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for revolutionists cannot build, their mission is destructiveness, nothing more; and one infallible result of revolution is an extension of expensive establishments to gratify the greed of poverty lifted into power. Strange as it may appear, we view all this with Christian contentment. The world can never mend itself. The corruption of human nature is so ingrained, as to be incapable of educing correctives for social evils. Where, then, can help come from? We answer, from the wisdom, goodness, and mercy of God, who teaches by his recorded truth how nations may be righteously and prosperously governed, in despite of the folly and wickedness of mankind. If the sovereignty of the Most High were reverenced by rulers, they would find themselves invested with substantial sway, which would uphold order and promote peace, without the lavish hire of military multitudes.

To apply our doctrine; why is it that Great Britain, safe in her insular position, and mistress of the ocean by means of her invincible fleets, is intolerably taxed for the maintenance of a regular army of one hundred thousand men? We say-Through the folly of her rulers and the blindness of her people. The pride of meddling interference-miscalled national dignity—gives us a pernicious plea for thrusting ourselves into continental quarrels, and we are hated for our pains, which confer no benefits on other nations, while inflicting lasting imposts on our own. Is Spain, or Portugal, a whit the better for all Wellington's victories; and we may add, is Great Britain the better or richer, except in Peninsular medals? War is, in truth, at once the product and the punishment of sin; for all strife originates in evil, and then spreads its sorrowful results among evil-doers. Our great and powerful country was tempted into wars of aggression by the vain pretext of resisting the republicanism of France. We then fought against the French imperial idol; fancied that we smote him down, whereas his own lust of conquest destroyed him; and after two Bourbonite monarchies-one of stupid legitimacy, the other of tricky usurpation-lo! France is a republic again, i. e., a republic swayed by a half-socialist soldiery.

During the long interval since the battle of Waterloo, we have been paying the wages of war in the midst of profound peace. When continental commotions arose, our position, as an insular people, became, if possible, still more secure, because the pressure of intestine alarm and revolt rendered foreign potentates unable to

combine against English interests; and we derived a strength from neutrality, which we should lose by idle and uncalled-for interposition. Nevertheless, the revolutionary mania of the last two years has been seized on by our Government as a motive for upholding our immense military establishments, and also for fostering the military spirit which is the curse of nations. The glory and dignity of the British empire cannot, it seems, be sustained but by one hundred thousand soldiers, whose campaigning consists in removing from one set of barracks to another, where the troops are penally paraded twice a-day, and where the officers are chiefly engaged in smoking cigars, and getting up private theatricals! Let us not be misunderstood; the British army contains thousands of men in every grade, whose ennobling qualities reflect lustre upon their country, and who in some respects draw from discipline, and from the esprit du corps, a love of order, and a sense of honour, which are less frequently found among civilians; but we speak of the false system that condemns men to a profession which knows no medium between the sloth of unrequired energy, or the calamitous excitement of unnecessary war. Nothing can be more preposterous than the pretence that a vast military force is demanded for home service. Our internal quiet is preserved, not by the menacing show of horse, foot, and artillery, but by the incessant operation of God's goodness in acting on the minds of our people; endowing them, in the aggregate, with an abiding reverence for the time-honoured institutions of their sacredly-protected country; and inclining them rather to submit to the errors of mis-government, than to plunge into the horrors of anarchy. Look at that portion of the empire in whose northern nook we now write. Observe how little need Scotland has of soldiers; so little, indeed, that in the contemplation of a royal visit to Sutherlandshire, a supplementary regiment is about to be imported from Ireland, to constitute a guard of honour for her Majesty. Thus Scotland is proved to be tranquil without the aid of military menace; but Ireland, it may be said, she, miserable land of insurrectionists, cannot be kept in subjection without forty thousand soldiers! Never, we boldly aver, was there a stronger delusion. We have gone through the most disreputably disturbed parts of Ireland, and we never saw or heard of occasion for the soldier's sword, except for saluting at reviews, or for going through exercises which forbid tarnishing rust. The Irish constabulary, a most effective

force, is perfectly adequate to the repression of disorder; and it should be remembered, that Smith O'Brien's cabbage-garden rebellion was quelled by a handful of intrepid policemen. During the last forty years, the severest service to which her Majesty's troops have been exposed was enforcing the tithe-system; relieved by forced marches in order to put down illicit distillation! But the pomp of panic is craftily displayed in Ireland, with the view of nourishing the necessity for extravagant army estimates. With good government in Ireland-righteous rule, holding the scales of justice equably over all parties-that unhappy country might soon be as scantily soldiered as peaceable Scotland. The same might be affirmed of our colonial possessions, where misrule is the true cause of discontent and turbulence, which soldiers must be sent from home to awe and suppress. Rebellion at the Cape; rebellion in Canada; rebellion in Ceylon; can any sober-minded persons, who have looked closely into the subject, entertain a doubt but that a corrupt overstrain of authority lay at the bottom of these convulsions of the social system, which it has cost us millions of money partially to subdue; for power can never supply the place. of justice. Our possessions in India are not peaceful acquisitions, but the product of fierce aggression, not unmixed with monstrous fraud; and therefore England must provide soldiers for carrying out a system of constantly enlarging subjugation. And yet, when the annual appeal to Parliament comes round, the military aspect of the British empire is alleged to be a primary ingredient in our national condition of prosperity and dignity. Until God shall raise men to authority whose hearts are filled with faith in the truths of Christianity, so as to boldly proclaim the only sound principles of upright government, Great Britain will sink deeper and deeper in gulfs of distress, produced by extravagant expenditure, defrayed by grinding taxation. Men of the world can only mislead the world; they cannot rule it. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Since writing the foregoing lines, we have looked over the recent debate on Mr H. Drummond's renewed motion for the reduction of the national expenditure, and we find a still further confirmation of the truth and justness of our general course of contemplation and remark. Mr Drummond we happen to have some pleasing and intimate knowledge of, and we esteem him very

highly; but we are still constrained to consider him as one beating the air in matters connected with public retrenchment. He would pinch off this improper sprout; lop off that unworthy branch; and strip some bark from a profitless trunk; but he is unwilling or unable to detect the root of rottenness, which must be unearthed before the causes of extravagant State expenditure can be truly discovered. So long as the people of England second their government in an erring system of policy, which assumes it to be axiomatic that the British empire must maintain her dignity by means of costly armies; this immense military machinery will always keep the country in a fearfully false position. What we want as a nation is, the diffusion of Christian principles, which shall bring the people under the government of the King of kings—a species of rule which, so far as we can perceive, Mr Drummond no more contends for, than the cotton millionaire, Mr Cobden. Unbelieving knowledge, and unsanctified wisdom, have no tendency to reform the abuses of an empire reeling under a weight of accumulated corruption. All that we behold at present is little more than struggles made by one suffering section of society, to shift their calamities upon some other class of the community; for selfishness bears supreme sway, and must continue to do so until the glorious power of Christian sovereignty shall shine forth. The dominating oppression in this land is the monarchy of mammon: how unlike that righteous rule of which the word of inspiration speaks! The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established

for ever.

PRINCE ALBERT'S HOBBY-THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

When this project was originally propounded, we treated it as a commendable scheme emanating from royalty, which in general is hardly so well employed as in getting up industrial exhibitions. But now that the matter ripens, it assumes the unmistakeable features which characterise all jobs; importunate solicitation for subscriptions, and the most unscrupulous puffery that ever disgraced an auction mart. Our opinion is, that Prince Albert is a mere nose of wax in this blatant business; and that a sort of fashionable joint stock company, very like some of the railway concoctions, is at the bottom of the whole affair. We judge of the tree by its pleasant blossoms. There is first of all an aristo

cratic array of supporters at West End meetings, where Bishops babble loyal divinity, and Lord Brougham sputters scientific and political nonsense; but all with the view of toadying the Prince Consort. Then comes the Duchess of Sutherland with her Ladies' Committee, lounging gracefully on ottomans at Stafford House, and lisping out resolutions to invite the co-operative sympathies and shillings of the “ women of England" to aid the Mistress of the Robes to help on the Buckingham Palace crotchet! As no great object can ever be attained in England without a dinner, we are all aware of the gastronomic grandeur which signalized the Lord Mayor's banquet to Prince Albert and his Commissioners, with a congress of municipal magnates borrowed from the three kingdoms. The prince evidently looks forward to the Exhibition just as the pietists of the Papacy foreviewed the Council of Trent. His royal Highness comes out in great force with regard to "man's sacred mission ;" which it should seem consists in sharp buying and selling! But notwithstanding the Prince's postprandial eloquence, we cannot concur in the new doctrine that a sort of millennium is to be brought about by means of commercial chaffering. To our thinking, the cause of sordidness is much more likely to be helped than the cause of Christianity; which latter will, we apprehend, find small favour with the foreign frequenters who shall resort to the modern Babylon, on this grand occasion. Dismissing therefore, as mere phantasms, the moral and religious benefits bespoken for the Prince's project, let us calmly enquire what are the strictly secular advantages which may be reasonably expected from so great a gathering in the metropolis. We must here keep out of view all the eulogies so lavishly bestowed upon the royal husband of our good Queen; for if the plan should turn out to be essentially a bad one, the Prince's patronage will only have the effect of enlarging the sphere of injuriousness; and more strenuous efforts will be made to bolster up a failing concern. failing concern. There is, no doubt, something dazzling in the scheme of assembling in the British metropolis a huge collection of the products of industry contributed from all near nations, and even from the very ends of the earth h; but we think it will be admitted that London is the last place that stands in need of such an assemblage. The metropolis of this great empire is not only the seat of supreme government and le

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