18 a blessing. It is the natural antagonist of the sordid lust of gain. It calls into play other and higher social instincts—the craft, the subtlety, the guile of unscrupulous avarice give place to the self-denial, the self-sacrifice, the chivalrous daring of patriotism and soldiership. Evil as it is, it is still the less of two evils. Better a thousand times the wild torrent from the mountains, sweeping away the corn and the vines, wherewith human industry has clothed the fair lowlands, than the stagnant pool breeding deadly malaria ! Even these blasts of war have quickened our better impulses. We feel now that life has nobler aims than to build fine houses, to drive fast horses, to beautify large estates, and leave much wealth unto children. That courage, and manliness, and patriotism, and the preservation of a strong national life, and the homage and respect of a world, are of more worth even than a monopoly of the cotton trade. This war, in a word, is developing an American manhood and womanhood, full of the old noble and heroic impulses, worthy of our glorious ancestry and traditions, in whose reckoning the accumulations of industry, the thrift of trade, the gains of commerce, yea, even the life and blood of the beloved, are all only as the dust of the desert when the stake of the mighty game is a great philanthropic and Christian nationality. Meanwhile there are other collateral benefits which this conflict will work out for us. If we
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