The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-19 00:00:00

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WAR NOTES.

EVIIR4ON3 is talking of war. The air is charged
with rumours, the newspapers teem with predic-
tions, the Sovereigns and the peoples have an un-
easy consciousness that a gigantic outbreak maybe
at hand. Nobody can state with precision the exact
grounds of his belief, yet everyone speaks of war
as imminent ; and some go so far as to say that
it would be better than a long continuance of a
costly armed peace. To speak of the greatest,
the most profound, and the most desolate of
earthly calamities as more to be desired than
an armed peace, is to say that it is better
to be dashed to pieces at the bottom of a
precipice than to stand in dangerous proximity
to its brink, that taunter is preferable to quar-
relling, and bi (dal violence to empty threats. It
is talking and writing of this kind which smoothes
the way to war, and the habit of treating it
UN inevitable is the most certain way of
bringing it al pout . The horrors of war are
a trite story, yet the present tone of the
foreign, and of some our Lome, journals load to
the belief that those Lori ors are in danger of being
overlooked, and that vacuity and ignorance may
work more terrible evil, in Europe than either
kingly jealousy or inkiwrial :oubitiou. The unwil-
ling readiness to tight avowed by Prussia ; the
dread of letting fall woills which nal), be misin-
terpreted as bellicose, acknowledged by France ;
Austlia's hotrod and jealousy of Russia and Prus-
sia ; and Russia's watchfulness towards Turkey,

are so many elements, which uneasy speeds-
tions and preparations are quietly fanning
into a flame. There is something morbidly
fascinating to the human mind in dwelling
upon tho dreaded and the horrible until it
appears natural and easy ; but the writers
and thinkers who indulge in it bare a
heavy responsibility at their doors. " There is full
" many a man that crioth ' Wale, werre,' " wrote
CHAUCFII at a time when the triumphs of the
BLaex Ilumit were at least as glorious as any
likely to accrue now, " that wot ful litel to what
" werre amounteth," and the truth is as manifest
in our time as his. It is quite true that the pre-
sent aspect of affairs is alarming; that there is too
much truth in many of the allegations made ; and
that the Powers of Europe seem to be sitting upon
powder barrels with a lighted meta in either hand.
It may be even true that war must come,
and that with the most peaceful intentions
and the most discreet foreign minister in the
world, England may again drift into it. But let
us at least—each in his sphere—do our utmost to
avert the scourge. DAVID chose pestilence rather
than war, preferring, as Lirruaa said finely, to fall
into the hands of Gkin than those of pitiless man ;
and lees misery would follow upon a decimating
plague than upon that war which so many talk of
glibly as inevitable, Tho " improvements" in the
art of slaying ; the terrible ingenuity which makes
missile and weapon more and more formidable as
the years go by ; the loss and misery which
have followed in the wake of the brief struggle
between Austria and Prussia ; the absolute oor-
tainty that if the torch be once kindled it will not be
speedily quenched, should make us more than ever
humbly prayerful against war in our time. Better a
thousandfold is peace even when armed to tho
teeth, than devastating, murderous, devouring
war; and to those who remember the premonitory
symptoms of every great outbreak, there is some-
thing inexpressibly shocking and sad in the
threatening rumours and gossip with which
Europe is surcharged, and which are multiplied
and circulated through thoughtlesumes,