Isaiah 2:4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares… What a fearful loss of human life it entails! It is computed that Alexander and Caesar caused, each of them, the death of two millions of the human race. Bonaparte's campaign in Russia carried death to five hundred thousand human beings, and in the vast majority of that number death was accompanied by the most awful sufferings. At Borodino in one day eighty thousand were sacrificed amid the most horrid cruelties. The next day it was found that a surface of about nine squares miles was covered with the killed and wounded; the latter lying one upon another, destitute of assistance, weltering in their blood, uttering fearful groans, and beseeching any who passed by to put an end to their excruciating torments. During the burning of Moscow, twelve thousand wounded were in the hospitals; and almost all perished in the flames. No tongue or pen can describe the horrors of the retreat. "Multitudes of these desolate fugitives," says Sir R.K. Porter, in his Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, "lost their speech, others were seined with frenzy, and many were so maddened by the extremes of pain and hunger that they tore the dead bodies of their comrades into pieces, and feasted on the remains." The last Russian war cost this country a hundred thousand human lives. Hundreds of thousands fell victims during the Franco-German war. In one sortie from Metz four hundred wives were made widows, and upwards of a thousand children fatherless, out of a single Prussian regiment in the course of an hour. What barbarities are practised! What disastrous results follow! What desolation to fertile and flourishing districts of country! What a blight shed on commerce! What an increase of taxation! What corruption to public morals! It is impossible to exaggerate, in conception or statement, the evils of war. (W. Waiters.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. |
    |