The
greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind is a state of war.
All the atrocious crimes committed in years of peace--all that is
spent in peace by the secret corruptions, or by the thoughtless
extravagance, of nations--are mere trifles compared with the gigantic
evils which stalk over the world in a state of war. God is forgotten
in war--every principle of Christian charity trampled upon--human
labour destroyed--human industry extinguished--you see the son, and
the husband, and the brother, dying miserably in distant lands--you
see the waste of human affections--you see the breaking of human
hearts--you hear the shrieks of widows and children after the
battle--and you walk over the mangled bodies of the wounded calling
for death. I would say to that Royal child, Worship God by loving
peace--it is not _your_ humanity to pity a beggar by giving him food
or raiment--_I_ can do that; that is the charity of the humble and the
unknown--widen you your heart for the more expanded miseries of
mankind--pity the mothers of the peasantry who see their sons torn
away from their families--pity your poor subjects crowded into
hospitals, and calling in their last breath upon their distant country
and their young Queen--pity the stupid, frantic folly of human beings
who are always ready to tear each other to pieces, and to deluge the
earth with each other's blood; this is your extended humanity--and
this the great field of your compassion.
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