We think its circulation will greatly subserve the cause of humanity, benevolence and peace.

VI. The National Intelligencer of Oct. 23, contains an article from the American Watchman, in which there is an allusion to the mourning for Commodore Perry, with the following reflections :-"Nations go in mourning only for the adepts in the arts of destruction. Senseless beings that we are! When shall we know who are in truth our benefactors!When the innocence and wisdom of the Golden Age revisit the earth, then will there be other paths to distinction among cotemporaries, than that defiled by carnage and stained with blood." See article on " Dr. William Boldwin.” We have not quoted these sentiments from disrespect to the Commodore, but to show the progress of light.

VII Many Newspapers of our country have been employed in diffusing information of the Skullcap remedy for the bite of Mad Dogs. One Number of the National Intelligencer had not less than five long columns for this humane purpose. Hence a hope may be derived that our philanthropic Editors will soon engage in disseminating knowledge of the best remedies for the bite of Mad Princes, and the preventives of the war-hydrophobia. This disease has long made dreadful havoc of our race,-it has been far more extensively fatal than canine madness. Men, how. ever, will cease to wonder at the destressing ravages of this distemper, when they shall have been duly informed, that, instead of using the natu ral remedies and preventives, it has been the common policy of state physicians to render the disease popular and hereditary, and to diffuse the fatal poison as the best means for averting its deleterious effects. By a similar policy the small pox and canine madness might have been made to depopulate the world. But as modern discoveries have furnished a mild substitute for one of these maladies, and a simple remedy for the other, we may rationally hope that some substitute or remedy will be found for the more desolating disease, which may be emphatically styled the KINGS EVIL, or the ROYAL HYDROPHOBIA.

Notice to Members of the M. P. S.

Members of the Massachusetts Peace Society, residing at a distance from Boston, who have not paid their annual subscriptions, and who have no better means of conveyance, may forward their money in letters directed to the Post Master in Brighton. He, being the Corresponding Secretary and agent for the Society, will forward receipts for such sums as he shall receive. The success of the Society depends much on the punctuality of its Members.

Deceased Members of the M. P. S.

Rev. E. B. Caldwell, Waynesboro, Georgia; Rev. J Huntington, Boston; A. Craigie Esq. Cambridge; John Dabney Esq. Salem.

Supposed Error.

In p. 30 of this Number the reader will have observed a note, which was written in consequence of a Newspaper account of the death of Dr. Boudinot. Since which-and too late to suppress the Note-we have been told that the report of his death is contradicted in the Boston Daily Advertiser. If he be still living, we shall rejoice in the continuance of a life so valuable; and he, and other candid men. will readily excuse a mistake, unaccompanied by any design to wound the feelings of the living, or to reproach the dead.

THE

FRIEND OF PEACE.

Vol. II....No. VII.

HUMANITY TO CAPTIVES IMPROVED.

In former times, the usages of war permitted captives

to be killed or enslaved. As civilization has advanced, more humanity has been shown to prisoners of war. In the present age, to treat captives with kindness is regarded as a point of honor; and none but barbarians, or officers of a savage disposition, will permit prisoners to be either murdered or abused. If in any instance such barbarity is exercised, it is censured by all impartial men, and regarded with horror by the Christian and the philanthropist.

It seems to be a common opinion among military men and the advocates for war, that soldiers and subordinate officers, are not liable to blame, for any thing done by them in conformity to orders from their rulers or generals. This opinion is extended alike to both parties in a contest. However wanton, unnecessary, or unjust a war may be in its origin, or however cruel in its operations, the rulers or the commanding generals are regarded as the scape goats, to bear away all the iniquities of the contest; and the under officers and soldiers are praised, as having done their duty in committing the most atrocious acts of violence, injustice, and depredation. Accordingly, in the most horrid conflicts, if a party of the troops on one side are taken by the other, they are treated with kindness as brave fellows, who had been unfortunate in the discharge of their duty.

We are far from objecting to the most humane treatment of captives. We regard them as truly objects of compassion, Vol. II. No. 7.

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ture of public war. But, from the facts and sentiments before us, some light may be derived, by which the principles of humanity may have a more extensive operation.

If humanity requires that prisoners should be kindly treated, because they are not the authors of the war, why should not the principle be so far extended, as to exempt them from being called on to hazard their lives in battle? If even after they have fought and done all the injury in their power to the people of another country, they are still to be regarded as innocent, and entitled to kind treatment, from the party that may happen to capture them, had they not a just claim, before they engaged in the war, to be exempted by their own rulers from hazarding their lives in a quarrel which they had no hand in producing? On what principle of justice can two armies of innocent men be called into a field of battle to murder one another? On what principle of reason or humanity can their respective rulers or generals excite in them the spirit of hostility or revenge, and then require them to shed each other's blood?

We may as reasonably deny the existence of any such principle as moral justice, or any such being as a righteous Governour of the Universe, as to suppose that armies of men can, without guilt, meet in a field of battle and butcher one another. In all such cases there must be an enormous amount of guilt some where. If the soldiers and subordinate officers are to be deemed innocent, how awful is the responsibility of those by whose agency and control these innocent persons engage in the work of mutual violence and destruction.

THE OPIATE FOR A KING'S CONSCIENCE.

"WHEN Alexander had in his fury inhumanly murdered one of his best friends and bravest captains-on the return of reason he began to conceive a horror suitable to the guilt of such a murder. In this juncture his council came to his assistance. But what did his council? They found him out a philosopher who gave him comfort. And in what manner did this philosopher comfort him for the loss of such a man, and heal