auses
cities to be built and fields to be cultivated, and diffuses comfort
and plenty, and all the blessings of industry and peace. It carries
organization and order every where; it protects property and life; it
disarms pestilence, and it prohibits famine. War, on the other hand,
_destroys_. It disorganizes the social state. It ruins cities,
depopulates fields, condemns men to idleness and want, and the only
remedy it knows for the evils which it brings upon man is to shorten
the miseries of its victims by giving pestilence and famine the most
ample commission to destroy their lives. Thus war is the great enemy,
while commerce is the great friend of humanity. They are antagonistic
principles, contending continually for the mastery among all the
organizations of men.

When Hannibal appeared upon the stage, he found his country engaged
peacefully and prosperously in exchanging the productions of the
various countries of the then known world, and promoting every where
the comfort and happiness of mankind. He contrived to turn all these
energies into the new current of military aggression, conquest, and
war. He perfectly succeeded. We certainly have in his person and
history all the marks and characteristics of a great military hero. He
gained the most splendid victories, devastated many lands,
embarrassed and stopped the commercial intercourse which was carrying
the comforts of life to so many thousand homes, and spread, instead of
them, every where, privation, want, and terror, with pestilence and
famine in their train. He kept the country of his enemies in a state
of incessant anxiety, suffering, and alarm for many years, and
overwhelmed his own native land, in the end, in absolute and
irresistible ruin. In a word, he was one of the greatest military
heroes that the world has ever known.

THE END.

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