newspapers reported them correctly: for they went the length of
promising, that he separately, as King of the French, would coerce
Europe into peace. But, from the known good sense of the king, it
is more probable that he promised his _negative_ aid,--the
aid of not personally concurring to any war which might otherwise
be attractive to the French government. ] Ominous to himself this
might have been thought by the superstitious, who should happen to
recollect the sequel to a French king, of the very earliest movement
in this direction: the great (but to this hour mysterious) design
of Henry IV. in 1610, was supposed by many to be a plan of this very
nature, for enforcing a general and permanent peace on Christendom,
by means of an armed intervention; and no sooner had it partially
transpired through traitorous evidence, or through angry suspicion,
than his own assassination followed.

Shall I offend the reader by doubting, after all, whether war is
not an evil still destined to survive through several centuries?
Great progress has already been made. In the two leading nations of
the earth, war can no longer be made with the levity which provoked
Cowper's words two generations back. France is too ready to fight
for mere bubbles of what she calls glory. But neither in France
nor England could a war now be undertaken without a warrant from
the _popular_ voice. This is a great step in advance; but the
final step for its extinction will be taken by a new and Christian
code of international law. This cannot be consummated until Christian
philosophy shall have traversed the earth, and reorganized the
structure of society.

But, finally, and (as regards extent, though not as regards intensity
of effect) far beyond all other political powers of Christianity,