THE PRICE OF MILITARY “GLORY.”

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1233, 27 January 1872, Page 2

THE PRICE OF MILITARY “GLORY.”

Much has been said and written of the "-triumphant successes " of Germany in the late war; and comparatively little, of the desolation and rum it has wrought. The affecting narrative, which we give below is from an English paper, and we think that those who. read it, and reflect that it is but a type, of thousands of unrecorded instances, will be more than ever convinced that the thirst for military "glory," and the conquest of territory, can never lead la. true national prosperity :

A few days; ago I had occasion to. call upon a gentleman residing in the. immediate vicinity of Barmen. Ha was temporarily absent when I called, and T was received by a young lady in, mourning, whose Ihin, pale, half-trans-parent face bore the unmistakeable. mark of a threatening eailv death. I had called for some special information on the subject of the relief of the poor, in Elberfield and Barmen. As the. young lady was unable to give me the. papers referiing to the matter, I was shown into a room, there to await the. return of the master of the house. There my eyes, fell on a large family Bible which lay on a side-table. I could not resist the temptation to read. I found that the gentleman whose arrival 1 was awaiting there had had a. family of eight children, four sons and four daughters. His wife had died some 20 years ago, and all their daughters had died in their childhood. Of the sons, the eldest, had fallen at Duppel, in the Danish war of 1864. Following the entry of his death, his father's hand had traced the words: " Woe is unto me ! The pride of my house i« laid low, and the prop of my old age hath been taken g,yay !" In 1866, two sons, the one an officer, and the other a soldier in the Prussian army, had met their death for ~s.mg and Fatherland, one at Git-hin, the other at Koniginhof. Here, again, the. joint, record of the lather's bereavement was followed by a few words P,f iqtenscst grief, but also pious resignation : *' Lord, Thy hand is heavy upon me. My misery is more than 1 can bear, yet, Thy will be done. Thou knowest best." Then came the entry of thu marriage of the youngest and last surviving son on Sunday, July 17, 1870, with the broken young rose 1 had seen —there could be no doubt about it, as she told me her father would soon be back; and then came the final entry ;

"My Oscar —the youngest, the last, the best-beloved of my sons—died on the 21st Aiig us t;> of wounds received at the accursed battle of JVlars-la-Tour. The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." But the entry was blurred, and scarcely legible, bearing witness that, however willing and stout the spirit had been to bear, the flesh had given way. I closed the book with a feeling of .deep sadness, and rapidly regained my chair, trembling lest the bereaved old man should suddenly eorae in, and read in my troubled face some telling indication of the, indiscretion which I had committed in reading his family records. I had, however, fortunately time to recover my .composure before the gentleman, made his appearance. He was a tall old man, but woefully bowed down, clearly less with age, than by sorrow and suffering. He received me with great urbanity, and kindly placed at my disposal all the information it was in his power to give on the subject of my vi*it to him. When I left him, 1 pondered deeply on the melancholy results of the mad ambition of princes, and the wretched love of glory of nations. Here was a once happy family laid low in the brief space of a few years.