scruples of many pious well-meaning men, who can produce, and have produced, the most plain, unquestionable authority, even the express words of holy writ, aided by the clearest and soundest reasoning, to testify that those scruples are not taken up upon light and superficial grounds, but are such as must necessarily arise in the mind of every honest man who reads the New Testament, unbiased by prejudice or partiality.

Anfwer to the Bishop of Rochefter.

THE MARSHAL DUKE DE BELLEISLE.

EVERY thing is now swayed, more by superiority of force, than by circumstances; and the sword, which was formerly called the last argument of Kings, ultima ratio Regum, is now become the beginning of disputes. A manifesto, that no one gives any credit to, and which is published only in compliance with an old established custom, is sent to all foreign courts. Hostilities follow next; and this is the manner of proceeding of those whom a superiority of strength makes unfaithful to their engagements.

To the fhame of moft crowned heads, it is a certain fact, that of all the wars that have been waged, since this dreadful scourge was first. known among men, there has not been one which might not have been avoided, if the parties concerned

K

cerned would have sincerely endeavoured after an accommodation.

Suppose, for instance, two sovereigns have a dispute with each other, which tends to a rupture: in such a conjuncture, the means of reconciliation should first be tried. If these fail, thro' the obstinacy of one of the parties, those powers who were willing to have concurred in the accommodation, should unite together against the oppressor, in favour of the oppressed. How glorious would it be, to see princes act in this wise and prudent manner!

Political Testament. c. xi.

M. DE VOLTAIRE.

A GENEALOGIST sets forth to a prince that he is

descended in a direct line from a Count, whose kindred, three or four hundred years ago, had made a family compact with a house, the memory of which is extinguished. That house had some distant claim to a province, the last proprietor of which died of an apoplexy. The province, which is some hundred leagues from him, protests that it does not so much as know him, that it is not disposed to be governed by him; that before prescribing laws to them, their consent at least was necessary; these allegations do not so much as reach the prince's ears; it is insisted on that his right is incontestible. He instantly picks up a multitude who have nothing to do and nothing to lofe; clothes them

with coarse blue cloth; puts on them hats bound with coarse white worsted; makes them turn to the right and left; and thus marches away with them to glory.

Other princes, on this armament, take part in it to the best of their ability, and soon cover a small extent of country with more hireling murderers, than Gengis Khan, or Tamerlane and Bajazet had at their heels.

People at no small distance, on hearing that fighting is going forward, and that if they would make one, there is five or six sous a day for them, immediately divide into two bands, like reapers, and go and sell their services to the best bidder.

These multitudes furiously butcher one another, not only without having any concern in the quarrel, but without so much as knowing

what it is about.

Sometimes five or six powers are engaged, three against three, two against four, sometimes even one againt five, all equally detesting one another, and friends and foes by turns, agreeing only in one thing, to do all the mischief poffible. Philosoph. Dict. Art. War.

FAMINE, the plague, and war, are the three most famous ingredients in this lower world. Under famine may be classed all the noxious food which want obliges us to have recourse to, thus shortening our life while we hope to sup

port it. In the plague are included all contagious distempers, and there are not less than two or three thousand.

These two gifts we hold from Providence; but war in which they are concentred we owe to the fancy of three or four hundred persons scattered over the surface of the globe, under the name of princes and minifters; and on this account it may be that in several dedications they are called living images of the deity.

The most hardened flatterers will allow, that WAR is ever attended with plague and famine, especially if he has seen the military hospitals in Germany, or passed through some villages where some notable feat of arms has been performed.

It is unquestionably a very notable art to ravage countries, destroy dwellings, and one year with another, out of a hundred thousand men to cut off forty thousand.

An odd circumstance in this infernal enterprize is, that every chief of these ruffians has his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before he goes to destroy his neighbour. If the slain in a battle do not exceed two or three thousand, the fortunate commander does not think it worth thanking God for; but if, besides 'killing ten or twelve thousand men, he has been so far favoured by heaven as totally to destroy some remarkable place, then a verbose hymn is sung in four parts, composed in a language un→ known to all the combitants.

All countries pay a certain number of orators to

celebrate

celebrate these sanguinary actions, some in a long black coat, and over it a short docked cloak; others in a gown with a kind of shirt over it.—They are all very long winded in their harangues, and to illustrate a battle fought in Wateravia, bring up what passed thousands of years ago in Palestine.

Among five or six thousand such declamations there may be, and that is the most, three or four written by a Gaul, named MASSILLON, which a gentleman may bear to read, but in not one of all these discourses has the author the spirit to animadvert on WAR, that scourge and crime which includes all others. These groveling speakers are continually prating against love, mankind's only solace, and the only way of repairing it's losses; not a word do they say of the detestable endeavours of the mighty for its destruction.

BOURDALOUE! a very bad sermon hast thou made against impurity, but not one, either bad or good, on those various kinds of murders, those robberies, those violences, that universal rage, by which the world is laid waste.

Ye bungling soul physicians! to bellow for an hour or more against a few flea bites, and not say a word about that horrid diflemper which tears us to pieces. Burn your books, ye moralizing philosophers! While the humors of a few shall make it an act of loyalty to butcher thousands of our fellow creatures, the part of mankind dedicated to heroism will be the most execrable and deftructive monsters in all nature. Of what avail is humanity, benevolence, modesty, temperance, mildness, discretion, and piety, when half a K3

pound