A LESSON OF THE WAR.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 858, 4 November 1870, Page 3

A LESSON OF THE WAR.

[nelson COLONIST, OCT. ?5.] Blinded by the dust and blood, the " glory," and the gallantry, and by the thrilling incidents of battle, people are apt, for the moment, to lose sight of the dreadful truth that the war raging in Europe is purely a M Monarchs' War." That such a war is possible is due to the fact that the present generations are not yet sufficiently educated in the real rights of humanity so as properly to comprehend and duly value the far-reaching influence of the pernicious maxim of the past, that sets forth the *' right divine of Kings." This war is an outcome of the action of that now exploded, but not yet powerless, doctrine which for long centuries has been & fraud on the rights, the liberties, and the lives of the human race. Dynastic influences, the feuds of rivals for a throue, the wickedly selfish personal ambition of individual monarchs have made Aceldamas of European lands, which are the most favored of Nature, but which have been repeatedly heretofore, and are now again, cursed by the din of battle and .desolated by the horrors of war. And the terrible game goes on. Lives are sacrificed by hundreds of thousands; happy homes, peaceful cities, fruitful jdains, prosperous seats of industry are given to the flumes ; the true work of the world is retarded ; treasure is worse than Wasted, and iu the waste is destroyed the labor of the thews and sinews of multitudes of men, which, if properly employed, would relieve all the poverty of all civilised countries of the earth. All this is wasted; and on what ? On that which, for the past few months, has been desolatiug lovely countries, destroying human life with a rapidity hitherto unknown in warfare, paralysing the commerce of the world, checking the work of civilisation, and filling tens of thousaqds of homes with weeping and wailing for the untimely dead. Viewing these events in all the fulness of detail, the rapidity of their occurrence and promptitude of publication, and the black disaster they entail, well may the peoples of Christeudom ask—What have we to do with the quarrels of kings, the ambitions of princes, and the false state* gr#ft of wily and grasping diplomatists ?

What indeed ! Bat the eyes of the world are being opened, and the beginning of the end is at hand. We may not see it, but our children will; and it may come even more speedily than many dare dream. The march of events is now so rapid that even middle-aged men may behold a partial fulfilment of the first Napoleon's,prediction, that Europe would be all Republican or all Cossack. It is true that the North is the seed-plot of nations, and from its hardy latitudes are sent forth the hordes which occupy Southern lands. But there are influences at work in the North of Europe, and within the many peopled empire of the Russian Czar, which set aside the latter alternative of the prisoner of St, Helena. Europe is not becoming Cossack, but it is growing Republican; and already the Cossack is feeling the influence of the onward march of that independent thought and that human freedom of which true Republicanism is the highest exponent. Under republican institutions a war springing from personal ambitions of a few modern satraps wo aid be an impossibility. But no great evil which is permitted in this world fails to yield a good and useful lesson. This wicked and bloody war is educating the people of the realms of Europe to some purpose, which shall bear precious fruit in future generations. The dire echoes from these crimsoned fields will awaken the true music of humanity ; and the lover of his kind can picture to himself the time when free peoples, wisely educated, will laugh to scorn the blasphemous dogmas of " infallible " priestcraft, and set at naught the kingly rulers whose thrones are planted amidst the spilt blood of their innocent subjects. The heart which swells with sorrow for what is being done under the autumnal skies of France, can gather comfort from this thought, for the indications of that coming time are now more clearly defined than ever they have been. The effete effigy of mere king worship must go down before the nobler presence of that growing aspiration which sighs for the happiness of mankind.