1 SEPTEMBER 1855, Page 14

VAR AND PROVIDENCE.

North End, Fulham, 80th August 1865. Sim—In the letter of "E. A. F.," published in your last number, I find this passage—" We are fighting for what we cannot obtain. It is clearly the will of Providence that Russia shall be a great nation : the experience ofhistory shows that it is probably the same will that Russia shall not absorb all Europe, any more than Turkey, Spain, or France, whom men once equally dreaded—one of which possibly they have equal reason to dread still."

Now Iquite give up all pretension to any clear insight into the will of Providence -with regard to the future greatness of nations. I readily admit, that if it be the will of Providence that Russia shall be a great nation, we cannot prevent it ; I am em-el for one do not want to prevent it. But there iam difference between being a great nation, and the dominant power in Europe and Asia. It is the constant endeavour after universal dominion, moral or phy- ideal, on the part of Russia, that rouses the rest of Europe to self-defence ; as it was the same endeavour on the part of Turkey, Spain, and France, that roused the Europe of other days against them. Not by crying out, "Oh, it is clearly the will of Providence that Spain shall be great," did our ancestors meet the Spaniards, but with bard knocks in the Netherland% in the Spanish Main, in the British Channel. 'Why did nbt Europe become Mahometan ?- Because the West rebelled against Eastern dictation, and, from Godfrey de Bouillon to Prince Eugene, threw itself for centuries in repeated waves against the power of the Saracens and the Turks. Twice within a hundred and fifty years France saw Europe arrayed against her ; and Louis the Fourteenth and the First Napoleon were not permitted to absorb all Europe, because all Europe chose to do with France as we are now doing by Russia—fight rather than be absorbed. We may, therefore, be fighting for what we cannot obtain, but we are fighting for what " the experience of history shows" our ancestors obtained, and that not by reposing idly and luxuriously in the lap of material prosperity and sentimental polities, but by drawing the sword and fighting the manly fight with unfaltering resolution. Like the great WEIN with Spain, and Turkey, and France, this war against Russia neither springs from caprice nor ambition, but is the effect of an instinct of conser- vation felt throughout Europe.