The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-10-16
The Northern and Southern Dead.
n. DEWITT TALMAGE.


This is prophecy OF the day when
agriculture shall triumph over war,
corn tassels over battle plumes, wheat
sacks over ammunition wagons, scythes
over swords, and cottages over bat
teries. I suppose you have all heard
what the musicians call the "Anvil
Chorus" There is not much music in
the beating of one hammer; but when
n the great National Peace Jubilee
some years ago in Boston, there were
ten thousand trained voices and a
great multitude of brazens instru-
ments, and the booming of cannon,
there were hundreds of hammers that
came down on anvils, making music
that moved the whole audience to
widest vociferations. But what was
that scene compared with the day in
which the keen sword and the glitter
ing scimeters of all nations shall 60 in
to the blacksmith shops and the found
rics for reconstruction, and after being
heated in the blaze shall lie brought
out on the anvils, and all the hammers
Of mechanism, clear around the world,
uplifted and down-swung, in the name
of God "shall beat the swords into
ploughshares"? Oh, that will he the
"anvil chorus" of the ages. There
does not, however, seem to be any
prospect of immediate fulfilment OF
this prophecy. While I speak all Eu-
rope seems in opposition to the prophet
cy of the text, and they are beating
their ploughshares into swords.
I have thought, that on that week
when garlands are to be put upon the
graves of the Nothern and Southern
soldiers, and when we naturally refer
the suffering and the bereavement of
our awful civil war, it would be well if
/ tried to set you against the curse of
war which has afflicted all nations.
know there are those who intimate
that blood-letting is healthful for ma
tions, and that nothing hut the lancet
can keep them from plethora, and that
frequent wars are necessary in order to
kill off the useless and bad population
of the earth. That heathenish idea is
utterly Ioathsome to me, especially
when I remember that war is indis-
criminate, and takes down the good as
we'll as the bad. Then I think that
the time has tomc when Christian ma
tions ought to substitute arbitration
and treaty in the place of wholesale
massacre. A Turk in the city of Jeru-
salem said to Christian missionary,
"Why do you come here to Jerusa-
lem ?" "Why," said the missionary,
II am to preach peacew "Peace in
deedW sneered the Turk. Then he
took the missionary to a window, and
pointed out to Mount Calvary and
said: "There is the mountain on
which your Lord died to purchase
peace for the world, and yet we Mo-
.hammedans on that very mount have
had to interfere to keep Christians
from killing each other. Peace in
deed! !"
A glance at isolated facts will show
the waste, the desolation, the suffering.
the determination of war. When Ma
poleon's army marched up towards
Moscow, they burned every house for
one hundred and fifty miles. Our
Revolutionary war cost the English
government six hundred and eighty
millions of dollars. The wars grow
ing out of the French Revolution cost
England three thousand millions of
dollars. Christendom, or, rs I might
mispronounce it, in order to make the
fact more appalling, Christ-end-um
has paid in twenty-five years, fifteen
thousand million dollars for battle and
killed two million of men. The exor-
bitant, and exhausting taxes Of Great
Britain and the United States are for
the most part resultant from conflict
When we complain about our taxes we
charge the fault upon this administra-
ton or upon that administration, upon
this line of policy or upon that line of
policy; but it is a simple fact that to-
day, we are paying for the shot and the
shell, and the ambulances, and the cav
airy horses and the batteries, and the
exploded fortresses, and the broken
bones, and the digging of the grave
trenches, and the pensions for four
years of mutual destruction.
Edmund Burke estimated that the
nations of this world had expended
thirty-five thousand million dollars in
war; but he did his ciphering before
our great American and European