state with apostolic care,—we, strenuous professors of a religion of peace and enlightenment,—spend eight millions and a quarter on Defence, and——how much on popular Education? I suppose the latter forms some little item in one of the smaller accounts, for I can nowhere see it. Eight millions and a quarter on Defence, and three quarters on Law and Justice! Eight and a quarter on Defence, and one on Government and Legislation! Eight millions and a quarter on Defence, and half a million on Public Works! O, monstrous!—too monstrous a sin to be charged on any ruler, or body of rulers, or succession of bodies of rulers! The broad shoulders of the whole civilized world must bear this tremendous reproach:—the world which has had Christianity in it these eighteen hundred years, and whose most Christian empire yet lays out more than half its serviceable expenditure in providing the means of bloodshed, or of repelling bloodshed! The proportion would be enormous, even if all the other items were of righteous signification,—if the proper proportion of the three and a half millions for Collection went to Education; if Law were simple, and Justice cheap; if the real servants of Government were liberally paid, and all idle hangers-on shaken off; if there were no vicious diplomatic and colonial patronage; and no jobbing in the matter of Public Works. If all else were as it should be, this item might well make us doubt what age of the world we are living in, and for what purpose it is that Providence is pleased to humble us by leaving such a painful thorn of barbarism in the side of our majestic civilization. Long must it be before it can grow out. Meantime, let us not boast as if the whole body were sound; or as if we were not performing as humbling and factitious a duty in paying our defence-taxes as the bondman of old in following the banner of the cross to the eastern slaughter-field. The one was the bondman’s duty then; and the other is the citizen’s duty now; but the one duty is destined to become as obsolete as the other.—What glory in that day, to reverse the order of expenditure! Education, Public Works, Government and Legislation, Law and Justice, Diplomacy, Defence, Dignity of the Sovereign. When this time shall come, no one can conjecture; but that we shall not always have to pay eight millions a year for our defence is certain; if the voice of a wise man,—(which is always the voice of an awakening multitude,)—say true. “Human intelligence will not stand still: the same impulse that has hitherto borne it onwards, will continue to advance it yet further. The very circumstance of the vast increase of expense attending national warfare has made it impossible for governments henceforth to engage in it, without the public assent, expressed or implied; and that assent will be obtained with the more difficulty, in proportion as the public