be carried out; if New England could be quietly disposed of; if the cry of three millions of slaves could be hushed, and the voice of nineteen millions of freemen stilled, and a dead silence reign throughout the land,—the woe to the African would be a thousand and a thousand fold less than the woe to his Caucasian oppressor. But this cannot be, because the good in man can no more be ignored than the evil; because there is implanted in him a divine spark, which is ever springing up into flame. Whoever makes laws or frames plans, without taking into account the action of this irrepressible agent, will find his laws and his plans. blown finally to a thousand fragments, by its checked and accumulated forces.

Meanwhile, let us possess our souls in patience. The cry of separation between North and South is, it seems, to be superseded by the cry of separation between East and West. If we are to be cut off, so be it; but do not let us die a thousand deaths through fear of one. Dread of Southern separation has sat at our council-boards for a lifetime; if this fresh one is to supplant it, the little finger of the new tyrant will be thicker than the loins of the old. The best way is to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God, precisely as if nothing had been said. If it happens, we shall be no worse off for having slept o' nights; and if it does not happen, we shall be a great deal better. Let no New England voice be lifted against the

measure, for, apart from law and loyalty, dignity seems to require that New England's defence shall come from other lips than her own, as it certainly does come through all the North and West, with unequivocal and generous reverberations. But above all things, as we value our birthright, and the charge intrusted to us by our fathers, let no New England voice be lowered to meet this newfound threat. Though, as an American, one should bewail such a catastrophe in dust and ashes, as a New Englander, he should exult. America would wear her decree of divorce forever branded on her brow; but New England would inscribe it highest on her banner of the light; for the separation would not be because of her usurpation of power, but her inflexibility of principle; not for what is bad in her, but for what is good. So may she live only so long as life and honor are one; and if die she must, let her go down grandly, like the Cumberland, firing her last broadside at the foe, flinging her last flag to the breeze, knowing of a surety that the dead which she shall slay at her death will be more than they which she slew in her life.

XXIII.

INTERRUPTION.

SAT down to write, but through the noonday air, calm and still as midsummer, though in the heart of winter, comes the boom of distant cannon.

In

another latitude it might be a tone of terror and agony; but over our quiet valleys the besom of destruction has never swept, the voice of carnage has not sounded, the "feverish lips" of cannon, save in one mad hour, have spoken only summons to battle and shouts of victory. When, early in the war, the vexed air quivered with its fiery freight, it used to raise high hopes. Eager eyes answered to eager lips. Was Richmond taken? Was Beauregard defeated? Was Davis captured? Was the land avenged, and But we have learned wisdom since then, and patience. Still the guns boom, deafening enough in their places, no doubt, but to us, afar off, deadened down to a sturdy rumbling; and a sweeter sound mingles with the deep

peace restored?

reverberation. The clangor of bells is softly heard. Beginning at the west it ripples along to the south; one and another take up the joyful strain, and ring out happy chimes. So faint, so far, the little chords of melody give forth, as it were, the echoes of some Æolian harp stirred by a light-winged zephyr. Tiny wavelets strike out from tiny centres of sound, and all along the southern horizon meet and mingle in harmonious confusion, till the fairy-like music steals into our hearts. The drumbeat adds its solemn undertone, and far, far beyond that line of southern hills, crowned with its Procession of the Pines, I know there are thousands of hearts beating with wild tumult of joy, thousands of hearts throbbing with rapturous gladness. For-do you know? Not a child in the village street but can tell you wherefore the village bells are ringing so merrily. It is the returning regiments.

The returning regiments! How long it is since the April morning that left a stain on the pavements of Baltimore! How long before us stretched the three strange, terrible months-months menacing us with unknown perils and shadowy terror—to which our early volunteers were called! Could that excitement, that indignation, that new and ominous roar of approaching battle, endure three months? Could we endure it? Bear for three months the anxiety, the uncertainty, the raging thirst for victory and vengeance, the

"dull, deep pain and constant anguish of patience?" It is three and thirty months since then, and still our battle-flag remains unfurled, and still an outraged nation waits to be avenged.

Seventy-five thousand men! Where could the beloved land find foes to withstand a host like that? we asked, in our simplicity. They laughed in Montgomery. They had measured their strength better than we. They knew their iniquitous purpose. Our grand army was but a stripling come out to fight a giant with smooth stones from the brook. They knew themselves, but there was a strength of which they never dreamed. They did not know that our seventyfive thousand men were but the first rain-drops from the cloud not yet ripe for showers. The prince of the powers of darkness had marshalled his minions well, as we presently learned. Then the cloud spread up the sky. It gathered thick, and thundered loud, and the rent heavens rang with the shout, the solid earth shook with the tread of ten hundred thousand men.

And now they have come back to us. They have fulfilled their high promise. They have acquitted themselves like men. They rushed to the breach, when the foe came in like a flood, and stayed the desolation. There are men who dare to sneer at patriotism, and talk of the attractive power of thirteen dollars a month. To such a talker, one is moved to say: "Your testimony is