Sydney Smith, Acre would have fallen, and the bloody
reign of the Butcher would have come to an end. This destruction of
Napoleon's magnificent anticipations of Oriental conquest must have been a
bitter disappointment. It was the termination of the most sanguine hope of
his life. And it was a lofty ambition in the heart of a young man of
twenty-six, to break the chains which bound the countless millions of
Asia, in the most degrading slavery, and to create a boundless empire such
as earth had never before seen, which should develop all the physical,
intellectual, and social energies of man.

History can record with unerring truth the _deeds_ of man and his _avowed
designs_. The attempt to delineate the conflicting _motives_, which
stimulate the heart of a frail mortal, are hazardous. Even the most lowly
Christian finds unworthy motives mingling with his best actions. Napoleon
was not a Christian. He had learned no lessons in the school of Christ.
Did he merely wish to aggrandize himself, to create and perpetuate his own
renown, by being the greatest and the best monarch earth has ever known?
This is not a Christian spirit. But it is not like the spirit which
demonized the heart of Nero, which stimulated the lust of Henry the
Eighth, which fired the bosom of Alexander with his invincible phalanxes,
and which urged Tamerlane, with his mounted hordes, to the field of blood.
Our Saviour was entirely regardless of self in his endeavors to bless
mankind. Even Washington, who though one of the best of mortals, must be
contemplated at an infinite distance from the Son of God, seemed to forget
himself in his love for his country. That absence of regard for self can
not be so distinctly seen in Napoleon. He wished to be the great
benefactor of the world, elevating the condition and rousing the energies
of man, not that he might obtain wealth and live in splendor, not that he
might revel in voluptuous indulgences, but apparently that his own name
might be embalmed in glory. This is not a holy motive. Neither is it
degrading and dishonorable. We hate the mercenary despot. We despise the
voluptuary. But history can not justly consign Napoleon either to hatred
or to contempt. Had Christian motives impelled him, making all due
allowance for human frailty, he might have been regarded as a saint. Now
he is but a hero.

The ambitious conqueror who invades a peaceful land, and with fire and
blood subjugates a timid and helpless people, th