All wars mutilate civilization, and put back by many generations any advance that may have been made in the interval between one butchery and another.  The working people of all nations could and should combine to stop the manufacture of every implement of warfare, and make it a treasonable offence for any ruler or Government again to advocate war as a means of settling disputes.  This law must of necessity be binding upon all the Powers, big and little.  What a mockery this gospel of brotherhood has been in all ages!  Is it an ideal ambition to bring it about?  Of course it is, but we cannot catch the spirit of Christ and preach the gospel of pity, and commit hideous murder at one and the same time! hence the impudence of expecting a Divine benediction on warfare.

All sorts of public and private honours and testimonials were conferred upon Nelson during his stay at Hamburg on his way home after the mortifications caused by the elusive French fleet, Calabrian brigands, and the alluring attractions of the Court of Naples and Sicily.  One hundred grenadiers, each six feet high, waited at table when he was being banqueted.  The owner of a Magdeburg hotel where he stayed made money by setting up a ladder outside Nelson’s sitting-room and charging a fee for mounting it and peeping at the hero inside the room.  An aged wine merchant at Hamburg offered him through Lady Hamilton six dozen bottles of Rhenish wine of the vintage of 1625.  It had been in his own possession for fifty years, and he hoped that some of it would be allowed to flow with the blood of the immortal hero, as it would then make the giver happy.  Nelson shook hands with the old man, and consented to receive six bottles, provided he would dine with him next day.  A dozen were sent, and Nelson put aside six, saying that it was his hope to win half a dozen more victories, and that one bottle would be drunk after each.

Another aged man, whose ideals were of a different and higher order, came along.  He was a German pastor who, at eighty years of age or thereabouts, had travelled forty miles with the object of getting Nelson to write his immortal, name in his Bible.  The venerable Lutheran prelate, with a grateful heart, asked to be allowed to record his blessing and admiration for the gallant British Admiral by stating to him, amongst other modestly selected phrases, that “he was the Saviour of the Christian world.”  The pastor’s fervent testimony of his work and his mission touched Nelson on a tender spot.  In his rough-and-ready way, he believed in the efficacy of prayer, and he knew when the old man, bowed down by age, parted from him that he would be steadfast in his petitions to the Giver of all mercies that he should be held in His holy keeping, body and soul.  The story is an example of fine healthy devotion, free from sickly cant, though the logic of successfully squandering rich lives or even bravely sacrificing your own (as every commander risks doing) is a mysterious reason for the person who is successful in casting away human lives—­even though they be those of an enemy—­having the title of “the Saviour of the world” conferred upon him!