crush rebellion, does not annihilate
treason, or hew traitors in pieces before the Lord. Excellent as far as
it goes, it stops fearfully short of the goal. This ought ye to do, but
there are other things which you ought not to leave undone. The war
cannot be finished by sheets and pillow-cases. Sometimes I am tempted
to believe that it cannot be finished till we have flung them all away.
When I read of the Rebels fighting bare-headed, bare-footed, haggard,
and unshorn, in rags and filth,--fighting bravely, heroically,
successfully,--I am ready to make a burnt-offering of our stacks of
clothing. I feel and fear that we must come down, as they have done,
to a recklessness of all incidentals, down to the rough and rugged
fastnesses of life, down to the very gates of death itself, before we
shall be ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not so, for
the hardest fights the earth has ever known have been made by the
delicate-handed and purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is
neither gold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery
soul that consumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bending
impossibilities to the ends of its passionate purpose.

This soul of fire is what I wish to see kindled in our women,--burning
white and strong and steady, through all weakness, timidity,
vacillation, treachery in Church or State or press or parlor, scorching,
blasting, annihilating whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie,--extinguished
by no tempest of defeat, no drizzle of delay, but glowing on its
steadfast path till it shall have cleared through the abomination of our
desolation a highway for the Prince of Peace.

O my country-women, I long to see you stand under the time and bear it
up in your strong hearts, and not need to be borne up through it. I wish
you to stimulate, and not crave stimulants from others. I wish you to
be the consolers, the encouragers, the sustainers, and not tremble in
perpetual need of consolation and encouragement. When men's brains are
knotted and their brows corrugated with fearful looking for and hearing
of financial crises, military disasters, and any and every form of
national calamity consequent upon the war, come you out to meet them,
serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formal
distortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in your
heart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of your goods.
Not only look poverty in the face w