f love and kindness to bind the soldier
to his home, and to keep him always a loyal citizen in every hope and in
every heart-throb? This is the influence which we can least of all
afford to lose. He must have been blind who did not see at the outset of
the war, that, beyond the immediate danger of the hour, there were other
perils. We were trying the most tremendous experiment that was ever
tried by any people. Out of the most peaceful of races we were creating
a nation of soldiers. In a few months, where there seemed to be scarcely
the elements of martial strength, we were organizing an army which was
to be at once gigantic and efficient. Who could calculate the effect of
such a swift change? The questions many a patriotic heart might have
asked were these: When this wicked Rebellion is ended,--when these
myriads of our brethren whose lives have been bound up in that wondrous
collective life, the life of a great army, shall return to their quiet
homes by the hills and streams of New England or on the rolling prairies
of the West, will they be able to merge their life again in the simple
life of the community out of which they came? Will they find content at
the plough, by the loom, in the workshop, in the tranquil labors of
civil life? Can they, in short, put off the harness of the soldier, and
resume the robe of the citizen? Many a one could have wished to say to
every soldier, as he went forth to the war, "Remember, that, if God
spares your life, in a few months or a few years you will come back, not
officers, not privates, but sons and husbands and brothers, for whom
some home is waiting and some human heart throbbing. Never forget that
your true home is not in that fort beside those frowning cannon, not on
that tented field amid the glory and power of military array, but that
it nestles beneath yonder hill, or stands out in sunshine on some
fertile plain. Remember that you are a citizen yet, with every instinct,
with every sympathy, with every interest, and with every duty of a
citizen."

Can we overestimate the influence of these associations, of these
Soldiers'-Aid Societies, rising up in every city and village, in
producing just such a state of mind, in keeping the soldier one of us,
one of the people? Five hundred thousand hearts following with deep
interest his fortunes,--twice five hundred thousand hands laboring for
his comfort,--millions of dollars freely lavished to relieve his
sufferings,--millions more o