fore. Miserable comforters are ye all. I also could speak as ye do; if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.”

How exquisitely do we see portrayed in this little drama the misery which well-meaning, but shallow friends can impose on a superior soul. Looking only at externals, judging only from their own point of view, they attempt to assuage a grief of which they know nothing. Their scant line cannot fathom its depth, their narrow vision cannot embrace its breadth, their coarse touch has no conception of its quality; they only see that sorrow is there, and feeling it their duty to comfort, and feeling also very likely a sincere desire to comfort, they begin to do something which they call comforting, but which to their victim is anything but comfortable. His sensitive nature is tortured, his motives misunderstood, his acts misconstrued, till his earnest prayer is, "Save me from my friends." They bring forward their threadbare shreds of philosophy, when all philosophy lies at his feet. They proffer homoeopathic doses of religion when he keeps his hold on life only by placing his lips close to the life-springs of salvation. Yet they mean well and must not be repulsed, unless, like Job's friends, they impose upon good-nature, and condemn where they are called upon to condole.

But when God speaks, the scene changes. Pettinesses vanish. That self-justification which is sometimes a duty towards man, is not required towards God. He never makes mistakes. "Gird up now thy loins like a man," says the divine voice, and the earthly soul, bowed down with a sudden vision of sin makes lowly answer, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."

XVI.

DRUNKENNESS AND DRINKING.

HATEVER may be our views regarding the effects of alcohol upon the system, the propriety of furnishing wine at evening parties, the necessity of total abstinence, the importance of signing the pledge, we are all agreed in thinking that a drunken military commander is the wrong man in the wrong place. If our sons are about to enter the army, we desire them to join a regiment whose colonel is known to be a temperate man. If he has habits of dissipation, we lose all confidence in his ability. We feel that our children will have to encounter other than the ordinary dangers of war, that their lives may be not sacrificed but wasted. We have no faith that a drunken general will make a skilful disposition of his forces either for attack or defence. Drunkenness, we know, is not favorable to clearness of vision, fineness of observation, soundness of judgment, or rapidity of mental action, and all

these are eminently needed on a field of battle, or on one which may become such, without, or in spite of, these qualities. But the bane of our army, and of our army material, seems to have been, and I fear I may say, to be, drunkenness. A regiment leaves for Washington, fully armed and equipped, and its colonel is known as a drunkard, — not, indeed, a rum and gutter drunkard, but a wine and club-room one, which, however superior that may be socially, is, for fighting purposes, the same thing. If a man is drunk, it matters little whether he is drunk at three cents a glass, or eight dollars a bottle,—whether he is lifted into his carriage by his servants, or dragged to the watch-house by a police officer. We hear of a commander of a gunboat, an excellent officer, highly recommended, who has, indeed, but one fault, - drunkenness; but that is the fruitful source of disgrace and disaster. A lieutenant has been educated in military schools, has watched the evolutions of foreign armies, is a fine, noble, patriotic, whole-souled fellow, but he cannot be relied on, he cannot be placed in the situation which wants just such a man as he, because he will occasionally be drunk. The streets of Washington, and the good name of the country, have been disgraced by drunken soldiers. Officers toss off champagne at the hotels, and privates guzzle rum in the saloons. Battles are lost, fortifications surrendered, and brave men slain.

That rum is not considered the natural ally of success, is indicated by the orders to close the dram-shops to which our army had access. Report states that there has since been a great improvement in this respect.

New England is not under martial law. Massachusetts is not under martial law. Shall we then be drunk or sober? It is for ourselves to answer.

We demand, and we have a right to demand, that our army shall be sober. We have a right to demand that they, to whom the defence of the country is intrusted, shall not put themselves in a condition which, for a time, impairs, if it does not destroy their faculties. They may not have much skill, or strength, or courage, but all that they have belongs to the cause under whose banner they have voluntarily ranged themselves; and when they weaken their power, they rob their country. But, on the other hand, they have the same right to demand that we shall be sober. The army does not monopolize the protection of the country. It is not one man's duty to enlist to serve his country, and another man's privilege to stop at home and serve himself. The present responsibility of every American citizen is one and the same. The first earthly work of every American citizen is one and the same, to see that the Republic receive no harm. You may do it by shouldering a musket and shooting the rebels. A