In the fol

try made fences for vineyards of their bones. lowing year, the Romans, under the command of the same general, slaughtered 140,000 of the Cimbri, and took 60,000 prisoners. In the year 105, B. C. the Romans, in a single engagement with the Cimbri and the Teutones, lost upwards of 80,000 men. In the battle of Cannæ, the Romans were surrounded by the forces of Hannibal, and cut to pieces. After an engagement of only three hours, the carnage became so dreadful, that even the Carthaginian general cried out, to spare the conquered. Above 40,000 Romans were left dead on the field, and six thousand of the Carthaginian army. What a dreadful display of the rage and fury of diabolical passions must have been exhibited on this occasion! and what a horrible scene must have been presented on the field of battle, when we consider, that, in the mode of ancient warfare, the slain were literally mangled, and cut to pieces !-In the battle of Issus, between Alexander and Darius, were slain 110, 000; in the battle of Arbela, two years afterwards, between the same two despots, 300,000; in the battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans, 25,000; in the battle between Scipio and Asdrubal, 40,000; in the battle between Suetonius and Boadicea, 80,000. In the siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian, according to the account of Josephus, there were destroyed, in the most terrible manner, 1,100,000; and there were slaughtered in Jerusalem, in 170, B. C. by Antiochus, 40,000. At Cyrene, there were slain of Romans and Greeks, by the Jews, 220,000; in Egypt and Cyprus, in the reign of Trajan, 240,000; and in the reign of Adrian, 580,000 Jews. After Julius Cæsar had carried his arms into the territories of the Usipetes in Germany, he defeated them with such slaughter, that 400,000 are said to have perished in one battle. At the defeat of Attila, King of the Huns, at Chalons, there perished about 300,000. In the year 631, there were slain by the Saracens in Syria, 60,000; in the invasion of Milan by the Goths, no less than 300,000; and in A. D. 734, by the Saracens in Spain, 370,000. In the battle of Fontenay, were slaughtered 100,000; in the battle of Yermouk, 150,000; and in the battle between Charles Martel and the Mahometans, 350,000. In the battle of Muret, in A. D. 1213, between the Catho

lics and the Albigenses, were slain 32,000; in the battle of Cressy, in 1346, 50,000; in the battle of Halidon-hill, in 1333, 20,000; in the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, 20,000; in the battle of Towton, in 1461, 37,000; in the battle of Lepanto, in 1571, 25,000; at the siege of Vienna, in 1683, 70,000; and in a battle in Persia, in 1734, 60,000.*

The most numerous army of which we have any account in the annals of history, was that of Xerxes. According to the statement of Rollin, which is founded on the statements of Herodotus, Isocrates, and Plutarch, this army consisted of 1,700,000 foot, 80,000 horse, and 20,000 men for conducting the carriages and camels. On passing the Hellespont, an addition was made to it from other nations, of 300,000, which made his land forces amount to 2,100,000. His fleet consisted of 1207 vessels, each carrying 230 men; in all 277,610 men, which was augmented by the European nations, with 1200 vessels, carrying 240,000 men. Besides this fleet, the small galleys, transport ships, &c. amounted to 3000, containing about 240,000 men. Including servants, eunuchs, women, sutlers, and others, who usually follow an army, it is reckoned, that the whole number of souls that followed Xerxes into Greece, amounted to 5,283,220; which is more than the whole of the male population of Great Britain and Ireland, above twenty years of age, and nearly triple the whole population of Scotland. After remaining some time in Greece, nearly the whole of this immense army, along with the fleet, was routed and destroyed. Mardonius, one of his ablest commanders, with an army of 300,000, was finally defeated and slain at the battle of Platea, and only three thousand of this vast army, with difficulty, escaped destruction.

The destruction of human life in the wars which accompanied and followed the incursions of the barbarians, who overthrew the Roman empire, is beyond all calcula

*The above statements are collected from the facts stated in Rollin's Ancient History, Millot's Elements, Mavor's Universal History, the historical articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, from a list of battles contained in the "Pictures of War," &c.

tion or conception. It forms an era in history most degrading to the human species. In the war which was waged in Africa, in the days of Justinian, Procopius remarks, "It is no exaggeration to say, that five millions perished by the sword, and famine, and pestilence." The same author states that, during the twenty years' war which Justinian carried on with the Gothic conquerors of Italy, the loss of the Goths amounted to above 15 millions; nor will this appear incredible, when we find, that in one campaign, 50,000 labourers died of hunger. About the beginning of the 13th century arose that cruel and bloody tyrant Jenghiz-Khan. With immense armies, some of them amounting to more than a million in number, he overran and subdued the kingdom of Hya in China, Tangut, Kitay, Turkestan, Karazm, Great Buckaria, Persia, and part of India, committing the most dreadful cruelties and devastations. It is computed, that during the last 22 years of his reign, no fewer than 14,470,000 persons were butchered by this scourge of the human race. He appeared like an infernal fiend, breathing destruction to the nations of the East, and the principle which he adopted, after conquest, was utter extermination.

Nearly about the same period when this monster was ravaging and slaughtering the eastern world, those mad expeditions, distinguished by the name of the Crusades, were going forward in the west. Six millions of infatua

ted wretches, raging with hatred, and thirsting for blood,
assumed the image of the cross, and marched in wild dis-
order to the confines of the Holy land, in order to recover
the city of Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. In
these holy wars, as they were impiously termed, more than
850,000 Europeans were sacrificed before they obtained
possession of Nice, Antioch, and Edessa. At the siege of
Acre, 300,000 were slain; and at the taking of Jerusa-
lem, in 1099, about seventy thousand.
For 196 years,

these wild expeditions continued in vogue, and were urg-
ed forward by proclamations issued from the throne, and
by fanatical sermons thundered from the pulpit, till seve-
ral millions of deluded mortals perished from the earth;
for by far the greater part of those who engaged in the
Crusades, were either slain or taken prisoners. About
this period, and several centuries before it, the whole

1

"In

earth exhibited little else than one great field of battle, in which nations were dashing against each other, conquerers ravaging kingdoms, tyrants exercising the most horrid cruelties; superstition and revenge immolating their millions of victims; and tumults, insurrections, slaughter, and universal alarm, banishing peace and tranquillity from the world, and subverting the moral order of society. Europe, Germany and Italy were distracted by incessant contests between the pope and the emperors; the interior of every European kingdom was torn in pieces by the contending ambition of the powerful barons; in the Mahommedan empire, the caliphs, sultans, emirs, &c. waged continual war; new sovereignties were daily arising, and daily destroyed; and amidst this universal slaughter and devastation, the whole earth seemed in danger of being laid waste, and the human race to suffer a total annihilation."*

Such is a bird's eye view of the destruction of the human species, which war has produced in different periods. The instances I have brought forward present only a few detached circumstances in the annals of warfare, and relate only to a few limited periods in the history of man : and yet in the four instances above-stated, we are presented with a scene of horror, which includes the destruction of nearly 50 millions of human beings. What a vast and horrific picture, then, would be presented to the eye, could we take in at one view all the scenes of slaughter, which have been realized in every period, in every nation, and among every tribe! If we take into consideration not only the number of those who have fallen in the field of battle, but of those who have perished through the natural consequences of war, by the famine and the pestilence, which war has produced; by disease, fatigue, terror and melancholy; and by the oppression, injustice, and cruelty of savage conquerors, it will not, perhaps, be overrating the destruction of human life, if we affirm, that one tenth of the human race has been destroyed by the ravages of war. And if this estimate be admitted, it will follow, that more than fourteen thousand millions of human beings have

* Mavor's Universal History, Robertson's Charles V. &c.

been slaughtered in war, since the beginning of the world-which is about eighteen times the number of inhabitants which, at present, exist on the globe; or, in other words, it is equivalent to the destruction of the inhabitants. of eighteen worlds of the same population as ours.* That this conclusion is rather within than beyond the bounds of truth, will appear, from what has been stated above respecting the destruction of the Goths, in the time of Justinian. In the course of 20 years, 15 millions of persons perished in the wars. Now, if the population of the countries of Europe, in which these wars took place, did not exceed 60 millions, the proportion of the slaughtered to the whole population was as one to four, and, if 20 years be reckoned as only half the period of a generation, the proportion was as one to two; in other words, at the rate of one half of a whole generation in the course of 40 years. What a horrible and tremendous consideration! -to reflect, that 14,000,000,000 of beings, endowed with intellectual faculties, and furnished with bodies curiously organized by divine wisdom-that the inhabitants of eighteen worlds should have been massacred, mangled, and cut to pieces, by those who were partakers of the same common nature, as if they had been created merely for the work of destruction! Language is destitute of words sufficiently strong to express the emotions of the mind, when it seriously contemplates the horrible scene. how melancholy is it to reflect, that, in the present age, which boasts of its improvements in science, in civilization, and in religion, neither reason, nor benevolence, nor humanity, nor Christianity, has yet availed to arrest the progress of destroying armies, and to set a mark of ignominy on "the people who delight in war!"

ATROCITIES CONNECTED WITH WAR.

And

However numerous may have been the victims that have been sacrificed in war, it is not so much the mere

*This calculation proceeds on the ground, that 145 thousand millions of men have existed since the Mosaic creation. See Christian Philosopher, 3d edit. Art. Geography.