are all involved. It is
one of many instances in which the best and highest impulses of our
nature are reenforced by the dictates of the noblest and most elevated
of human interests--the interests of a nation, of a continent, yea, of
the world itself; for our gates are still open to the ingress of our
brothers from abroad, and our immense and fertile domain, as well as our
priceless institutions, are freely offered to their participation.

But, aside from the principles involved in the war, there are results of
an interesting character springing from it, which are well worthy the
attention of the statesman and the patriot. Two very opposite effects
are produced on the minds of the men engaged in such a contest as this,
or, indeed, in any contest of arms whatever, when it assumes the
proportions of a regular war. The volunteering of our young men of all
classes, in numbers so immense, is an extraordinary phenomenon. These
soldiers by choice, many of them educated and intelligent, and impelled
by deliberate considerations of principle, willingly undergo the hard
labor of military training, of marches and campaigns, and the still more
trying inactivity of life in camps and fortresses, in new and unfriendly
regions and climates. They fearlessly face death in every ghastly form,
on the battle field, by exposure in all seasons, by physical exhaustion,
and by the most dreadful contagious diseases. They devote themselves
unreservedly to the great cause, and in doing so exhibit the noblest
spirit of self-sacrifice, and that on the grandest scale presented in
history. Fortitude and courage, contempt of the most appalling dangers,
disregard of suffering and privation, wounds, mutilation, and lingering
death--these are the habits of soul which our citizen soldiers
cultivate, and which tend to strengthen and harden the character, and to
give it great moral force. The great qualities thus nurtured in the
bosom of the multitudes destined soon to return to peaceful life will
assuredly make a powerful impression on the whole society, which must be
thoroughly pervaded with the manly virtues thence destined to be infused
into it. Every man who has been conspicuous for his soldierly conduct
and for the faithful performance of duty will be an object of general
respect, though he may have passed unscathed through the fiery ordeal;
while every maimed and wounded citizen will be regarded as bearing on
his person, in his honorable scars and defi