ORGANIZED, MAY, 1828. Its object, as stated in its Constitution, is "to illustrate the inconsistency of war with Christianity, to show its baleful influence on all the great interests of mankind, and devise means for securing universal and perma nent peace." For this purpose it seeks to form a public opinion in favor of superseding war by peaceful expedients more effectual than war, for the great ends of international security and justice, such as Occasional Reference, Stipulated Arbitration, and a Congress of Nations. These expedients, identical in principle with the system of laws and courts provided by every government for its own subjects, we would have extended, with suitable modifications, to the brotherhood of nations for the settlement of their disputes in essentially the same way that individuals and minor communities do theirs. The Society prints and circulates pamphlets, tracts and volumes, holds public meetings, and maintains correspondence with the friends of peace in other countries, watches against the approach of national hostilities, and strives to prevent them by timely remonstrance. It endeavors, also, to enlist in this cause the Christian pulpit, the entire periodical press, and all seminaries of learning, as the chief engines for creating or controlling public opinion; and by such means it hopes in time to induce governments to exchange their present war-system for peaceful, Christian methods of settling their difficulties. It invites the co-operation of all who are willing to aid in thus promoting peace on earth and good-will among men. FUNDS. In carrying on these operations as they should be, there will be needed, at least for a time, quite as large an amount as in the Bible Society. Besides an office and a Periodical as its organ, the Society ought to establish in all great centres of business depositories of peace publications, and employ in every State one or more lecturing agents to keep the subject constantly before the whole community, but more especially to bring it before ecclesiastical bodies, seminaries of learning, and the State and national governments. SOURCES OF INCOME. Besides collections, donations, legacies, and the sale of publicatiors, there are Life-Directorships, $50; Life-Memberships, $20; Annual Membership, $2; to all which the society's periodical is sent without charge, and for a year, also, to every donor of $1, or more, and to every pastor who preaches on the subject and takes up an annual collection for the cause. ADVOCATE OF PEACE-Devoted to the Peace Question in its manifold bearings, and containing discussions of principles, and measures connected with the peace movement, statistics, anecdotes and illustrations from history, biographical sketches of distinguished friends, reviews of books on the subject, and general facts respecting the progress of the cause through the world. Monthly, or a double number once in two months, making a volume in two years, for $1.00, or ten cents a number. Te auxiliary societies, or clubs cf not less than ten, 30 per cent. discount. ADDRESS. I HAVE no doubt that, in the minds of many who will not. hear me, and of some whom curiosity may have drawn hither this evening, I occupy a very ridiculous position. Here is a society half a century old, which has issued innumerable publications, has sought to exert a world-wide influence, has been flattered by the professed sympathy of statesmen and publicists all over Christendom, nay, by the accepted honorary membership of the Emperor of Russia; and yet during this period have occurred the greatest and most destructive wars of modern history, and in the very home and birth-land of the Society we have just passed through the fiercest and most sanguinary civil conflict that has yet found record in the annals of the human race, What can be more absurd than to hold anniversary meetings of a society under whose eye the evil which it sought to remove has only assumed more gigantic and portentous magnitude, -to galvanize into an annual semblance of life a corpse which men delay to bury out of their sight only because it is too dry to become offensive? I would answer by claiming for our Society an important part in the effective service of humanity. Twice within the memory of many who hear me, the scourge of war has been averted from our country when it seemed inevitable, once during the sharp controversy with France about indemnity for the spoliations of our commerce after the beginning of the present century; and again in the dispute with Great Britain about our North-Eastern boundary. On both these occasions political parties vied with each other in belligerent patriot ism; even gråve statesmen took leave of their discretion in fierce and sanguinary utterances, which some of them afterward recalled and recanted with shame; and the popular clamor demanded hostile measures without delay. At both these crises our Society was in full activity; its officers and agents had the ear of not a few men of controlling influence; its press was unremittingly active, and no less timely, in its issues; and though only one eye in the universe can trace unerringly effects to their causes, yet it seemed to those who most carefully observed the course of events, that the Ameri can Peace Society was second to none among the agencies which held in the threatened eruption of the war-fever till its cause could be removed. The influence of our Society has, also, been felt in European affairs. Our publications have done much toward the estab lishment, throughout Christendom, of arbitration as the preferred alternative to an appeal to arms; and there have been several instances in which international controversies that half a century ago would have been, as a matter of course, submitted to the decision of the battle-field, have been settled through the ministry of disinterested umpires. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that in time to come all international quarrels growing out of an honest difference in the construction of rights or treaties, in the determination of boun daries, and in matters of pecuniary obligation, will be settled by arbitration or by amicable negotiation; while we cannot but fear that the time is far distant- though we may help to bring it nearer when ambition, the lust of power and territory, the vices of rulers, and the defiant guilt of nations will cease to offer their hecatombs of human victims. As to our own recent civil war, on the part of the North it had none of the moral characteristics of a war. It was rather a vast police-movement for the suppression and punishment of multitudinous crime, justified by the same law of selfpreservation which would arm the ministers of the State against a body of brigands. It was a sad necessity. It was the inevitable result of antecedent public crimes and wrongs. It was a verification of the immutable law of God, that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. But it was a war in its forms, and in all its horrors and sufferings; it must bear that name in history; and it is true to its name in its train of disastrous consequences for the vanquished, and of chronic burdens, straitnesses, embarrassments, and griefs for the victors. As more appropriate than anything else I can offer you, I ask your consideration of some of the lessons to be drawn from this great rebellion. 1. Our late war illustrates that significant text of St. James: "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts?" I believe that a war may be inevitable; and when it is so, those who are forced into it are blameless, those who give themselves to it in the disinterested defence of the right deserve the fullest meed of glory which a grateful nation can award them. But in its remoter causes war can never be innocent. Conversely, public wrong and guilt always tend to a violent and sanguinary issue; and war will last until its causes cease, till justice is enthroned in the hearts of nations, in the great heart of humanity,- till He reigns whose right it is to reign, and "the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the king. dom under the whole heaven" shall be his. It is the essence of all sin to issue in proportionate physical evil. God's law, if not honored in its observance, is vindicated in its violation. If men will not write it on their hearts and incarnate it in their lives, it writes itself in their woe and agony, their tears and blood. No foul fiend that takes prolonged possession of a man or a nation can be expelled without rending and lacerating its tenement. Slavery was the demon that possessed our land, and it had brought in with itself other spirits, worse, if worse could be. There was a time when it was not too firmly lodged to have yielded place to the peaceful efforts |