(who, with many friends, suffered from the unhealthy odors of the plant), he could find it in his heart to wish fervently that these seed, if there be verily any, might perish in the germ, utterly out 55 of sight and life and memory and out of the remote hope of resurrection, forever and ever, no matter in whose granary they are cherished!

But, to return.

It is a spreading plant, like the banyan, and con60 tinues to insert new branch-roots into the ground, so as sometimes to overspread a whole continent. Its black-shadowed jungles afford fine cover for such wild beasts as frauds and corruptions and thefts to make their lair in; from which, often, 65 these issue with ravening teeth and prey upon the very folk that have planted and tended and raised their flowery homes!

Now, from time to time, there have appeared certain individuals (wishing, it may be, to disseminate 70 and make profit upon other descriptions of plants) who have protested against the use of this warflower.

Its users, many of whom are surely excellent men, contend that they grow it to protect themselves 75 from oppressive hailstorms, which destroy their houses and crops.

But some say the plant itself is worse than any hailstorm; that its shades are damp and its odors unhealthy, and that it spreads so rapidly as to kill 80 out and uproot all corn and wheat and cotton

crops. Which the plant-users admit; but rejoin that it is cowardly to allow hailstorms to fall with

impunity, and that manhood demands a struggle against them of some sort.

But the others reply, fortitude is more manly 85 than bravery, for noble and long endurance wins the shining love of God; whereas brilliant bravery is momentary, is easy to the enthusiastic, and only dazzles the admiration of the weak-eyed since it is as often shown on one side as the other.

But then, lastly, the good war-flower cultivators say, our preachers recommend the use of this plant, and help us mightily to raise it in resistance to the hailstorms.

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And reply, lastly, the interested other-flower 95 men, that the preachers should preach Christ; that Christ was worse hailed upon than anybody, before or since; that he always refused to protect himself, though fully able to do it, by any war-banyan; and that he did upon all occasions, not only discour- 100 age the resort to this measure, but did inveigh against it more earnestly than any thing else, as the highest and heaviest crime against Love-the Father of Adam, Christ, and all of us.

Friends and horticulturists, cry these men, stick- 105 ling for the last word, if war was ever right, then Christ was always wrong; and war-flowers and the vine of Christ grow different ways, insomuch that no man may grow with both!

But these sentiments, even if anybody could have 110 been found patient enough to listen to them, would have been called sentimentalities, or worse, in the spring of 1861, by the inhabitants of any of those

States lying between Maryland and Mexico. An 115 afflatus of war was breathed upon us. Like a great wind, it drew on and blew upon men, women, and children. Its sound mingled with the solemnity of the church-organs and arose with the earnest words of preachers praying for guidance in the 120 matter. It sighed in the half-breathed words of sweethearts conditioning impatient lovers with warservices. It thundered splendidly in the impassioned appeals of orators to the people. It whistled through the streets, it stole in to the firesides, it clinked 125 glasses in bar-rooms, it lifted the gray hairs of our wise men in conventions, it thrilled through the lectures in college halls, it rustled the thumbed book-leaves of the school-rooms.

This wind blew upon all the vanes of all the 130 churches of the country, and turned them one way— toward war. It blew, and shook out, as if by magic, a flag whose device was unknown to soldier or sailor before, but whose every flap and flutter made the blood bound in our veins.

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Who could have resisted the fair anticipations which the new war-idea brought? It arrayed the sanctity of a righteous cause in the brilliant trappings of military display; pleasing, so, the devout and the flippant which in various proportions are 140 mixed elements in all men. It challenged the patriotism of the sober citizen, while it inflamed the dream of the statesman, ambitious for his country or for himself. It offered test to all allegiances and loyalties; of church, of state; of private loves, of 145 public devotion; of personal consanguinity; of

social ties. To obscurity it held out eminence; to poverty, wealth; to greed, a gorged maw; to speculation, legalized gambling; to patriotism, a country; to statesmanship, a government; to virtue, purity; and to love, what all love most desires a field 150 wherein to assert itself by action.

The author devoutly wishes that some one else had said what is here to be spoken-and said it better. That is: if there was guilt in any, there was guilt in nigh all of us, between Maryland and 155 Mexico; that Mr. Davis, if he be termed the ringleader of the rebellion, was so not by virtue of any instigating act of his, but purely by the unanimous will and appointment of the Southern people; and that the hearts of the Southern people bleed to see 160 how their own act has resulted in the chaining of Mr. Davis, who was as innocent as they, and in the pardon of those who were as guilty as he!

All of us, if any of us, either for pardon or for punishment: this is fair, and we are willing.

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THE CHARGE OF CAIN SMALLIN

FROM "TIGER LILIES"

Prince Henry: "I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot."

Falstaff: "I would it had been of horse. Well, God be thanked for these rebels."

-KING HENRY IV.

ON one of the last days of April, '64, six soldiers in gray, upon six horses in all colors, were riding down the road that leads from Surrey Court House toward the beautiful bay into which the James 5 spreads itself before it is called Hampton Roads.

It was yet early in the morning. The sun was rejoicing with a majestic tenderness over his little firstling-April.

Our six horsemen were in gay conversation; as 10 who would not be, with a light rifle on his shoulder, with a good horse bounding along under him, with a fresh breeze that had in it the vigor of the salt sea and the caressing sweetness of the spring blowing upon him, with five friends tried in the tempest 15 of war as well as by the sterner test of the calm association of inactive camp-life, and with the world's width about him and the enchanting vagueness of life yet to be lived-the delicious change-prospect of futurity-before him?

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As they rode on, the beauty of the woods grew, nearing the river. The road wound about deep glens filled with ancient beeches and oaks, and carpeted with early flowers and heart-leaves upon