two or more nations."[1] A great moralist of our own day declares that "'international law' is capable of progressive standards; that it must acknowledge the authority of morality, and must, in order to conform to the moral nature of man, become constantly more and more moral."[2] One remarkable evidence of this genial progress of moral law among nations is the fact that the chief states of Christendom have concertedly, and without the desire of advantage, but from principles of humanity, discouraged and condemned the slave trade. So, likewise, the cause of peace, which once was the scoff of wits, and which elicited the sneer of the great, has now lost all its supposed littleness. For, at this day, gray-haired veterans in states-craft recognize with clearness the binding tie of humanity, and esteem it the highest statesmanlike wisdom, and the noblest achievement of diplomacy, to stay the effusion of blood, and to bind in concord the families of nations. I verily believe that Russell the statesman, would rather have won. a peace at Vienna, than have been the hero of Alma, of Balaklava, or of Inkermann; and to gain power, as a Minister of England, that thereby he may stanch the wounds of bleeding nations, is, I feel, a higher object of ambition to the mercurial Disraeli than all the boast of military renown; and this not merely from considerations of policy or from motives of gain, but because the civilization of England is interpenetrated by the Faith of England, and her large-minded statesmen recognize the obligation of morality in all the machi-
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the duty of a
