clothing it distributed so
liberally, or the delicacies it provided to tempt the appetite of the
sick. Mrs. Harris established prayer-meetings wherever it was possible
in the camps or at the field hospitals, and several of the other ladies
followed her example.

In her first report, Mrs. Harris said:--"In addition to the dispensing
of hospital supplies, the sick of two hundred and three regiments have
been personally visited. Hundreds of letters, bearing last messages of
love to dear ones at home, have been written for sick and dying
soldiers. We have thrown something of home light and love around the
rude couches of at least five hundred of our noble citizen soldiers, who
sleep their last sleep along the Potomac.

"We have been permitted to take the place of mothers and sisters, wiping
the chill dew of death from the noble brow, and breathing words of Jesus
into the ear upon which all other sounds fell unheeded. The gentle
pressure of the hand has carried the dying one to the old homestead,
and, as it often happened, by a merciful illusion, the dying soldier has
thought the face upon which his last look rested, was that of a precious
mother, sister, or other cherished one. One, a German, in broken
accents, whispered: 'How good you have come, Eliza; Jesus is always near
me;' then, wrestling with that mysterious power, death, slept in Jesus.
Again, a gentle lad of seventeen summers, wistfully then joyfully
exclaimed: 'I knew she would come to her boy,' went down comforted into
the dark valley. Others, many others still, have thrown a lifetime of
trustful love into the last look, sighing out life with 'Mother, dear
mother!'

"It has been our _highest_ aim, whilst ministering to the temporal
well-being of our loved and valued soldiers, to turn their thoughts and
affections heavenward. We are permitted to hope that not a few have,
through the blessed influence of religious tracts, soldiers' pocket
books, soldiers' Bibles, and, above all, the Holy Scriptures distributed
by us, been led 'to cast anchor upon that which is within the veil,
whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus.'"

The society did not attempt, and wisely, to compete with the great
commissions in their work. It could not supply an entire army or throw
upon the shoulders of its hard-working voluntary agents the care of the
sick and wounded of a great battle. Its field of operations was rather
here and there a field hospital, the care of the sick