A Picture Of War

JNubody sees a battJe. The common soldier fires away amid smoke and mist, or liurries on to the charge in a crowd hiues eve-, rything frozn liim. The ofïïcer iá too anxioua about the performance of whut he is especially charged vvith co mind vvhat otbersare doing. The commander cannot bo present everywheie, and see every wood, vyatercgursft or ravine, in liich bis orders are carried nto execution: he, Iearns from report how the work goes on. It is well: for batlle is onc of Ihose jobs which men do wil hout. daring to look upon. Over nales of country, at every field, feuce, in ever gnrgQ oi' a valley, or entry into a wood, ihere is a mnrdor comrnitting, wliolesule, con'inuous, leciprocal n.urder. The human form - God's image - is nuililated, deforrned, lacerated, in every possible way, and wil h every variëty of torture. The wounded are jolted ofFin carta to ihe rear,t!ieir bared nerves croshed inio maddemng pain it every stone or rut; or the fitglit and pursuit' trample over them, léaving ilipm io wr'uhe and roar without assisiance - and fever, ond thirst, the mot enduring of painful sensations, po'ss'ïss tliem entirely . Tbirsl, too, has seized opon the yet ublebodied solJier, who wiih bloodshot eye, and tongue loJling out, pües l)is' trade - b!nsphemmg, kiiling with suvage delight, callous wben the brains uf his lover] comrade are spattcred over him. The battlefiehl is, it'possible, a more painful object, of contomplation thon lh combalant?. Tliéyarein tbeir vocotion. earning their bread--what will not marrelo for i shilling a day7 But tneir Vork is carriod on nmid the fields, gardens, and homesteads oí men unused to war. They left their home?, wilh all that habit and liappy asseciaiions have made precious, to bear iis brunt. The poor, the aged, the sic!;, are lel! u the Imrry, to be killed by etiay shots, or benleu down, as the charge and counter-charge go over. them. The ripening grain is trampled down; the garden is trodrleu in:oa bluck mud. the t'ruiis, bending benenih tbeir luecious load, aro shattered ty the canfton shot. Churches aml private dwellirtgs ore used as for'.resses, and ruined in' the conflict. Buns and stackyards calch firé, and the conflagraron spreads on sï side.-3. At night the steed is stftbled beside the altnr, nnd the vf ary hornicidcs of the dny com plete the wrecking of housoi? to mnke their lars for sTumber. Thn fires of the bivowac corhulete what the lïres kintlled by the battlc hnve Fóft unconsurrled. The stirvivin eoUIiers moróh ón to act the eame scènes over again elsewhere; and the retnnants of the scatiered inhahilnnts return to fiiid the manorled bodics of those they had loved, onïid the blackcnirrg mms of their homes; to mciirn with moro agonizing grief over the missing, of who?e fnte they ara ircéftain; to feel themselves hankrupt of the world's fo look from llreir childrpn to the desolate fields and gardrin?, añil t hink of faminc and pestifence engendered by the rotting bodios of the halt' buricd myriads of slain. Tle soldier marches on and inflictiug and surTcr'mg os be(bre. War iá a conünuance of batí les - an epidfinic, striding fröm' place to place, more horrible than the typluis. pes'tk'nce, or cholrio. which not unfiequrnlly iol'iow in ir train. The seige ís anaggravation of the hattle. - I The peaceful inhabitants of tlie belooguered town are cooped np, nj cannot fiy the place of conflict. The rnulLarinjuries inflioted by ussnilant8 and assailecj are" aggrava.'ed; their vrai! ;;- more frtifeied} tríen come thj9 storm fand tlie capture, and the liüt .and lustlul exceescs of the victor soldiecy striviog to quench On (triïfe&ënness óf lluod 'm ihe íruiikénnes uf utne. The eocoritnc niovcments of war - the maiciiiny nt] cntn!er-riirirclii!jL - often rejxjai the blow on districis slowly recoVering from the lirat. Bel ween destruction and the wasteful consumption of the aoldisry, poverty pervadea the land. liope'ess of the firure, liaro'ened by ihe scènes. of which he s n dftily witjiess, perhaps goaded by revcnge, the peas■mt becomes a pluncícrer nred en assassin. - Tie liorrible crueltios perpëtratcd by Spamsh pensante on the Fronch soidiers rvho feil ihto their power, u-ere the natural consenuences of war. The families of the upper clusses are dispert-ed: !he di.'cipline of the family circle is removed; a habit of living1 in the day for the day; of drowning the ihong-hts of the morrow in transint and ilücit plsasure- ]s engendered. The waste and dejolatioii which n baltle spreads over the batljoöelj, is as nothin wlien oompared v. iih the inoral desolalioñ which war diffases throug-h all ranks of society in the couiitry which is the scène of vvor.