The Manual of Peace Author:Thomas Cogswell Upham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 35 CHAPTER SECOND. INFLUENCE OP WAR ON DOMESTIC LIFE. In exhibiting the evils of war, more attention has generally been paid to the immediate horrors of... more » the battle-field, than to the less marked and more remote evils which have been felt from this source in domestic life. So many attractions, addressed both to the sight and the imagination, throng around the memorable spot, where large armies meet and engage in battle, that, notwithstanding the inexpressible horrors of such a scene, men seldom turn away to contemplate the insulated objects of interest, scattered here and there in the distance. How many have dwelt with excited imaginations, and with a sincere feeling of deep commiseration, on the ca/nage of Austerlitz and Waterloo, to whom it has never occurred to turn to the distracted sister, mourning in her distant home over her fallen brother; or to the mother weeping in solitude over her beloved son; or to the wife, lamenting, with inexpressible grief, the untimely death of her husband! We propose, therefore, in the remarks which are to follow in this chapter, to indicate some of the unpropitious bearings of war on domestic life. And in doing this, it is hardly necessary to remark that in domestic life we are to look for a large share of what yet remains of earthly quiet and happiness. The philanthropist and the Christian find much in the present state of things to perplex their faith, to create doubt, and to fill them with despondency ; but, when they turn their eyes to the domestic circle, especially when it is blessed with the presence of the serious and benign spirit of religion, they gladly acknowledge that there is one bright and illuminated spot in the surrounding darkness. But the horrors of war, dreadful and intense as they are on the field of battle, a...« less