r the event prophesied of has come to pass,
and remind us that they have made long ago. Those who, are rash enough
to predict publicly beforehand commonly give us what they hope, or what
they fear, or some conclusion from an abstraction of their own, or some
guess founded on private information not half so good as what everybody
gets who reads the papers,--never by any possibility a word that we can
depend on, simply because there are cobwebs of contingency between every
to-day and to-morrow that no field-glass can penetrate when fifty of them
lie woven one over another. Prophesy as much as you like, but always
hedge. Say that you think the rebels are weaker than is commonly
supposed, but, on the other hand, that they may prove to be even stronger
than is anticipated. Say what you like,--only don't be too peremptory
and dogmatic; we know that wiser men than you have been notoriously
deceived in their predictions in this very matter.

Ibis et redibis nunquam in bello peribis.

Let that be your model; and remember, on peril of your reputation as a
prophet, not to put a stop before or after the nunquam.

There are two or three facts connected with time, besides that already
referred to, which strike us very forcibly in their relation to the great
events passing around us. We spoke of the long period seeming to have
elapsed since this war began. The buds were then swelling which held the
leaves that are still green. It seems as old as Time himself. We cannot
fail to observe how the mind brings together the scenes of to-day and
those of the old Revolution. We shut up eighty years into each other
like the joints of a pocket-telescope. When the young men from Middlesex
dropped in Baltimore the other day, it seemed to bring Lexington and the
other Nineteenth of April close to us. War has always been the mint in
which the world's history has been coined, and now every day or week or
month has a new medal for us. It was Warren that the first impression
bore in the last great coinage; if it is Ellsworth now, the new face
hardly seems fresher than the old. All battle-fields are alike in their
main features. The young fellows who fell in our earlier struggle seemed
like old men to us until within these few months; now we remember they
were like these fiery youth we are cheering as they go to the fight; it
seems as if the grass of our bloody hillside was crimsoned but yesterday,
and the cannon-ball imbedded in the