hot, but it wanes
forever. Shadow and substance drag slowly down their bloody path to
disappear in eternal infamy. The war rolls on to its close; and when it
closes, the foul blot of secession stains our historic page no more.
Another book shall be opened.

Remembering all the way which these battling years have led us, we can
only say, "It is the Lord's, doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."
Who dreamed of the grand, stately patience, the heroic strength, that
lay dormant in the hearts of this impulsive, mercurial people? It was
always capable of magnanimity. Who suspected its sublime self-poise?
Rioting in a reckless, childish freedom, who would have dared to
prophesy that calm, clear foresight by which it voluntarily assumed the
yoke, voiced all its strong individual wills in one central controlling
will, and bent with haughty humility to every restraint that looked to
the rescue of its endangered liberty? The cannon that smote the walls of
Sumter did a wild work. Its voice of insult and of sacrilege roused the
fire of a blood too brave to know its courage, too proud to boast its
source. All the heroism inherited from an honored ancestry, all the
inborn wrath of justice against iniquity, all that was true to truth
sprang up instinctively to wrest our Holy Land from the clutch of its
worse than infidels.

But that was not the final test. The final test came afterwards. The
passion of indignation flamed out as passion must. The war that had been
welcomed as a relief bore down upon the land with an ever-increasing
weight, became an ever-darkening shadow. Its romance and poetry did not
fade out, but their colors were lost under the sable hues of reality.
The cloud hung over every hamlet; it darkened every doorway. Even
success must have been accompanied with sharpest sorrow; and we had not
success to soften sorrow. Disaster followed close upon delay, and delay
upon disaster, and still the nation's heart was strong. The cloud became
a pall, but there was no faltering. Men said to one another,
anxiously,--"This cannot last. We must have victory. The people will not
stand these delays. The summer must achieve results, or all is lost."
The summer came and went, results were not achieved, and still the
patient country waited,--waited not supinely, not indifferently, but
with a still determination, with a painful longing, with an eager
endeavor, with a resolute will, less demonstrative, but no less
definite, than that wh