st bring upon our favored land. We can
not conceal from ourselves the fact that, end when it will, or how it
may, it must bring desolation to thousands of happy households, and
inflict never-healing wounds upon thousands of happy hearts. For every
man who falls in battle some one mourns. For every man who dies in
hospital-wards, and of whom no note is made, some one mourns. For the
humblest soldier shot on picket, and of whose humble exit from the stage
of life little is thought, some one mourns. Nor this alone. For every
soldier disabled; for every one who loses an arm or a leg, or who is
wounded or languishes in protracted suffering; for every one who has
'only camp-fever,' some heart bleeds, some tears are shed. In far-off
humble households, perhaps, sleepless nights and anxious days are
passed, of which the world never knows; and every wounded and crippled
soldier who returns to family and friends, brings a lasting pang with
him. Oh! how the mothers feel this war! If ever God is sad in heaven, it
seems to me it must be when he looks upon the hearts of mothers. We who
are young, think little of it, know nothing of it; neither, I think, do
the fathers or the brothers know much of it; but it is the poor mothers
and wives of the soldiers. God help them! But the theme is too sad--let
us leave it. And amid this wild rush of war, let us not forget our
individual duties and responsibilities. Carlyle truly says: 'Each of us
here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious,
has he not a little life of his own to lead? One life--a little gleam of
life between two eternities--no second chance to us for evermore.' Let
us not forget the loves, the amenities and charities of social life. Let
us not forget that the education of the world must go on as ever, that
the great virtues of charity and self-denial must more than ever be
exercised, and that the discipline and perfection of our own characters
is as ever our grand life-work. Then let the angry waves of tumult dash
up and froth at our feet, let the skies blacken and the tempest roar,
God is over all. This one thing we are to remember, and be cheerful.
Browning says:

'God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world.'

THE CRISIS AND THE PARTIES.

From two points of view, the great and preeminently _American_ nation
vibrates at present in a crisis of immense historical significance. The
first is, that of the war between the United and