When the skies were brass above her and Wondering glances fell upon her; women the earth was cold and dim, And when all her tears and pleadings brought no answer down from him? But at last stern Life, the tyrant, bade her take her burden up, To her lips so pale and shrunken pressed again the bitter cup; veiled their modest eyes Ere they slowly ventured near her, drawn "Tis some crazy one," they whispered. 66 Up she rose, still tramping onward through Then she told her piteous story in a vague, the forest far and wide Till the May-flowers bloomed and perished and the sweet June roses died; Till July and August brought her fruits and berries from their store; Till the goldenrod and aster said that sum mer was no more; disjointed way, And with cold white lips she murmured, Till the maples and the birches donned their But she said she had not crossed it. In her robes of red and gold; strange, erratic course Till the birds were hasting southward and She had wandered far to northward till she the days were growing cold. Was she doomed to roam for ever o'er the desolated earth, She the last and only being in those wilds of human birth? reached its fountain-source In the dark Canadian forests, and then, blindly roaming on, Down the wild New Hampshire valleys her bewildered feet had gone. Sometimes from her dreary pathway wolf or Oh, the joy-bells! sweet their ringing on the black bear turned away, frosty autumn air; But not once did human presence bless the Oh, the boats across the waters! how they sight of Margery Grey. One chill morning in October, when the woods were brown and bare, Through the streets of ancient Charlestown, with a strange, bewildered air, Walked a gaunt and pallid woman whose dishevelled locks of brown O'er her naked breast and shoulders in the wind were streaming down. leaped the tale to bear! Oh, the wondrous golden sunset of the blest When that weary wife was folded to the heart. JULIA C. R. DORR. THE man who pauses on his honesty MARTYN. PEACE AND WAR. FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT LLANDUdno, Wales, NOVEMBER 22, 1876. T is to me astonishing when I look back and see what has been the error and the folly into which the people of this country have been led in time past upon the question of war. We live in two considerable islands-Great Britain and Ireland. We are separated from the Continent by a seapassage which in itself is a great defence, and we have been for about three hundred years unassailed, and believe, with our population and our wealth and our means and our freedom, we are practically more unassailable than almost any other kingdom in the world. And yet, notwithstanding all that, we have spent, probably, in a period that does not go back beyond the lifetime of persons now living, two thousand millions of money in warall of which, I believe, might with honor have been avoided-and in needless or excessive armaments in preparing for war. Lord Russell said that he doubted whether there had been any war during the last hundred years that might not have been avoided, without any sacrifice of the interests or honor of this country, by those reasonable concessions which we are constantly making amongst each other as individuals, and which would be in no degree injurious or dishonorable if made between nations. A hundred years ago--just a hundred years ago this very year-this country was engaged in a war with the colonies now forming the United States of America. What happened when that war was over? A change of opinion extraordinary. No, not extraordinary-for it always takes place— but a change of opinion very remarkable. Whilst the war was going on people in many parts of the country were in favor of it, and the king and his ministers were doggedly determined to continue the war. But a few years after it was over everybody condemned it, and now, probably, there is no single man in this country, of any political party, however benighted, however ignorant, however positive, however unteachable, who would not condemn the folly and wickedness of that war with the American colonies. Well, but that war was supposed to have cost this country close upon one hundred millions of money, and it left between the inhabitants of these colonies-grown now to be a great nation, even greater in numbers than this, so far as the population of Great Britain and Ireland may be counted-it left feelings of anger and bitterness which are now only slowly passing away from amongst us. But after the American war was over only a few years we engaged in another and still greater and more prolonged struggle with the republic of France, and the reason we went into war with France was because France was a republic and held opinions supposed to be dangerous to the monarchy and aristocracy of this country; and that war was continued afterward for the overthrow of the emperor Napoleon, and concluded after about twentytwo years' existence. The cost to this country, I dare say, all told, was a thousand millions sterling; and yet now everybody-nobody more than Lord Russell-everybody, or almost everybody, condemns that war; and I believe that by greater moderation and greater wisdom on the part of the government and the press and the people of this country it might have been avoided. It left us with five hundred millions of debt accumulated, in addition to the previous debts, during the continuance of that one single but prolonged struggle. We condemned, as I said, the American war a few years after it was over; I mean that your forefathers did. Our fathers condemned the French war not long after it was over; and since then we have had another war of great magnitude, but of not very long continuance, which generally goes by the name of the Crimean war-war with Russia-the main portion of the struggle taking place in the Crimea. But now, as far as I can judge, everybodyperhaps I ought not to say "everybody," because, perhaps, Her Majesty's ministers would not agree with me, but nearly everybody-condemns that war; and I think every single man who knows anything about it would admit that we gained absolutely nothing but discredit and loss loss of life and increased debt-from the struggle which this country carried on with Russia twenty-two years ago. In the placard calling this meeting there is a statement of how much is spent every year in armaments and matters connected with wars past or to come-how much a month, how much a week, how much a day, how much an hour, and I don't know whether it is not my duty to say how much per minute. But now take another illustration. You can form some idea of an estate of two thousand acres of the best land in your Welsh counties, and you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you that our expenditure of fifty millions per year for past wars and for present military expenses is equal to the swallowing up every day for the six working-days of every week during the year of an estate of that magnitude. Now, can it be possible that anything like this is necessary? It seems to me that the whole world is wrong that everything is wrong in the creation and arrangement of the conditions under which men live on this earth, if man himself is not very wrong, having brought matters to this dreadful condition. war. Take the last great case that I have referred to-the case of the Russian or Crimean At the time it was being waged there was not one man in twenty who really knew anything about it. At this moment I don't believe you could find one man in a hundred throughout England who could give you any clear account of the war-the progress of negotiations, the difficulties which were met. with and which were not overcome, and, finally, of the state of things which precipitated the catastrophe and brought on that lamentable and most inglorious struggle. But now look back to the passions which were exhibited at that time. You see what a change has come. Like as it was with the American war that was condemned, as it was after the French war that was condemned, so it is now after the Russian war that is all but universally condemned; so that we have come-I believe the nation has come mainly and by a vast majority-to the conclusion But, leaving for a moment the question of expense, I will ask you to consider the question of the loss of life. A most minute and careful history of the war has been written by a gentleman with whom I am acquainted, who was in Parliament for several years, very near where I sat-Mr. Kinglake, who has paid most scrupulous attention to every fact with regard to the war; and I see it quoted from his book that he believes, first and last, that not less than one million of men lost their lives in connection with that struggle. Remember who were concerned. The chief were Russia, Turkey, England, France and the kingdom of Sardinia, which is now the kingdom of Italy. The French lost more men, I believe, than we did; the Turks, possibly more than either of them; the loss of Russia is not to be counted; and we stand now in this lamentable and terrible condition that we were the country that went rashly and violently and passionately into the war. We have not a single thing of the slightest value to show for it, but on the other side we have that vast loss of treasure and sacrifice and slaughter of a million of human beings. that the object was unworthy of our efforts that. A man can only die once, and it does and that the result was absolute and entire not matter very much where he dies or how failure. he dies." Now, I think it matters a good deal. It matters a good deal to widows and orphans and sisters and friends. It matters a good deal to thousands-scores of thousands and hundreds of thousands of men who are cut off in the very flower of their youth that they should be thrust with the passionate thrust of a bayonet or rent asunder by shot and shell-killed, it may be, at once, or left lingering on the field or in hospital, dying of intense and inconceivable agonies. What is it that is so valuable as life? What happens if some unfortunate visitor to this place or unfortunate and helpless boatman is drowned in your bay? Does it not make a sensation in your community? Is there not a feeling of grief that passes from heart to heart until there is not one man, woman or child amongst you that did not feel that a calamity has happened in your neighborhood? And what if there be a wreck? I was in this neighborhood two or three days after the wreck of the Rothesay Castle, forty-five or forty-six years ago, and I suppose nearly a hundred men and women were drowned on that occasion; I was down at the scene of the wreck of the Royal Charter, only a few years ago, when nearly four hundred persons were drowned. Did it matter nothing? I saw a poor grayheaded man there wandering along the beach, as he wandered day after day, in hope, not that he might find his son alive, but that he might find even the dead body of his son that he might be comforted by giving it a fitting burial. These things give a shock to the whole district, to the whole nation, and rightly and inevitably so. Look, again, to Some people think that the loss of life in war is a very common thing, and that it is not worth talking about. They think a soldier takes his wages and stands his chance. I recollect being disgusted during the time of the war by the observation of a gentleman at the dinner of a person of high rank in this country and of the party by whom the war was originated. He said, "As for the men that are killed, I think nothing of the accidents on the railways. Take the sad accident in this county-the most appalling that has ever happened on any railway in this kingdom: I mean the accident at Abergele, when men were destroyed in a moment, apparently without a moment's warning. Take the terrible accidents that happen from time to time in the collieries in various parts of the country. See what woe is caused by them, and remember, as you must remember, how every family in the country is stirred and filled with grief at the narrative of the disasters that have occurred. Well, now, take other things that happen that distress us connected with the loss of life. Take the private murders that are committed throughout the kingdom and hangings that take place of the criminals who have been guilty of these murders. All these things fill us at times with sorrow and cover our feelings and our hearts with gloom. And now take together all the accidents from boats that you have ever heard of, all the accidents from shipwrecks that have ever been recorded; take all the accidents on railways since railways were first made, and all the accidents in mines since the bowels of the earth were penetrated to obtain coal for the use of man; and, besides these, take all the lamentable private murders which have been caused by passion or cupidity or vengeance; and take all the hangings of all the criminals-and there have been far too many under the law of this country-more brutal in this matter, I believe, in past times than even now, and than the laws of any other Christian country,-I say take all these phases of destruction of human life, add them all together and bring them into one bring them all into one great sum-and what are they in comparison with the millions of human beings who have been destroyed and slaughtered in a single Russian war? And the war only lasted two years, and the French war lasted more than twenty years. Almost half the time from the accession of William III. in this country up to 1875-almost if not more than half that time-this Christian country was engaged in sanguinary struggles with some other so-called Christian nations on the Continent of Europe. Now, seeing what was paid for the Russian war, and seeing what an entire failure it turned out with regard to the pretended objects which it was supposed likely to secure-the people of England did not go into war in their passionate moments without some idea that some good is to follow-seeing how much we have lost and how great was the crime we committed, is it not astounding there should be any man, much more than that man should be in the lofty position of prime minister-ruler of this nation-who should by unadvised, unwise speaking invite the nation to involve itself in another war that may be no less prolonged, that may cause equal loss and equal slaughter, and that undoubtedly will result in a total failure, as the war twenty-two years ago which we had. And it is the old story now just as it was in those days-that Russia is an aggressive power. I am afraid almost all powers as opportunity offers have been aggressive, but he would be a most ingenious calculator who could show that there was any power in the wide world that during the last hundred has been more aggressive than that power of which we in this meeting form a humble and small party. It is said now, as it was said then, that Russia was aggressive, and that years |