d be the effect, where the individuals of a nation
were perfectly virtuous. But I ask much less for my hypothesis. I only
ask that the ruling members of the cabinet of any great nation (and
perhaps these would only amount to three or four) should consist of real
Christians, or of such men as would implicitly follow the policy of the
Gospel, and I believe the result would be as I have described it.

Nor indeed are we without instances of the kind. The goodness of the
emperor Antoninus Pius was so great, that he was said to have outdone
all example. He had no war in the course of a long reign of twenty-four
years, so that he was compared to Numa. And nothing is more true, than
that princes referred their controversies to his decision.

Nor most I forget again to bring to the notice of the reader the
instance, though on a smaller scale, of the colonists and descendants of
William Penn. The Quakers have uniformly conducted themselves towards
the Indians in such a manner, as to have given them from their earliest
intercourse, an exulted idea of their character. And the consequence is,
as I stated in a former section, that the former, in affairs of
importance, are consulted by the latter at the present day. But why, if
the cabinet of any one powerful nation were to act upon the noble
principle of relinquishing war, should we think the other cabinets so
lost to good feelings, as not to respect its virtue? Let us instantly
abandon this thought; for the supposition of a contrary sentiment would
make them worse than the savages I have mentioned.

Let us then cherish the fond hope, that human animosities are not to be
eternal, and that man is not always to be made a tiger to man. Let us
hope that the government of some one nation (and when we consider the
vast power of the British empire, the nature of its constitution and
religion, and the general humanity of its inhabitants, none would be
better qualified than our own) will set the example of the total
dereliction of wars. And let us, in all our respective situations,
precede the anticipated blessing, by holding out the necessity of the
subjugation of the passions, and by inculcating the doctrine of
universal benevolence to man, so that when we look upon the beautiful
islands, which lie scattered as so many ornaments of the ocean, we may
wish their several inhabitants no greater injury than the violence of
their own waves; or that, when we view continents at a distance from us,