WHEN a sagacious physician examines a patient who is struggling with various forms of disease and exhaustion, he looks earnestly to see what powers remain unshattered, on which to build his hopes of recovery. He knows that many maladies may be overcome and much depletion repaired, if the vital forces only remain and can be brought into vigorous action.

The present condition of the South affords a similar object of study. There are many and grievous evils, there is terrible waste and dilapidation; we look eagerly to see what forces still remain unimpaired, which may restore the body politic to soundness and health. Our own observation has been mainly confined to the Atlantic States; but from personal observation there, and much intercourse with certain classes of the people, we do feel that there are signs of new growth, and indications of vigorous life, enough to make us hopeful for the future, if not over-sanguine in the present.

The colored ministers, in their churches, pray for the "reconstruction" of their people's souls instead of their "regeneration." We hope the word, driven out from the Church, will find its way into politics. It is the regeneration of the South by its own internal life, not its reconstruction by outward forces, that can alone make it again a power among the nations.

VOL. LXXXVII. -NEW SERIES, VOL. VIII. NO. III.

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