THE RHINE WATCH. The German National Song. A ROAR like thunder strikes the ear, A hundred thousand hearts beat high, The heart may break in agony, • Germania, rich in heroes' blood. Dear Fatherland, thou need'st not fear, When heavenwards ascends the eye As long as German blood still glows, We take the pledge. The stream runs by; On for the Rhine, the German Rhine, 1. If any being from another world were to alight on this earth, and see hosts of men drawn up, armed with every weapon most fitted to mutilate or kill their fellows, and were he, further, to see these hosts join in battle, each striving to the uttermost to destroy the other-what could he think of the spectacle? The clash of arms, the groans of the wounded, the heaps of slain, might well make him suppose that he had reached a world where the inhabitants were either furious madmen or wholly given to evil. 2. But were he, still further, to find, on inquiry, that those who thus destroyed each other so relentlessly were perfect strangers to each other, and had no interest in what they did, but simply killed their fellow men because they had been ordered to do so-that they hired themselves to kill or be killed for a few pence a day, and had, perhaps, been sent thousands of miles, to butcher people of whom they knew nothing, and to whom they bore no ill-will whatever, his amazement would be still greater. 3. Yet this is what takes place continually. Thousands of Englishmen have in all ages been dragged or coaxed from the plough and the workshop, dressed alike, had long knives put into their hands, and spears or muskets or rifles given them, and been led to meet thousands of some other nation, taken from peaceful callings in the same way, and then told to cut them down, or stab, or shoot them. 4. The strange thing is, that men are not ashamed of being known to have undertaken such work, though any one but a soldier is held a public enemy who attempts to take life. If their homes, or their country, or their own lives, or those of their family, or even their property were in danger, it would be only natural that men should be willing to fight and die to defend them, but to hire themselves out to kill their fellow men for pay, simply because told to do so, is surely a poor way to earn one's bread. 5. Yet we are more peaceful now than men were in former days. Skulls pierced with arrows are found beneath the floors of caverns, among the bones of animals now extinct in England; and our history, in the earlier ages, was little but a record of continual war. There was a time, indeed, when every stranger was counted an enemy, and each petty tribe, all over the earth, thought it had a perfect right to murder and plunder everyone not of its own number. It is thus, indeed, with savage tribes, in some countries, even now. 6. Nor was it much better even in comparatively late ages with ourselves. In the Middle Ages1 not only were there frequent wars of kingdom against kingdom: private wars of one baron against another made neighbouring parishes, or towns, mortal enemies. So ter rible was the destruction of life from this constant fighting, and from the famines and pestilences resulting from it, that the population of England was little larger at the time of Queen Elizabeth than it had been in that of William the Conqueror. 7. The wars of those ages were much more cruel, moreover, than those of this day, for even under Henry V., massacres of helpless prisoners were not uncommon, and no one thought of sparing the common soldier who could not pay a ransom to obtain his liberty again. 8. Within the last hundred years Englishmen have been sent to almost every part of the world, to fight and die in quarrels about which they neither knew anything or had any concern. All over India their bones lie mouldering where they fell fighting bravely, because told to do so. China has the skeletons of some thousands in her soil: and New Zealand, Africa, the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Persia, Affghanistan, Burmah, Nepaul, Scinde, Buenos Ayres, the Crimea, and many other places, are the last resting-places of vast numbers of British soldiers slain in battle. 9. If we remember that those killed at once are only a small proportion of the numbers that die from exposure and from wounds, and that every war leaves thousands to drag out a wretched life, maimed and crippled, the wickedness of war, where it can be avoided, is seen still more. 10. Nor must it be forgotten that war takes away the men who would increase the wealth of the country; that it loads nations with ruinous debt; that it leaves uncounted widows and orphans, and that it spends, on murder and ruin, the money that should have been used in the blessed arts of peace. War may be, and doubtless is, overruled by God for His own wise ends, but, so far as man is concerned, it is, as a rule, the greatest crime earth knows. The Middle Ages were the centuries between the fall of the old Roman civilization and the rise of modern civilization. They may be dated from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1400. ON HIS BLINDNESS.-MILTON. Milton ranks next after Shakspeare among English poets. His "Paradise Lost" is his greatest poem. He was Latin secretary to Cromwell. Born, 1608; died, 1674. WHEN I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent, To serve therewith my Maker, and present I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent |