forger of the iron
sword as being truly brutal and iron-hearted; and another could declare
it to be the 'mission' of the Romans only to impose terms of peace upon
barbarians, who should be compelled to accept quiet as a boon, or endure
it as a burden. Strange sentiments were these to proceed from the land
of the legions, but they expressed the current Roman opinion, which
preferred even dishonor to war. So was it after the settlement of Europe
in 1815. A generation that had grown up in the course of the greatest of
modern contests produced the most determined and persistent advocates of
the 'peace-at-any-price' policy; and for forty years peace was preserved
between the principal Christian nations, through the exertions of
statesmen, kings, philanthropists, and economists, who, if they could
agree in nothing else, were almost unanimous in the opinion that war was
an expensive folly, and that the first duty of a government was to
prevent its subjects from becoming military-mad. Perhaps there never was
a happier time in Christendom than it knew between the autumn of 1815
and the spring of 1854, after Napoleon had gone down and before Nicholas
had set himself up to dictate law to the world. It was the modern age of
the Antonines, into which was crowded more true enjoyment than mankind
had known for centuries; and they are beginning to learn its excellence
from its loss,--war raging now in the New World, while Europe lives in
hourly expectation of its occurrence. There were wars, and cruel wars,
too, in those years, but they faintly affected Europe and the United
States, and probably added something to men's happiness, for the same
reason that a storm to which we are not exposed increases our sense of
comfort. Their thunders were remote, and they furnished materials for
the journals. So we saw a Providence in them, and thanked Heaven, some
of us, that we no longer furnished examples of the folly of contention.

The friends of peace were actuated by various motives. With statesmen
and politicians peace was preferred because it was cheaper than war, and
all countries were burdened with debt. England has sometimes been
praised because she so uniformly threw her influence on the side of
peace, after she had accomplished her purpose in the war against
imperial France. Time and again, she might have waged popular wars, and
in which she would have probably been successful; but she would help
neither the Spaniards against France and