at the bar of our own conscience, for
national pride and self-reliance, as we shall infallibly be justified at
the bar of the world.

Is this lifting up of a great people nothing? Is this placing of twenty
millions on the clear ground of unselfish duty, as life's motive,
nothing? Is there one of us, to-day, who is not prouder of his nation
and its character, in the midst of its desperate tug for life, than he
ever was in the day of its envied prosperity? And when he considers how
the nation has answered to its hard necessity, how it has borne itself
in its sore trial, is he not clear of all doubt about its vitality and
continuance? And is that, also, nothing?

But besides this education in the stern, rude, heroic virtues that prop
a people's life, there has been an education in some others, which,
though apparently opposed, are really kindred. Unselfish courage is
noble, but always with the highest courage there lives a great pity and
tenderness. The brave man is always soft hearted. The most courageous
people are the tenderest people. The highest manhood dwells with the
highest womanhood.

So the heart of the nation has been touched and softened, while its
muscles have been steeled. While it has grasped the sword, it has
grasped it weeping in infinite pity. It has recognized the truth of
human brotherhood as it never did before. All ranks have been drawn
together in mutual sympathy. All barriers, that hedge brethren apart,
have been broken down in the common suffering.

News comes, to-day, that a great battle has been fought, and wounded
thousands of our brothers need aid and care. You tell the news in any
city or hamlet in the land, and hands are opened, purses emptied, stores
ransacked for comforts for the suffering, and gentle women, in
hundreds, are ready to tend them as they would their own. Is this no
gain? Is it nothing that the selfishness of us all has been broken up as
by an earthquake, and that kindness, charity, and pity to the sick and
needy have become the law of our lives? Count the millions that have
streamed forth from a people whose heart has been touched by a common
suffering, in kindness to wounded and sick soldiers and to their needy
families! Benevolence has become the atmosphere of the land.

Four years ago we could not have believed it. That the voluntary charity
of Americans would count by millions yearly, would flow out in a steady,
deep, increasing tide, that giving would be the rule, fr