Some years ago the question which agitated the heart of Europe was, Peace or War? The interests of commerce, the lives of thousands, the fate of kingdoms, trembled in the balance. Navies rode at anchor, and opposing armies, like two black thunder-clouds, waited for statesmen to issue from the council-chamber, bearing the sword or the olive-branch. Esteeming the arbitrament of battle one which necessity only could justify, Britain longed for peace; but, with ships ready to slip their cables, and soldiers standing by their guns, she was grimly prepared for war. Had ambassadors from the nation with which we were ready to join issue approached our shores at this crisis, what eager crowds would have attended their advent, and how impatiently would they have waited the course of events! And had peace been the result of the conference, how would the tidings, as they passed from mouth to mouth, and were flashed by the telegraph from town to town, have filled and moved the land! The pale student would have forgot his books, the anxious merchant his speculations, the trader his shop, the tradesman his craft, tired labour her toils, happy children their toys, and even the bereaved their griefs; and like the whirlpool, which sucks straws and sea-weed, boats and gallant ships--all things, big or small--into its mighty vortex, the news would have absorbed all other subjects. The one topic of conversation at churches and theatres, at marriages and funerals, in halls and cottages, in crowded cities and in lonely glens; ministers had carried it in their sermons to the pulpit, and devout Christians in their thanksgivings to the Throne of Grace.