THE REV.DR.GUTHIRE ON WAR.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 380, 16 August 1871, Page 3

THE REV.DR.GUTHIRE ON WAR.

In a recent discourse n"n ** Win*', in its Moral Aspects and Results,'' ihe Rev. Dr Guthrie said :-— " It. is to sin, not toha'ture, we owe war. But for sin, iron" might have been forged into a ploughshare, never into> a sword. Human depravity never exhibited itself in such frightful .colors as on the stage where -this.: frightful Tragedy is acted. Human life is a sacted thing, li in that medical theatre where blood is shed., and the quivering limb mutilated fot the very purpose of preserving life, there, were a surgeon of distinguished skill wbo never ventured near a vital organ nor laid hands upon the knife till he had spread them out in prayer to God — if, in that court where the verdict of ' Guilty ' has just tallen on the ears of a hushed assembly, the Judge's voice is trembling) and his eyes are weening while he sentences one fellow creature to the gallows — and if, when his time is riin, ahd the procession has taken its way to the scaffold, and the death-bell tolls, it is an awful spectacle to see that solitary man, with his feet on the drop, and the white cap on his eyes, cast away the handkerchief that launches him into eternity, how much more awful the field which witnesses a hecatomb of victims ! Imagine that field on Borodino's banks, where one thous.-ind cannon added their thunder,*} to the long rattle and ceaseless roar oi musketry, whUe fortythousand cavalry are charging on tbe living squares, or meet each other in the fearful shock of war. To say nothing of the wild uproar of tbe fight, the ghastlywounds, the groans of the drying, the mangled bodies of the dead, how painful, bow revolting to a Christian mind, to think of men boiling with passion, many with. cur?es on their lips, mnny of these the outcasts of society, the neglected youths of our streets, miserably prepared, in any circumstances, to die, being hurled at every volley into the presence of their Judge ! In the dark days ol old, wbett God's scattered people had met for worship in one of our lonely glens, and the signal was hardly given by the watch oft the hill when the persecutors were on then.) and they had but time to close their Bibles and draw their swords, the preacher, ere his voice was drowned in the ringing volley, had but a few moments to raise his eyes and hands to heaven, and cry, 'Lord spare the green and take the ripe V K they only died on the field of battle who were ripe — who were ready— who were fit to die ; if we could believe that all these gallant were gracious men, uni'ing to a martyr's courage a martyr's fnith ; if, amid the cannon that pealfd and the Dglls that rung the victory, no pious father or widowed mother sat in their lonely room> and cried, as they rung their hands over their prodigal, *Oh ! my son Absalom ! my son) my son Absalom ! would to God I "had died ior thee, oh ! Absalom, my son) m} r son !' — the battle that leaves a thou-=---sand dead bodies on the field, and hurries a thousand souls tojudgment, were a much less awfulj much less distressing spectacle."