8 nerves and muscles into the thrill of ecstacy. From all this minor key of manifold mourning that creeps in ten thousand dirges over the land, can you combine a chorus of praise and rejoicing ? Thanksgiving in the midst of a home war ; is it not absurd ? These questions seem to be pertinent, and from one point of view, forcible, if not convincing. We must admit the many wrecks of health, wealth and peace; the desolations of home and heart; the failure of plans, prospects and hopes, and above all, the bloody cost of the war—paid in wounds and death, by the thousands, who have gone forth to the fight. I would not tone down the picture by a single shade. Foreground, middle, distance and perspective, I would bring them all under one stream of bright light, and in that light I would group the classes of sufferers at once, and invoke your keen compassion, your sympathy, your tears, your help. As we gaze on the picture we witness the shock of battalions ; the wild mixture of warring men, piercing, and hacking, and cleaving each other to the ground ; the sweep of cannon shot, laying the columns low, as if by a huge besom; ghastly wounds, gushing blood, fractured limbs, explicable and inexplicable; we see and wonder at the placid smile of him who died in an instant from a gun shot, as his frame lies easily on the turf where he fell; and we see, with no less wonder, the writhings and grimaces of
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