truth very _idols_, the work of thy own
hands--prating presumptuously of thy power over their immortal glories!'

Verily, I am to blame, but how repair the error?

Can eloquence be mine to fitly tell of the mighty influence of the
flowers? Shall I say that, without their 'laughing light,' this world
would be a dreary, lonesome place? It is a trite and tedious
exclamation--an axiom past disputing.

Shall I join in the grateful song resounding over every land; in homage
to the blessing-laden blossoms? Lips long used to wailing swell that
chorus loudest, for it was the sunshine caught in buttercup or dandelion
that turned so many darkened faces in sudden smiles to heaven. Ah! they
are the forms wasted and bowed down by anguish, that stoop most meekly,
thankfully, only to lie where the daisies can grow over them.

Shall I strive to spell the lesson written by the green earth's flowery
tracery?

Long, long ago One read that lore in love, and the lilies of the field
but give it back to us to-day.

Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my
soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's
frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from
amaranth and asphodel distilled for those

'Who walk in soft white light, with kings and priests abroad;
Who summer high in bliss upon the hills of God!'

SOUTHERN HATE OF THE NORTH.

A fact which stands broadly out on the page of our current history is
the intense and peculiar hatred wherewith the people of the North are
generally regarded by those engaged in the Southern rebellion. That _it
is_ a fact, is established by the concurrent testimony of the whole
insurgent press and of our soldiers returned from Southern captivity,
and nearly all those, whether in civil or military life, who have
visited the States deeply infected with the virus of Secession. Probably
never before were prisoners of war in a civilized country subjected to
so much obloquy and vituperation from women and children as our captured
volunteers in the South during the past year. Hate of the abhorred
'Yankees,' scorn and the loathing of 'Lincoln's hirelings,' detestation
of the mean, sordid, groveling, mercenary spirit of the Northern masses,
have been the burden of Southern oratory and journalism for the last
eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic
surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity an