d quietly and trustingly given themselves up to
"tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," and while thus all
unconscious of danger, they were roused from their peaceful slumbers
by the sharp crack of the invader's rifle, and felt the keen-edged
sword of war at their throats, three of their number being already
slain.

Every feeling of the human heart was naturally outraged at this
occurrence, and hence at the moment the air was full of denunciation
and execration. So intense was this feeling, that few ventured to
whisper a word of apology. But happily reason has her voice as well as
feeling, and though slower in deciding, her judgments are broader,
deeper, clearer and more enduring. It is not easy to reconcile human
feeling to the shedding of blood for any purpose, unless indeed in the
excitement which the shedding of blood itself occasions. The knife is
to feeling always an offence. Even when in the hands of a skillful
surgeon, it refuses consent to the operation long after reason has
demonstrated its necessity. It even pleads the cause of the known
murderer on the day of his execution, and calls society half criminal
when, in cold blood, it takes life as a protection of itself from
crime. Let no word be said against this holy feeling; more than to law
and government are we indebted to this tender sentiment of regard for
human life for the safety with which we walk the streets by day and
sleep secure in our beds at night. It is nature's grand police,
vigilant and faithful, sentineled in the soul, guarding against
violence to peace and life. But whilst so much is freely accorded to
feeling in the economy of human welfare, something more than feeling
is necessary to grapple with a fact so grim and significant as was
this raid. Viewed apart and alone, as a transaction separate and
distinct from its antecedents and bearings, it takes rank with the
most cold-blooded and atrocious wrongs ever perpetrated; but just here
is the trouble--this raid on Harper's Ferry, no more than Sherman's
march to the sea can consent to be thus viewed alone.

There is, in the world's government, a force which has in all ages
been recognized, sometimes as Nemesis, sometimes as the judgment of
God and sometimes as retributive justice; but under whatever name, all
history attests the wisdom and beneficence of its chastisements, and
men become reconciled to the agents through whom it operates, and have
extolled them as heroes, benefactors and