one occasion a huge favorite dog was seized with hydropho bia, and was dashing hither and thither. With wonderful courage he seized the creature by the neck and collar, and against the animal's mightiest efforts, rushing here and there, against wall and fence, and up the street, held him until help could be got. If there had been Englishmen there of the stripe of the Times, they would have said to Fowell Buxton, "Let him go;" but is there one here who does not feel the moral nobleness of that man, who rather than let the mad animal go down the street biting children, and women, and men, risked his life and prevented the animal from doing evil? And shall we allow that hell-hound of slavery, mad as it is, go biting millions in the future? We will peril life

and limb and all we have first.

These truths are not exaggerated-they are minified rather than magnified in my statement; and you cannot tell how powerfully they are influencing us unless you were standing in our midst in America; you cannot understand how firm that national feeling is which God has bred in the North on this subject. It is deeper than the sea; it is firmer than the hills; it is serene as the sky over our head, where God dwells.-Henry Ward Beecher, London, 1863.

THE PRINCIPLE INVOLVED IN THE WAR.

THE Sober American regards the war as part of that awful yet glorious struggle which has been going on for hundreds of years in every nation between right and wrong, between virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism, between freedom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future condition of our vast continent-its laws, its policy, its fate. And standing in view of these tremendous realities we have consecrated all that we have-our children, our wealth, our national strength-and we lay them all on the altar and say, "It is better that they should all perish than that the North should falter and betray this trust of God, this hope of the oppressed, this Western civilization.” If we say this of ourselves, shall we say less of the slave-holders? If we are willing to do these things, shall we say, "Stop the war for their sakes?" If we say this of ourselves, shall we have more pity for the rebellion, for slavery seeking to blacken a continent with its awful evil, desecrating the social phase of national independence by seeking only an independence that shall enable them to oppress four millions of humanity?

Shall we do for them what we won't do for ourselves? Standing by my cradle, standing by my hearth, standing by the altar of the church, standing by all the places that mark the name and memory of heroic men who poured their blood and lives for principle, I declare that in ten or twenty years of war we will sacrifice everything we have for principle.

If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain you will not understand us; but if the love of liberty lives as it once lived, and has worthy successors of those renowned men that were our ancestors as much as yours, and whose example and principles we inherit to make fruitful as so much seed corn in a new and fertile land-then you will understand our firm, invincible determination-deep as the sea, firm as mountains, but calm as the heavens above us-to fight this war through at all hazards and at every cost.

Against this statement of facts and principles no public man and no party could stand up for one moment in England if it were permitted to stand upon its own merits. It is, therefore, sought to darken the light of these truths and to falsify facts. It is declared that the North has no sincerity. It is declared that the North treats the blacks worse than the South does. A monstrous lie from beginning to end. It is declared that emancipation is a mere political trick-not a moral sentiment. It is declared that this is a cruel, unphilanthropic squabble of men gone mad with national vanity. Oh, what a pity that a man should "fall nine times the space that measures day and night" to make an apostasy which dishonors his closing days, and to wipe out the testimony for liberty that he gave in his youth!* But even if all this monstrous lie about the North-this needless slander-were true, still it would not alter the fact that Northern success will carry liberty-Southern success, slavery. For when society dashes against society, the results are not what the individual motives of the members of society would make them—the results are what the institutions of society make them. When your army stood at Waterloo, they did not know what were the tremendous moral consequences that depended on that .battle. It was not what the individual soldiers meant nor thought, but what the English empire-the national life behind, and the genius of that renowned kingdom which sent that army to victory-meant and thought. And even if the President were false-if every Northern man were a juggling hypocrite-that does not change the Constitution; and it

* Allusion is here made to Lord Brougham.

does not change the fact that if the North prevails she carries Northern ideas and Northern institutions with her. Henry Ward Beecher, London, 1863.

iers?

ENGLAND AGAINST WAR.

I HEAR a loud protest against war. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, there is a small band in our country and in yours-I wish their number were quadrupled-who have borne a solemn and painful testimony against all wars, under all circumstances; and although I differ with them on the subject of defensive warfare, yet when men that rebuked their own land, and all lands, now rebuke us, though I cannot accept their judgment, I bow with profound respect to their consistency. But excepting them I regard this British horror of the American war as something wonderful. Why, it is a phenomenon in itself! On what shore has not the prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people where your banner has not led your soldAnd when the great resurrection réveille shall sound it will muster British soldiers from every clime and people under the whole heaven. Ah! but it is said this is a war against your own blood. How long is it since you poured soldiers into Canada, and let all your yards work night and day to avenge the taking of two men out of the Trent? Old England shocked at a war of principle! She gained her glories in such a war. Old England ashamed of a war of principle! Her national ensign symbolizes her history-the cross in a field of blood. And will you tell us--who inherit your blood, your ideas, and your pluck-that we must not fight? The child must heed the parents until the parents get old and tell the child not to do the thing that in early life they whipped him for not doing. And then the child says, father and mother are getting too old; they had better be taken away from their present home and come to live with us. Perhaps you think that the old island will do a little longer. Perhaps you think there is coal enough. Perhaps you think the stock is not quite run out yet; but whenever England comes to that state that she does not go to war for principle, she had better emigrate, and we will get room for her. Henry Ward Beecher, London, 1863.

THE MEASURES OF THE WAR.

In the beginning of this contest we were peculiarly English. If I have observed aright, England goes into wars to make blunders-in the first part of them always-but you will notice that in the end it is not England that has blundered. I have noticed, in studying the Peninsular War under Wellington, that at the beginning, for months, indeed for the first whole year, it was a series of horrid blunders, no sympathy coming from home, and money being squandered by the frauds of contractors; but, if I recollect aright, at last that same Wellington drove every Frenchman out of the Peninsula and did not stop his course until he swept the face of Europe. And so it is with us. We have so much English blood in our Yankee veins that when we began this war we blundered and blundered; but we are doing better and better every step. There has been time enough for mere enthusiasm to cool in the North. Enthusiasm is like the vapor, just enough condensed to let the sun striking upon it fill it with gorgeous colors; but when still further it condenses, and falls in drops for the thirsty man to drink, or carries the river to the cataract, then it has become useful and substantial. Enthusiasm at first is that airy cloud; but when it has become a principle in the hearts of the people, then it becomes substantial; and such is the case in the North. Enthusiasm has changed its form, and is now based on substantial moral principle. The loss of our sons in battle has been grievous; but we accept it as God's will, and we ✦ are determined that every martyred son shall have a representative in one hundred liberated slaves. Never was such a unity of Christian men in the North as there is to-day. The only platform in America, on which this subject can be discussed is this-that the war must be carried on till the Union is re-established. The Americans are a practical people. They know their own business. No one so well as they are able to judge of what they want; and when they have deliberately arrived at a firm resolve, they surely are to be regarded, at least with respect, if not with sympathy. We are told that we are breaking our Constitutional obligations by the measures we have taken; but we were forced to adopt those measures, and the reasons are abundant and plain. How? When a fire first breaks out, the engineer goes down and plays upon the fire, thinking that he will be able to save the furniture and the neighboring houses; but, as the devouring element increases, and threatens destruction to all

around, the engineer says, "Bring me powder," and he blows up the neighboring house, then the next, and then the next, until a sufficient gap is made to prevent the spread of the conflagration. When he began he did not think that he would require to sacrifice so much, and so it is with us. When this rebellion commenced we thought to put it down, and to maintain, at the same time, the rights of the States; but, when the war assumed such proportions as seemed to threaten destruction to the whole Government, at last the President issued a proclamation, declaring that the rebellion had assumed such proportions that, for the sake of saving the country, he intended to exercise the power he possessed, and to confiscate the total property of the South for the sake of saving the Union and the Constitution.

Henry Ward Beecher, Edinburgh, 1863.

THE HONORED DEAD.

a

LET us pause upon the threshold of our discourse to pay tribute to our heroes. On either side has been manifested the noblest courage, and patience, and endurance. Ten thou sand youth have dropped the blossom of their lives. Alas! that for so many it should be a death, utterly dead! More and more will years reveal that young Southern heroes died for an evil cause. Would that so much bravery had had a better cause. Time will bring no venerableness and no affection to defeated tyranny. Men's enthusiasms never go backward to search for the deeds of oppressors, to garland them with evergreen honor. They die indeed, who die for slavery. And lapse of years, and growing justice, and nobler humanities, will only make the mistake more dreadful, and their oblivion more certain. It is indeed a sad future for those who mourn for sons slain under the dark banner of slavery. No future historian will feel sacred enthusiasm in recovering their names. No rejoicing millions will teach their children to lisp their names with gladness. The best that can be done for them by patriotism, is to draw a vail over their life, and to let them be forgotten. Over their burial-ground the hand of charity can write only this: Let their names and their mistakes be forgotten.

But how bright are the honors which await those who with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience have endured all things that they might save their native land from division and from the power of corruption! The honored dead!