e? We are struck with horror and our hair stands on end, at
the report of a single murder; we think of the soul hurried to final
account; we hunt the murderer; and Government puts forth its energies
to secure his punishment. Viewed in the unclouded light of truth, what
is war but organized murder, murder of malice aforethought, in cold
blood, under sanction of impious law, through the operation of extensive
machinery of crime, with innumerable hands, at incalculable cost of
money, by subtle contrivances of cunning and skill, or amidst the
fiendish atrocities of the savage, brutal assault. The outrages, which,
under most solemn sanction, it permits and invokes for professed
purposes of justice, cannot be authorized by any human power; and they
must rise in overwhelming judgment, not only against those who wield the
weapons of battle, but more still against all who uphold its monstrous
arbitrament.

Oh, when shall the St. Louis of the nations arise, and in the spirit of
true greatness, proclaim that henceforward forever the great trial by
battle shall cease, that war shall be abolished throughout the
commonwealth of civilization, that a spectacle so degrading shall never
be allowed again to take place, and that it is the duty of nations,
involving the highest and wisest policy, to establish love between each
other, and, in all respects, at all times, with all persons, whether
their own people or the people of other lands, to be governed by the
sacred law of right, as between man and man.

FOOTNOTE:

[34] From the "True Grandeur of Nations," delivered in Boston, July 4,
1845.

THE AMERICAN FLAG[35]

HENRY WARD BEECHER

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag only,
but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he
reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths,
the history, which belong to the nation which sets it forth.

When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the
new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the
other three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we
shall see in it the long-buried but never dead principles of Hungarian
liberty. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery
ground set forth the banner of Old England, we see not the cloth merely;
there rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy, which,
more than any other on