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Have you ever thought much, dear children, about the evil of war? how it destroys the lives of multitudes, and makes bitter mourning in families and nations? You are sorry when you see a friend suffering pain, or a lame man with a broken bone, or even a child with a cut finger. But after a battle, what gashes, and gaping wounds are seen, while the ground is red with the flowing blood and the dying in their agony are trampled under the feet of horses, or covered with heaps of dead bodies.

Think too of the poverty and distress that come upon many families, who have lost the friend whose labour provided them with bread, upon the mourning of grey-headed parents from whose fee-