The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-29

an lncurSlOn or the FrenCn, was set on fire: an altar stands opposite the door and a statue of Christ stands above the door It is said the fire burned to the feet of Christ and then died out-mir- IeCulously, the peasants think. No ser vice has since been held in this chapel. Back of the chapel in the middle of the court is a well, now filled up, in which three hundred bodies were thrown for burial. and it is said that In the night following feeble voices were heard cry ing from the well; perhaps not all who lwere thrown there were dead. Such is war. War. as Sherman said, is hell, IWhy dwell upon it. The English were victorious, thanks, perhaps to rain of the previous night which softened the ground and made it impossible for Ma lpoleon to locate his artillery and to begin the battle until almost noon, thus lgiving Butcher time to arrive and rein force Wellington before retreat would have been imperative. Doubtless 1t was the will og God who sent the fain Now at Mont St, Jean or near 1t 8 huge pyramid of earth, 150 feet high, is lslrmounted by a statue of huge lion the British lion-rampant and repre- senting the pride and boastfulness and readiness for further war which has so commonly become the spirit of the con- quering nation. South and little east Iof this near La Belle Alliance a monu- ment has recently been erected which impressed me more than any monu- ment upon which I have ever looked. It is something like the Bushnell mon ument in size and modesty above this place on Chapel street A low broad stone pedestal Is surmounted by the Ihgure of a French eagle. One wing is broken and hangs helpless by the side of the bird The other wing is out spread but pierced by ball. The eagle lclutchin= in its talons the arms of France is falling back in death The Inscription beneath is ITO the Memory of the Last Defenders The monu- lment Is to Napoleon's Old Guard, who covered his retreat, fought to the last, until their ammunition was spent, their guns broken to mere clubs, their ranks decimated and who refused the quarters graciously offered them and chose rath- ec to die for their eountry's honor and for the man they loved. This monu- ment to me, is impressive because it Icon memorates the spirit of the defeat- ed who are willing to die for the man they love- It is a pity, said Napo- leon, on the morning of that fatal day as he saw the Scotch cavalry, the flow CT Of the British army and thought of their fate. Tt is a pity we must say, as we recall such terrible battles with and consider how much more really the andconsider how much more really the welfare of men might be secured by the spirit and the arts of peace.N
 War Is always costly and destruetiye. Every harvest set on fire and burned; every village destroyed; every city razed; every valuable collection of the works of men ruined in war is so mnch distinct loss. Recall, if you please, the beautiful temple of Jerusalem destroy ed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar;
 the great library of Alexandria burned, by the Mohammedan conqueror Calit omar the splendid temple-the par,he- non of Athens shattered by a bomb in a Turkish magazine; the treasures of art in Rome ruined by the rude Goths; the beautiful statuary of Paris defaced and cast down by the mad mobs of Paris in the great revolutions; the puh- lie buildings burned in modern times;
 the railroads torn up and the property destroyed in the march of sherman from Atlanta to the sea, and you will have some faint conception of the loss es occasioned by war. Then consider the loss of human life-commonly of young men-the wounded, maimed and dependent victims who survive and the costliness of war will be apparent. Forty years have passed since our great war and as a nation we pay out one hundred and fifty millons-or hereabout-dollars annually In pen sions. We could have bought all the slaves of the south more cheaply. Men may well pray to be delivered from the want and wounds and woes which fol- low war. Men may well pray and work for the time foreseen and promised by the prophet hen nations shall learn. war no more.
 It must be noticed, however, that the reign of peace seen by the prophet is a consequence, a result, an achieve ment, It follows after nations have come up to the house of God, and have desired to learn his ways and have be- come willing to walk in his paths. Then they learn to believe that it is better to manufacture blows instead of swords and pruing hooks instead of spears, and to produce rather than to destroy and to exchange rather than to steal and to save life rather than to kill. Peace Is a consequence of what we now call Christian truth and the Christian spirit A supercal survey of the history of the nations which are called Christian as compared with the nations called pagan, will not lead to the conclusion that Christianity has produced peace; for Christian nations have been the most given to war of all the great nations on the face of the earth. But a more profound study of history may lead to a different con- clusion. The great religious of the world have all had their birth and set ting in the Orient. One would have thought that God would have chosen tha tthe religion of Jesus should have spread among Eastern peoples and should have found it's first conquests among nations relatively peaceful
 Singularly enough, this has not been the case. The religion of Jesus, though of Oriental birth and belonging to the east, was cradled beneath the stand ards of imperial Rome and began its conquering progress by hesieglng the