APRIL 30

At the last it biteth like a serpent. Proverbs 23: 22.

A Hideous Serpent.

(To a number of Kentuckians who insisted that troops should not be sent through their State to put down the war

in Tennessee.)

I am a good deal like the farmer who, returning to his home one winter night, found his two sweet little boys asleep with a hideous serpent crawling over their bodies. He could not strike the serpent without wounding or killing the children, so he calmly waited until it had moved away. Now, I do not want to act in a hurry about this matter; I don't want to hurt anybody in Kentucky; but I will get the serpent out of Tennessee.

Thinkest thou there are no serpents in the world
But those which glide along the grassy sod
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are, who, in the path of social life,
Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune's sun
And sting the soul-aye, till its healthful frame
Is chang'd to secret, festering, sore disease,
So deadly is the wound.

-Anonymous.

MAY 1

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 3:7.

Shifting Scenes of the Present.

(From address to the General Assembly of Ohio, at Columbus, February 13, 1861.)

There has fallen upon me a task which did not rest even upon the Father of his Country, and so feeling, I cannot but turn and look for the support without which it will be impossible for me to perform that great task. I turn, then, and look to the great American people, and to that God who has never forsaken them. Allusion has been made to the interest felt in relation to the policy in the new administration. In this I have received from some a degree of credit for having kept silence, and from others some depreciation. I I still think that I was right. In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it has seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the country, I should have gained a view of the whole field so as to be sure after all-at liberty to modify and change the course of policy as future events may make a change necessary. I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety.

I ask not that for me the plan
Of good and ill be set aside,
But that the common lot of man
Be nobly borne and glorified.
And that, though it be mine to know
How hard the stoniest pillow seems,
Good angels still may come and go
About the places of my dreams.

-Phoebe Cary.

MAY 2

Be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man. I. Kings 2: 2.

Leaning Toward Grant.

(To General John M. Thayer, in early part of the Rebellion.) Somehow or other, I have always felt a leaning toward Grant, and have been inclined to place confidence in him. Ever since he sent that memorable message to Buckner at Donelson, when the latter asked for terms of surrender-"No terms but unconditional surrender; I propose to move immediately upon your works”—I have had great confidence in Grant, and have felt that he was a man I could tie to, though I have never seen him. It is a source of much satisfaction that my confidence in him has not been misplaced.

(To Mr. F. B. Carpenter, the artist, in 1864.)

The great thing about Grant, I take it, is his perfect coolness and persistency of purpose. I judge he is not easily excited, which is a great element in an officer, and has the grit of a bulldog! Once let him get his "teeth" in, and nothing can shake him off.

Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip,
But only crowbars loose the bulldog's lip;
Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields.

-0. W. Holmes.

MAY 3

About forty thousand prepared for war passed over before the Lord unto battle. Joshua 4: 13.

For a Period of Three Years.

(Proclamation issued May 3, 1861, calling for 42,000 additional volunteers.)

Whereas, existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate measures for the protection of the National Constitution and the preservation of the National Union by the suppression of the insurrectionary combination now existing in several States for opposing the laws of the Union, and obstructing the execution thereof, to which end a military force, in addition to that called forth by my proclamation of the fifteenth of April in the present year, appears to be indispensably necessary; now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof, and of the militia of the several States when called into actual service, do hereby call into the service of the United States forty-two thousand and thirty-four volunteers, to serve for a period of three years, unless sooner discharged, and to be mustered into service as infantry and cavalry.

Listen, young heroes! your country is calling!
Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling,
Fill up the ranks that have opened for you.

-0. W. Holmes.