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The words of our text are probably to be taken as prophecy, not as history as referring to the future conflicts and victories of the tribe, not to the past trials and triumphs of its father. But be that as it may, they contain, in most vivid metaphor, the earliest utterance of a very familiar truth.
Nay, I have many a time thought with sorrow that if Xaintrailles, or La Hire, ay, or any the meanest esquire in all our army, had been born Dauphin, in three months after the Maid's victories in June Paris would have been ours, and not an Englishman left to breathe the air of France.
This morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high price at which they had been purchased.
But it gave the deathblow to Abdel-Kadir, whom the Emperor of Morocco undertook to proclaim an outlaw. The real treaty of peace had been signed at Tangier, at Isly, and at Mogador. We had no object, once we had gained those victories, in imposing too severe conditions, which would have weakened and even destroyed his authority, on the Moorish Sovereign.
Napoleon gave them enough of the former; they had victories abroad and spectacles at home their capital was embellished their country was aggrandised their glory was exalted; and if he had continued successful, France would still have continued to applaud and admire him, while she had sons to swell her armies, and daughters to drudge in her fields.
But no great nation is blameless, and there is probably no nation that could not speedily catch the infection of the warlike spirit if a conqueror and a few splendid victories obscured, as they nearly always do, the moral issues of the contest. War, it is true, is not always or wholly evil. Sometimes it is justifiable and necessary.
But these are not the sentiments of your lordships, whose acquaintance with publick affairs informs you, that victories are often gained where no standards are taken, nor newspapers filled with lists of the slain; and that by drawing the sword opportunely, the necessity of striking is often prevented.
If there had been other men like Said Pasha, especially at Khartoum, the power of the Mahdi would never have risen to the height it attained. The capture of an important place like El Obeid did more for the spread of the Mahdi's reputation and power than the several victories he had gained in the field. This important event took place in January 1883.
One such just man, who professes and practises Catholicism, contributes more largely to the glory of the Father, of Christ, of the Church, than many congresses, many clubs, many Catholic victories in politics.
How indeed must the knights and commanders, bred to the use of arms since their boyhood, have wondered how this daughter of the peasants had obtained the knowledge which had placed her at their head, and enabled her to gain successes and reap victories against the enemy, which until she came none of them had any hope of obtaining.
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