But a Christian community, while it admits this painful necessity, and tracing the origin of wars and fightings to the lusts which war in our members, sees in them the marks of the universal corruption of our nature; and looks on war as the disgrace rather than the glory of man; must still feel anxious, that the courage which it cherishes and honours as the means of national security, should be the courage formed on those bright and lofty principles, which shall discharge its duty to the public most effectually, without any unjustifiable risk to the individual. There is an obvious necessity that the public peace should be protected; but there still may be a question, whether this protection may not be too dearly purchased; if a limited measure of temporal advantages were to occasion the loss of an eternity of happiness to those by whom it is preserved. It is surely no idle refinement, no morbid spirit of argument, which compares an infinite loss occurring to an individual, with a definite and limited loss occasioned to the community of which he forms a part. Men have not hesitated to say, that the security of property would be purchased at a price too dear, if it was to be maintained by capital punishment; and if political wisdom condescends to note the value of an individual life, can it, with any consistency, deny the value of an individual soul? A Christian community is, therefore, not only justified in taking every measure, which may raise the moral character of those employed in its defence, and may make them bold and courageous upon principle; but it is also bound to use every means which may render those whom it exposes, as superior to the power of death, as they are, or endeavour to be, to its terrors. It is easy to state the almost insuperable difficulties which here at once present themselves. The habits of life, which have rendered the military and naval professions proverbial, and which seem inseparable from their position in society; the withdrawal from domestic ties, and from all the usual restraints of the tendencies of men; these may be named at once, as rendering the attempt at such a moral improvement chimerical; and these will long continue to render its accomplishment difficult. In the meantime the world at large, either indifferent to the consequences, or despairing of a cure, have found it a much cheaper, and a much more compendious way, to teach their defenders to forget death, than to endeavour to prepare them to despise it; and lamentable as it is to say, grave men, and men who were thought wise men, have argued as if it was necessary that men should be immoral in order that they might be brave; and have tried to shew that it was expedient that thousands should be eternally miserable, in order that some temporary advantage might be achieved by their exertions.