Last thought of all, as we look back and watch the bright red cross slowly unfold itself on the summer breeze over the taffrail of one of the largest of them,--the hallowed symbol of peace and good will hoisted over these engines of bloodshed,--we muse at the strange antithesis suggested by its display, as if designed in bitterest satire, to justify, or as it were, consecrate their direful mission. A curious example of what we presume would be termed national religious ethics, as at present professed in this Christian land of ours. But then we recollect that favourite patriot, the courageous (at home) and braggart, fire-eating Jingo, with his eight hundred millions of debt on his back, has to be duly considered in the motley compact. "Peace and good will" at present looks like a hopeless dream, to be further off than ever, and its development in the boasted civilization of the last quarter of the nineteenth century exhibits, instead, the strange spectacle of more fighting men on land, and ships of war at sea, furnished with the most tremendous appliances for the destruction of human life than could be found, perhaps, at any previous era of the world's history. Europe appears a vast armed camp, filled with millions of soldiers, apparently only waiting in feverish suspense some chance incident, to march on each other, and deluge the continent with carnage. And yet amid all this there are not wanting hopeful signs, that below these dread preparations, a wiser and healthier undercurrent is slowly, but surely moving, that will eventually, we trust, sap the foundations of this military incubus, and free the long-suffering peoples from its deadly glamour. The consequences of the wickedness and folly of that game "which kings delight to play at" will be clearly seen, and a larger and more comprehensive system of government take the control into its own hands, and put a veto on the players. Industry, guided by intellectual resource, is busily organizing its battalions, with a power, destined, we ween, at no distant date to be mightier than armies or navies. Intelligence, combined with a knowledge of social and commercial needs, will become the great factors of national influence and wealth in the future, and, unless we greatly mistake, the basis of a kingdom's prosperity in the coming time will be fought out on these battle-fields, and on them win its silent and bloodless victories. But a much greater and consolatory thought possesses us as we take a final glance at the grim citadels of destruction lazily floating on the now smiling strength of the watery expanse,--but compared with which in its tempestuous wrath, they are as the bubble that vanishes on its surface,--even the controlling power of that Mighty Ruler of both, of which the Royal Minstrel has with prophetic grandeur sung; strikingly paraphrased by His humbler disciple and lyrist, the gifted Apostle of Cornish revival, here aptly recalled,--