The History of Hawick Author:Robert Wilson 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: INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION'. In after times, when commerce, education, and intelligence shall have given the nations a strong aversion to war; when... more » mankind, in following the arts of peace, in cultivating intellectual pursuits, and in reaping the rewards of useful exertions, shall have discovered the errors of their forefathers, the fame of fighting heroes and zealous fanatics will be in danger of falling into the shade. In reading the history of the world, how often have we to lament the errors, prejudices, wars, and desolations that have heen caused by the ignorance alike of the governors and the governed ! and the warriors anj priests of the present day would marvel much were they told that their eminence in society is still attributed, by a rising race, to " the schoolmaster" having only commenced his operations on the yet uncultivated field of humanity. In taking a retrospective view of the state of public affairs, not only in this country but throughout Europe, vhat changes in the " form and pressure" of society are observable in the period of a few past years ! In the history of former times, the moral movements of mankind appear to have been slow, while they seem also to have been of little or no utility. The progress of society towards improvement was not apparent, and talented soldiers and priests seem alone to have reaped any benefit from the quarrels and wars that have desolated Europe for fifteen hundred years. This is a lamentable account of Christendom; and placed in the history of the world, as it must be, by the side of those nations where Mohammedanism prevailed amid similar barbarity and havoc, is likely to become a subject of some interest to the philosophical historian of after times. It does not seem an easy task, in reading the motley a...« less