The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-01 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING.

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Beneath a dull grey canopy of cloud, and under
weeping skies, London yesterday offered up her
thanksgiving for the national successes at Sebas-
topol. It cannot be said that this great capital
was glad on the occasion—nay, the minds of the
mass of worshippers in the metropolitan churches
seemed to sympathise with the aspect of heaven,
and their eyes were too often dimmed by the
thought of a success so near akin to a reverse.
Still, amidst tears and sighs and sobs, and in con-
gregations whose sable garments too often reveal
the sad story of some dear one now still and cold
in the Crimean earth, the feeling of thankfulness
prevailed,—thankfulness that the first act of this
great tragedy is over, and that for a while England
may dwell on the impressions of the last awful
scene. That scene is pictured with no careless and
no unfaithful touch by the hand of our correspon-
dent, and even the many days that have elapsed
since the event was known have not diminished
the interest of the description. If England ever
did want a lesson, not to humble her, but to teach
her to prosecute a righteous cause with moderation
and self-denial, it has been given by the present
results of this war. Very early in it we antici-
pated, as the most probable alternative, that even
in the case of substantial success the event might
be rather honourable than glorious, and that we
might be more content with past fame than eager
to embark in new quarrels. We even incurred some
unfavourable comments by suggesting the salutary
tendency of so qualified a triumph. Yet, after
difficulties and countervailing efforts that at the
beginning of this war it would have been folly to
imagine, we have arrived at an event whiels,
though very . far from final, fully justifies all our
caution. The Englishman who stands among the
ruins of Sebastopol has far more reason to weep,
as many a conqueror has done before, than to pant
for new battle-fields. A vast sacrifice has been
offered up. Myriads of men of many nations ; the
tribes of many a steppe ' • the labours of many a
harvest ; the flocks and herds of many a valley ;
armies and fleets • a city and fortresses ; vast
fabrics that have been slowly rising from the rock
or the shore • accumulations of artillery, missiles,
powder, food, and all the fell materiel of war,
which, after such an unparalleled waste, seemed
still inexhaustible • the resources of empires at the
highest pitch of art, have all been collected and
heaped together, only to be hacled and hewn, rent
and torn, buried in the earth and flung to the
skies, smashed, ground to dust, blasted and burnt,
gashed, riddled, mangled, dismembered, reduced
to mortal agony and festering corruption, till the
whole lies at length motionless and silent, a mere
chaos of shattered fragments aid mortal remains.
Never since the beginning of history was seen so
vast a pile of ruin and misery, contributed. by so
large a portion of the human race. With the ex-
ception of a few odious features from which we are
happily spared, the catastrophe is without an equal
in the annals of war. And what is the moral ? Is it
that the Englishman is a better soldier than the
Frenchman, or even the Russian ? Is it that we
are pre-eminent in generalship, in dashing courage,
'in mechanical ingenuity, in abundance of material
resources and vesatility of genius ? Is it that they
who rule the sea must needs also shake the earth ?
Isit that a constitutional Government must give us
an advantage over slaves Whoeveronce expected
aught of these things must now give up the idle
hope ; for, so far as England is concerned, the only
_augury we can gather from thahuge hecatomb is the
hard though final triumph of justice, liberty, and
truth. This is much indeed, but it is not all. 'What-
ever we ventured to ask from Heaven in our prayers
has been granted. If any one asked for more—if
any ambitious mortal intruded national glory or
aggrandisement into the solemn litany of nations,
be has been signally disappointed.
-We now see on what hard conditions even duty
must be done. England has seen this many a
time before, but the lesson is soon forgotten, and
must be taught again. The soldier who exclaimed.
that " to fight for his country was the only infalli-
ble omen" did but perish before its fall, and West-
ern Europe now sees that a nobler cause than that
of country is not to be undertaken without a pro-
• portionate cost, and may bring no glory beyond the
most naked success. In the very magnitude,
sacredness, and necessity of the quarrel we early
saw and predicted its fearful risks and sacrifices.
Yet we never could have imagined, and certainly
should not have ventured to impose upon our read-
ers, so horrible a picture as that of the event. Yet
this is merely the beginning, and we see in the
scorched. and gory ruins of Sebastopol only the
first step in the long worx before us. The salva-
tion of liberty and civilisation from Russian aggres-
sion can only be worked out with fear and trem-
bling among men, amidst the confused sound of an
artillery that mocks Heaven's thunder, on many a
hard-fought field strewn with garments rolled in
blood. An irresistible necessity has brought us to
where we stand, but who can say when that. neces-
sity will be satisfied ? All we know is that theie
must be no turning back, that it must be satisfied
at any cost. Once landed on the soil of the Crimea,
honour as well as self preservation impelled us to the
Alma; thence delay was dangerous till we arrived be-
neath the fated walls; we had to defend ourselves at
Balaklava and Inkerman, and were besieged a whole
winter in our trenches and camp; pushed on earlier
than our preparations warranted,we were obliged to
assault and suffer defeat on a day hitherto marked
with victory in our calendar; honour led us to the
breach where we were certain to be repelled; again
on the last day of Sebastopol, when the lists were
about to be closed, and the curtain of endless night
about to fall on that stage, we met our last oppor-
tunity, unprepared, disordered, ill-advised, in
poverty of leadership and effeteness of invention,
and, goaded on beyond our own tardy pace by the
example of our allies and the awfulness of our
cause, we were driven to the slaughter. Thus
from first to last we have had little to boast of.
Woe, indeed, to those that attack us, even though

they find us, as they always do find us, unpre-
pared ; but ours is not now, at least, the military
skill, ours is not the master mind, ours is not the
creative genius to organise the attack, to command
victory, and appropriate the palm. We did these
things once, but we do them no longer. Fifty years
ago we had a General, but English generals are
like American aloes,—they come into bloom once,
perhaps, in a century. There is no disguising it,
and the less we blink the fact the better—we are
now novices in war. With a righteous cause, an
overwhelming necessity, and gallant allies, we quit
ourselves like men. Non ontnia possumus omnes.
We; beat the world in some things; in other re-
spects we have our superiors.
The catastrophe, if such it cau be called, has been
so long coming that few probably reflect on the
really brief interval which has separated the most
glorious triumphs of civilisation from the worst
horrors of war. Only four years ago we were all
dreaming. of universal peace. From the green
award that half. girts this quiet metropolis, by the
banks of an artificial lake, among ancient trees,
every leaf of which was religiously respected, there
rose up, as if by enchantment, a temple of con-
cord, worthy of its purpose as a resort of all
nations, and flr the amicable rivalry of universal
art. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Turks, and
Russians were there all seen displaying their native
productions, from which we remember all warlike
weapons were religiously excluded, and comparing
their several skills. As it was once asked. "Let us
make three tabernacles," so in this instance fond.
philanthropy demanded that. the temple should
ever remain, and that all nations might continue
to find a neutral ground for improvement, and a
home for the arts of peace. That concourse dis-
persed ; those treasures were scattered ; that fabric
melted away, and the plough has long passed over
the soil where it stood. Not three years had passed
when there was another concourse of nations, an-
other trial of skill ; other piles of manufactures •
hardware in abundance, shot and shell, musket, and
sword, and bayonet ; a whole harvest of dragons'
teeth. Then came other rivalries, arbitrations,
and prizes. It was to a small promontory at the
other end of Europe, 3,000 miles off, in the midst
of barbarism, that the scene was removed ; and
thither half the civilised world went to converse in
the proper language of this fresh competition. It
was Sebastopol. But a twelvemonth ago that great
gathering was opened, and it too, with the long-
prepared fabric, has now disappeared ; not to be
replaced by green turf, but to afflict and inflame
the whole world with its hideous pile of death and
destruction: Not four whole years have inter-
vened between two spectacles each unexampled,
yet in so different kinds, and so fearfully opposite.
.119 wools are necessary to point the inevitable
Moral of the fearful contrast, which We gladly leave
to*the sel'aum feelings of our readers.—Times.