11 around warlike achievements, irrespective of the truth involved, Cowper’s estimate is strictly true : “ War followed for revenge, or to supplant The envied tenants of some happier spot, ***** Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth Of wisdom, proves a school in which he learns Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate, Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside.” Yet, notwithstanding this intrinsically evil nature of war, in man’s fallen state it is often the just condition of national existence, and the stern, but righteous means of the highest social good. It is sometimes the sword with which God smites to earth oppression and wrong, and makes way for the march of truth. War is justified and dignified only by the truth in defence of which it is waged. It is useful only when it defends and renders sacred principles. The shout, therefore, which goes up for a victory, whatever natural feelings of triumph may of necessity mingle with and stimulate it, should always primarily express the joy of moral beings, that it has made some real or possible advance for the truth of God. Apart from this, there is nothing in a battle for which it be- cometh men to shout. Apart from this, there is little save sorrow, suffering, and degradation. Nothing but the triumph of man’s savage nature for which to shout. The shout which means nothing more than joy in the material aggrandizement of the State, and sympathy with the prowess of kindred and countrymen, is the spirit which overturns the institutions of religion, prostrates civilization, lays waste continents, and establishes tyranny. It is the spirit, the avowed enemy to mental and moral
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