to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose.

“Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals!  Your mantle fell when you ascended, and thousands inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready ’to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever,’ they will protect freedom in her last asylums, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours and cemented with your blood.

“And Thou, Sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, ’gird on Thy sword, Thou most Mighty’; go forth with our hosts in the day of battle!  Impart, in addition to their hereditary valour, that confidence of success which springs from Thy Presence!

“Pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes!  Inspire them with Thine own, and, while led by Thine Hand and fighting under Thy banners, open Thou their eyes to behold in every valley and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illuminations—­chariots of fire, and horses of fire!

    “Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a
    spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench
    them.”

We, who have just emerged, shattered indeed and reeling, from another and yet more awful combat for freedom, can the better extend our sympathy to those forefathers of ours situated in like case, and can imagine with what beating hearts they must have listened to so magnificent a call to arms as this; commingling prayer, exhortation, and benediction.

Napoleon, after all, waged his wars with us according to the laws of nations, the rules of civilised peoples, and the dictates of decent humanity.  But never since Christianity has been established has one man committed so dread and awful an accumulation of public iniquities as stand for ever against the base and cowardly name of William Hohenzollern, Emperor in Germany.  He spat upon the ancient chivalries of battle; he prostituted the decent amenities of diplomacy; he polluted with infamy and murder the splendid comradeship of the sea.

When the captain of one of his submarines placed upon his deck the captured crew of an unarmed merchant vessel which he had sunk, destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed and decorated the ruffian for his infamous cruelty.

When gallant Fryatt, fulfilling every duty a captain owes to his unarmed crew and helpless passengers, turned the bows of his peaceful packet-boat upon the submarine which was being used to murder them all in cold blood, he fell into this Kaiser’s hands, and the coward wreaked his vengeance upon nobility that was beyond his comprehension and valour that rendered him insignificant.