s
we gazed, he separated the last shred which held it, and lay over with
blanched lips which still murmured the prayer. (1) We could do little
to help him, and, indeed, might by our halt attract his pursuers to his
hiding-place; so, throwing him down my flask half filled with water, we
hastened on upon our way. Oh, war, my children, what a terrible thing it
is! How are men cozened and cheated by the rare trappings and prancing
steeds, by the empty terms of honour and of glory, until they forget
in the outward tinsel and show the real ghastly horror of the accursed
thing! Think not of the dazzling squadrons, nor of the spirit-stirring
blare of the trumpets, but think of that lonely man under the shadow of
the alders, and of what he was doing in a Christian age and a Christian
land. Surely I, who have grown grey in harness, and who have seen as
many fields as I have years of my life, should be the last to preach
upon this subject, and yet I can clearly see that, in honesty, men must
either give up war, or else they must confess that the words of the
Redeemer are too lofty for them, and that there is no longer any use in
pretending that His teaching can be reduced to practice. I have seen a
Christian minister blessing a cannon which had just been founded, and
another blessing a war-ship as it glided from the slips. They,
the so-called representatives of Christ, blessed these engines of
destruction which cruel man has devised to destroy and tear his
fellow-worms. What would we say if we read in Holy Writ of our Lord
having blessed the battering-rams and the catapults of the legions?
Would we think that it was in agreement with His teaching? But there!
As long as the heads of the Church wander away so far from the spirit of
its teaching as to live in palaces and drive in carriages, what wonder
if, with such examples before them, the lower clergy overstep at times
the lines laid down by their great Master?

Looking back from the summit of the low hills which lie to the westward
of the moor, we could see the cloud of horse-men streaming over the
bridge of the Parret and into the town of Bridgewater, with the helpless
drove of fugitives still flying in front of them. We had pulled up our
horses, and were looking sadly and silently back at the fatal plain,
when the thud of hoofs fell upon our ears, and, turning round, we found
two horsemen in the dress of the guards riding towards us. They had made
a circuit to cut us off, for t