of umpires would be selected; nor is it the vain hope of idle credulity, that at last a union might be formed, embracing every Christian nation, for guarantying the peace of Christendom, by establishing a tribunal for the adjustment of national differences, and by preventing all forcible resistance to its decrees.

“It is unnecessary to discuss, at this time, the character and powers with which such a tribunal should be invested.  Whenever it shall be desired, little difficulty will be experienced in devising for it a satisfactory organization; that it is possible to form such a court, and that next to Christianity it would be the richest gift ever bestowed by Heaven upon our suffering world, will be doubted by few who have patiently and candidly investigated the subject.

“But many who admit the advantages and practicability of the plan we have proposed, will be tempted to despair of success, by the apparent difficulty of inducing an effort for its accomplishment.  Similar difficulties, however, have been experienced and overcome.  The abolition of the slave trade, and the suppression of intemperance were once as apparently hopeless as the cessation of war.  Let us again recur for instruction and encouragement to the course pursued by the friends of freedom and temperance.  Had the British abolitionists employed themselves in addressing memorials to the various courts of Europe, soliciting them to unite in a general agreement to abandon the traffic, they would unquestionably have labored in vain, and spent their strength for nought.  They adopted another and a wiser course.  They labored to awaken the consciences of their own countrymen, and to persuade them to do justice and to love mercy; and thus to set an example to the rest of Europe, infinitely more efficacious than all the arguments and remonstrances which reason and eloquence could dictate.

“In vain might moralists and philanthropists have declaimed for ages on the evils of drunkenness, had no temperance society been formed till all mankind were ready to adopt a pledge of total abstinence.  The authors of the temperance reformation did not lavish their strength and resources in attempting to convince the world of the blessings of temperance, but forming themselves into a temperance society, gave a visible and tangible proof that the principle they recommended was not merely expedient but practicable.  And surely if we desire to persuade mankind that war is an unnecessary evil, it is indispensable that we should be able to point them to some instance in which it has been safely dispensed with; nor can we hope to effect a change in the opinion of Europe, while our own people remain unaffected by our assertions and arguments.

“Here then must be the field of our labors; and let those labors be quickened by the reflection, that while they are aimed at the happiness of the human race, they are calculated