Soldiers and
officers were ready to die for him. His will power seemed to enslave
them. In Rome he called for forty volunteers to go where half of them
would be sure to be killed and the others probably wounded. The whole
battalion rushed forward; and they had to draw lots, so eager were all to
obey.

What power of magic lies in a great name! There was not a throne in
Europe that could stand against Washington's character, and in comparison
with it the millions of the Croesuses would look ridiculous. What are
the works of avarice compared with the names of Lincoln, Grant, or
Garfield? A few names have ever been the leaven which has preserved many
a nation from premature decay.

"But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind--
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?--
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die."

Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing the death of Princess
Alice, a touching story of sick-room ministration. The Princess' little
boy was ill with diphtheria, the physician had cautioned her not to
inhale the poisoned breath; the child was tossing in the delirium of
fever. The mother took the little one in her lap and stroked his fevered
brow; the boy threw his arms around her neck, and whispered, "Kiss me,
mamma;" the mother's instinct was stronger than the physician's caution;
she pressed her lips to the child's, but lost her life.

At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after the Crimean War, it
was proposed that every one should write on a slip of paper the name
which appeared most likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the
papers were opened every one of them contained the name of Florence
Nightingale.

Leckey says that the first hospital ever established was opened by that
noble Christian woman, Fabiola, in the fourth century. The two foremost
names in modern philanthropy are those of John Howard and Florence
Nightingale. Not a general of the Crimean War on either side can be
named by one person in ten. The one name that rises instantly, when that
carnival of pestilence and blood is suggested, is that of a young woman
just recovering from a serious illness, Florence Nightingale. A soldier
said, "Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin'; and after
that it was as holy as a church." She robbed war of half its terrors.
Since her time the hospital systems of all the nations duri