ues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic
endurance, and preference of duty to life--not in MEN, but in silk
and cotton, and something they call 'capital.' Peace is
blessed--peace arising out of charity. But peace springing out of
the calculations of selfishness is not blessed. If the price to be
paid for peace is this, that wealth accumulate and men decay,
better far, that every street in every town of our country should
run blood.'

Now it may be that it is God's purpose to save us by the war we are now
engaged in from such a 'gravitation'--to save us by war from calamities
far worse than any that war can bring upon us. But be this as it may,
one thing we must all admit, that horrible as war is, and dreadful as
are its miseries, no nation is fit to be a nation that will not defend
itself by arms, if war is forced upon it. And no nation is safe, or
worthy of a place among nations, if it is not prepared to maintain its
existence against invasion from without or rebellion from within.
Beside, to be prepared for war is one of the best securities against
war.

But the best, the only sufficient foundation for this preparation, must
be laid in _the education of the young_--an education not exclusively
military for any, but while professionally military for a sufficient
number, yet as to the rest, military in just and due proportion--an
education which, as JOHN MILTON says, 'fits a man to perform justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private,
of peace and of war.' 'The nation,' says WORDSWORTH, in the preface to
one of his grand odes, 'the nation would err grievously, if she suffered
the abuse which other states have made of the military power, to prevent
her from perceiving that no people ever was or can be independent, free,
or secure, much less great in any sane application of the word, without
martial propensities and an assiduous cultivation of the military
virtues.'

THE NOBLE DEAD.

'Those great spirits, that went down like suns
And left upon the mountain-tops of death
A light that made them lovely.'

CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES.

I love Cambridge, and must write very kindly about it. For in the first
place, I met there with some of the best men I have ever known. And
secondly, it has educated some very noted geniuses and fine poets. I do
not envy the American who can linger in its cloisters, ramble in the
college walks