Mexican War, 1846-1848 -- Poetry; Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
We are all more or less bitten with this
martial insanity. _Nescio quâ dulcedine ... cunctos ducit._ I confess to
some infection of that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General
maintaining his insecure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire
of the training-field, and when I remember that some military
enthusiasts, through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend
reality to those fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their
ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of
those heroic officers. _Semel insanivimus omnes._ I was myself, during
the late war with Great Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was
fortunately never called to active military duty. I mention this
circumstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been summoned to
actual warfare, I trust that I might have been strengthened to bear
myself after the manner of that reverend father in our New England
Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of
him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was
attacked by a French privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a
Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and fired." As this
note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the
question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it
sufficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of the
Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed incompatible.
Consult Jortin on this head.--H. W.]
No. IV.
REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EX-TRUMPERY
CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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