rs, like withered, fallen leaves, were
again afloat about the camps and the firesides. The dreary winter
came, and still the hearts of the most hopeful were chilled with
disappointment. The father began to think of William as dead,--the
mother to talk of her darling as one who had lived,--the children to
speak of their elder brother as one they should never see any more
until all the lost loved ones meet in the better land. The writer was
even solicited by a mutual friend to preach the funeral sermon of one
whose memory was still dear, but whom none of us ever hoped to see
again on earth.

But our Father in heaven was kinder than we thought. Our prayers had
been heard! As our fervent petitions winged up from family altars to
the ear of the Infinite Lover, the guardian angels winged afar
downward through battle alarms, and ministered to him for whom we
besought protection. When the bright spring days came smiling over the
earth, a message came from the hand of the missing one, brighter and
sunnier to our hearts than the April sunlight on the hills! Soon the
story was told, and we all thanked God for the merciful deliverance of
him for whom we prayed, and who had found, even in a dismal
prison-cell, the Pearl of great price! The one we loved returned home
a witness of the Spirit that came to him as a Comforter in his
dreariest loneliness, and is already a minister of the precious Gospel
that gladdened him in the time of his tribulation.

And now the reader shall know all about the tedious delay and the
long silence, from the pen of him who survives to tell the story.

We commend to all who peruse this narrative an interesting volume,
entitled "_Beyond the Lines_," another sad rehearsal of terror in
rebel prisons and Southern swamps, in other portions of the
Confederacy--the experience of Rev. Capt. J. J. GEER, now one of
Lieutenant PITTENGER'S associate-advocates for liberty in the pulpit,
as he was recently a brother-bondman in the land of tyranny and death.
A. C.

PHILADELPHIA, September 15, 1863.

DARING AND SUFFERING.

CHAPTER I.

Sad Retrospective--Object of the Book--Military Situation in the
Southwest--Disaster and Energy of the Rebels--Necessity for a Secret
Expedition--A Proposition to Buell and Mitchel--An Attempt and
Failure--Return of Adventurers--Second Expedition--Writer
Volunteers--Andrews, the Leader--Parting from the Regiment--On the
Way--Perplexities--The Writer _Cur-tailed_!

It is