are initiated in the same mysteries, redeemed by the same blood, regenerated at the same font, nourished by the same holy sacrament, militate under the same great Captain of Salvation, eat of the same bread, partake of the same cup, have one common enemy, the devil, and are all called to the same eternal inheritance?

Where are there so many and so sacred obligations to perfect concord as in the Christian religion? Where so numerous exhortations to peace? One law Jesus Christ claimed as his own peculiar law, and it was the law of love or charity. What practice among mankind violates this law so grossly as war? Christ salutes his votaries with the happy omen of peace. To his disciples he gives nothing but peace; he leaves them no other legacy but peace. In his holy prayers, the subject of his devout entreaty was principally, that, as he was one with the Father, so his disciples, that is to say, all Christians, might be one with him. This union is something more than peace, more than friendship, more than concord, it is an intimate communion with the Divine Nature.

Solomon was a type of Christ. But the word Solomon in Hebrew signifies the Pacific. Solomon, on this account, because he was pacific, was chosen to build the temple. David, though endeared by some virtues, was rejected as a builder of the temple, because he had stained his hands in blood, because he was a sanguinary prince, because, in a word, he was a warrior. He was rejected for this, though the wars he carried on were against the wicked, and at the command of God; and though he, who afterwards abrogated, in great measure, the laws of Moses, had not yet taught mankind that they ought to love their enemies.

At the nativity of JESUS CHRIST, the angels sung

not the glories of war, nor a song of triumph, but a hymn of peace. "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST;

ON EARTH PEACE; GOOD-WILL TOWARDS MEN." The mystic poet and prophet foretold before his birth,

"FACTUS EST IN PACE LOCUS EJUS.

Psalm 1xxvi. 2.

"IN THE CITY OF PEACE (SALEM) HE MADE HIS

DWELLING-PLACE; THERE BRAKE HE THE ARROWS OF THE BOW, THE SHIELD, THE SWORD, AND THE BATTLE-AXE.

" HE SHALL REFRAIN THE SPIRIT OF PRINCES; HE IS TERRIBLE TO THE KINGS OF THE EARTH."

Examine every part of his doctrine, you will find nothing that does not breathe peace, speak the language of love, and savour of charity and as he knew that peace could not be preserved, unless those objects for which the world contends with the sword's point, were considered as vile and contemptible, he ordered us to learn of him to be meek and lowly, He pronounced those happy who held riches, and the daughters of riches, pomp and pride, in no esteem; for these he calls the poor in spirit, and these he has blessed. He pronounced those happy, who despised the pleasures of the world; for he says, blessed are the mourners; even they who patiently suffered themselves to be extruded from their possessions, knowing that our place of residence on earth is a place of exile, and that our true country and our best riches are in heaven. He pronounced those happy who, while deserving well of all, should be evil-spoken of, and persecuted with ill-usage. He prohibited resistance to evil. In short, as the whole of his doctrine recommended forbearance and love, so his life taught nothing but mildness, gentleness, and kind affection. Such was his reign; thus did he wage war, thus he conquered, and thus he triumphed.

Nor do the Apostles inculcate any other doctrine; they who had imbibed the purest spirit of Christ, and were filled with sacred draughts from the fountain head before it was polluted. What do all the epistles of St. Paul resound with, but peace, but long-suffering, but charity? What does St. John speak of and repeat continually, but Christian love? What else St. Peter? What else all writers in the world who are truly Christian?

Whence then the tumults of war among the children of peace? Is it a mere fable, when Christ calls himself the vine, and his disciples the branches? Who can conceive a branch divided against a branch of the same tree? Or is it an unmeaning assertion, which St. Paul has repeatedly made, that the Church is one body, united in its many members, and adhering to one head, Jesus Christ? Who ever beheld the eye contending with the hand, or the belly fighting against the foot?

In the whole universe, consisting of parts so discordant, there still continues a general harmony. In the animal body there is peace among all the members; and with whatever excellence one member is endowed, it confines not the benefit to itself, but communicates it to all. If any evil happen to one member, the whole body affords it assistance. Can then the mere animal connection of nature in a material body, formed soon to perish, effect more in preserving harmony, than the union of the spirit in a mystical and immortal body? Is it without meaning that we pray, according to the command of Christ, thy will be done in earth as it in heaven? In the kingdom of heaven there is perfect concord. But Christ intended that his church should be nothing less than a celestial community, a heaven upon earth; men who belong to it living, as much

as possible, according to the model of the heavenly kingdom, hastening thither, and feeling and acknowledging their whole dependance upon it for present and future felicity.

Come then, and let us picture in imagination some stranger, either from those nations in the moon which Empedocles inhabits, or those worlds which Democritus fabricated; let us suppose him just arrived at this world of ours, and desirous of knowing what is going on here and when he has been informed of the various living creatures upon its surface, let him be told that there is one animal, wonderfully composed of two distinct parts; of a body which he possesses in common with the brutes; of a mind which bears a semblance of the Divine mind, and is the image of the Creator; that he is so noble in his nature, that though here in a state of exile, yet has he dominion over all other animals; that feeling his celestial origin, he is always aspiring at heaven and immortality; that he is so dear to the eternal Deity, that, since he was unable, either by the powers of nature, or the deductions of philosophy, to reach the excellence at which he aspired, the eternal Deity delegated his own Son to bring to him from heaven a new doctrine. Then, after the stranger should have heard the whole life of Christ, and become perfectly acquainted with his laws and precepts, let us suppose him to ascend some lofty pinnacle, whence he might see with his own eyes the things which he had heard by report, concerning this noble animal, rational, Christian, immortal man.

When he should have seen all other animals living at peace with their own kind, guided by the laws of nature, and desiring nothing but what nature taught them to desire: but at the same time observed, that there was one animal, and one alone, traf

ficking dishonestly, intriguing treacherously, quar relling and waging war with its own kind; would he not be apt to suspect any of the other animals to be man, of whom he had heard so much, rather than that two-legged creature which is really man, thus perverted, as he would appear, from the state in which God made, and to which Christ came to restore him? But suppose the stranger informed by some guide, that this animal is really man, he would next look about to find in what place these christian animals have fixed their abode, and where, following their divine Teacher, they are now exhibiting the model of an angelic community. Would he not imagine that Christians must choose their residence any where, rather than in countries, where he sees so much superfluous opulence, luxury, lust, pride, indolence, tyranny, ambition, fraud, envy, anger, discord, quarrels, fightings, battles, wars, tumults, in a word, a more abominable sink of all that Christ condemns, than is to be found among the Turks and the Saracens ?

The question then naturally arises, how this pestilence of war first insinuated itself among a Christian people? This evil, like most other evils, made its way by little and little among those who were off their guard. All evil, indeed, either gradually and invisibly creeps into the life of man, or forces its way under the disguise of seeming good.

In the church militant, learning was the first auxiliary engaged to fight for religion. It was a desirable ally, in a contest with heretics, who came to the combat armed with the literature of philosophers, poets, and orators. Indeed, in the earliest ages of Christianity, the professors of it did not arm themselves for defence even with learning, but relied on those converts, who brought the profane knowledge which