estion, and because of the well-known
Christianity and orthodoxy of its ruler. But this was not the only power
that possessed a deeper insight into the future than did its neighbours.
It is hardly to be gainsaid that there was, about that period, another
great power popularly supposed to dwell amidst darkness-a power which is
said also to possess the faculty of making Scriptural quotations to his
own advantage. It is not at all unlikely that amidst this scene of
universal quietude he too was watching certain little snow-wrapt hamlets,
scenes of straw-yard and deep thatched byre in which cattle munched their
winter provender-watching them with the perspective scent of death and
destruction in his nostrils; gloating over them with the knowledge of
what was to be their fate before another snow time had come round. It
could not be supposed that amidst such an era of tranquillity the army of
England should have been allowed to remain in a very formidable position.
When other powers were talking of disarming, was it not necessary that
Great Britain should actually disarm? of course there was a slight
difference existing between the respective cases, inasmuch as Great
Britain had never armed; but that distinction was not taken into account,
or was not deemed of sufficient importance to be noticed, except by a few
of the opposition journals; and is not every one aware that when a
country is governed on the principle of parties, the party which iscalled
the opposition must be in the wrong? So it was decreed about this time
that the fighting force of the British nation should be reduced. It was
useless to speak of the chances of war, said the British tax-payer,
speak-ing through the mouths of innumerable members of the British
Legislature. Had not the late Prince Consort and the late Mr. Cobden
come to the same conclusion from the widely different points of great
exhibitions and free trade, that war could never be? And if; in the face
of great exhibitions and universal free trade-even if war did become
possible, had we not ambassadors, and legations, and consulates all over
the world; had we not military attaches at every great court of Europe;
and would we not know all about it long before it commenced? No, no, said
the tax-payer, speaking through the same medium as before, reduce the
army, put the ships of war out of commission, take your largest and most
powerful transport steamships, fill them full with your best and most
exper