e curious subtlety of its position,
like the carpet in the Arabian tale, seeming to contract so as to be
covered by a few only, or to dilate so as to receive an innumerable host.
Here, under a bright sun, such as shone at Austerlitz or Buena
Vista--amidst the peaceful harmonies of nature--on the Sabbath of
peace--we behold bands of brothers, children of a common Father, heirs to
a common happiness, struggling together in the deadly fight, with the
madness of fallen spirits, seeking with murderous weapons the lives of
brothers who have never injured them or their kindred. The havoc rages.
The ground is soaked with their commingling blood. The air is rent by
their commingling cries. Horse and rider are stretched together on the
earth. More revolting than the mangled victims, than the gashed limbs,
than the lifeless trunks, than the spattering brains, are the lawless
passions which sweep, tempest-like, through the fiendish tumult.

Horror-struck, we ask, wherefore this hateful contest? The melancholy, but
truthful answer comes, that this is the established method of determining
justice between nations!

The scene changes. Far away on the distant pathway of the ocean two ships
approach each other, with white canvas broadly spread to receive the
flying gales. They are proudly built. All of human art has been lavished
in their graceful proportions, and in their well compacted sides, while
they look in their dimensions like floating happy islands on the sea. A
numerous crew, with costly appliances of comfort, hives in their secure
shelter. Surely these two travelers shall meet in joy and friendship; the
flag at the masthead shall give the signal of friendship; the happy
sailors shall cluster in the rigging, and even on the yardarms, to look
each other in the face, while the exhilarating voices of both crews shall
mingle in accents of gladness uncontrollable. It is not so. Not as
brothers, not as friends, not as wayfarers of the common ocean, do they
come together; but as enemies.

The gentle vessels now bristle fiercely with death-dealing instruments. On
their spacious decks, aloft on all their masts, flashes the deadly
musketry. From their sides spout cataracts of flame, amidst the pealing
thunders of a fatal artillery. They, who had escaped "the dreadful touch
of merchant-marring rocks"--who had sped on their long and solitary way
unharmed by wind or wave--whom the hurricane had spared--in whose favor
storms and seas had i