to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the Invisible Power that has been the object of lip-worship and lipresignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the wind, till the mountains smoke, and the plains shudder under the rolling, fiery visitation. Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under the thunder of unrelenting force; the martyrs live reviled; they die, and no angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. Then it is that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even in the eyes of frivolity, life looks out from the scene of human struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something else than a private consolation."

COSTS AND COMPENSATIONS OF THE WAR.

A

BY THOMAS F. BARR.

[Read December 13, 1888.]

LITTLE more than thirty years ago, this nation was just emerging from the most disastrous business depression in its history. The great financial institutions of the country had but lately closed their doors in bankruptcy, carrying disaster into nearly every household in the land. The music of the loom and the hammer had been hushed in the centres of constructive industry, entailing poverty and suffering upon hundreds of thousands who had been. dependent upon them for opportunity to earn their daily bread. These clouds were, however, passing away, and the promise appeared bright for future material prosperity. But a darker cloud was gathering force, and was soon to burst in fury on the land. The conscience of the Northern States of the Union had grown sensitive over the anomaly of chattel slavery in a republic based upon the theory of equal human rights; and the aggressive movements of the slaveholding States for the extension of the anomaly into regions of the national territory which had been dedicated to freedom, had served to shatter and divide political parties. There appeared to exist but little of patriotism in its highest sense. Love for the principles upon which the Republic was predicated had seemingly been lost sight of in the struggle for commercial success. Slavery must be mentioned with bated breath in New York and Boston and Cincinnati, or the market for cloths and shoes and food products in the South would be disturbed. But all this was of no avail. The gathering cloud grew heavier. The political atmosphere was nearing the

point of saturation. The arrogant demands of the slaveholding oligarchy were being confronted by constantly accreting forces of men who believed that all had been conceded that could be yielded with safety to our institutions. The teachings of Garrison and Phillips, and of those poets of freedom, Lowell and Whittier, had borne fruit. A great party had been formed which made the fundamental principle of the nationality of liberty its platform, and holding by the provisions of the Constitution, declared that beyond the restricted section where it had legal existence, slavery should take no step onward into the national domain.

The question of responsibility for this blighting curse is a thing of the past. That it existed and continued, was the fault of all sections. The intelligence of the North discarded it for climatic and economic reasons. The climate of the South gave it there its strongest hold, and with the invention of the cotton-gin its peaceful abolition was rendered impossible. As the crime was the crime of all, so the punishment fell upon all. The new party in the contest of 1860 was successful in electing its candidate for the presidency, and Abraham Lincoln was given to the world, to stand for all coming time as a synonym for pure statesmanship, unflinching courage as a leader, and a very genius for integrity and love of justice. The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln marked the termination of the prologue, and the mighty tragedy of the war opened at Fort Sumter. Then it was that apathy died. The absence of patriotism had been only a seeming, and from its latent state it blazed up so fiercely that final triumph was assured. The world never before witnessed a more majestic uprising of a people. Great armies have been gathered by the Cæsars and Napoleons of history, through the exercise of despotic authority, to destroy rival powers; but this was the springing forth of a people to maintain the integrity of their country and demonstrate the strength of a republic. It embraced all ages and all grades. The young

and middle-aged touched elbows as they marched forward to meet the threatening foe. The old men gave freely of their means. Even the children added their effort, and many mere lads were found in the ranks with drums slung over their shoulders.

When the war was forced upon us, the treasury of the Union was depleted, its credit was gone. It had a widely scattered army, which, if gathered together in its full strength, would have given a force for active service of something less than fifteen thousand men. These were factors that had been taken into consideration by the conspirators who had led their section into rebellion. They had, however, failed to comprehend the material resources of the North, as well as the pugnacity of its people. How greatly they were mistaken is history now. The money necessary to carry on the war a sum so vast as to be almost beyond the power of the mind to grasp - was furnished. The men to fight the battles were ever ready. The typical American of the period was the "Armed Citizen."

Between Fort Sumter and Palmetto Ranch in Texas, where, on the 13th of May, 1865, the last soldiers killed in the war gave up their lives, a little more than eight hundred battles and affairs were engaged in by the contending forces. At that time, the muster-rolls of the national army contained in round numbers the names. of a million enlisted men. The aggregate number of men of the volunteer service, who had been engaged in the loyal service of their country, reduced to a three years' standard, was two million three hundred and twenty thousand three hundred and sixty-nine. To state the cost in material wealth of supporting so large a force spread over so vast a field of operations as was covered during the war, and the subsequent expenditures engendered, calls for the use of figures of such proportions as almost to baffle comprehension. Mr. Edward Atkinson of Massachusetts, the eminent statistician, has