reed
unnoticed and unreproved. We have never forgotten the bitter lessons of
the Crimean war which laid bare our miserable incompetence in
organizing, and the moral rottenness of our English firms that could
supply our soldiers with paper-soled boots and bayonets that bent at a
thrust, when the very life of our brave fellows depended on their being
well armed and well shod.

America will never forget the sufferings of her wounded in the Spanish
war, sufferings caused by the like dishonesty in the goods supplied and
the like criminal incompetency which failed to provide them even with
necessaries.

But I do say that an empire presents many difficult problems, and that
the men who accept its responsibilities need a sound head, clean hands,
and above all a pure heart.

Let me in conclusion relate an incident which happened in the wreck of
the _Warren Hastings_, to which I have already alluded,--an incident
which I can never tell without a breaking voice and eyes full of tears.
In that awful night of storm and darkness and iminent shipwreck, the
officer in command, after ordering his men below to lighten the crowded
deck, stationed two of his men at a narrow gangway through which he
feared an ugly rush for life might be made, while the women and children
were being embarked, bidding them on no account to leave their post till
he gave them the word of command. At length the women and the sick had
all been saved in the boats. This done, and not till then, the men had
saved themselves, some by boats, some by life preservers; and last of
all the captain and officer in command were proceeding to leave the fast
foundering ship, when the latter heard a voice close to him, saying,
"Colonel, may we leave now?" It was the voice of one of his two
sentinels. In the stress and strain of the awful scenes of that night he
had for the moment forgotten that he had ordered them not to leave their
post until he gave the word of command. And he said that _the water was
almost up to their lips_!

Oh ye mothers of America and of our great Empire! send us such men as
these,--men who will mount guard over women and children in all lands,
and see, as far as in them lies, that they do not make shipwreck of
what is dearer than life;--men who, even with the bitter waters of
temptation up to their own lips, will still hold their post and see that
no man, to save himself, drives them down into that dread sea of
perdition which never gives up its de