uld him
into a solid, substantial character, both capable and willing to meet
and overcome difficulties.

The effect of out-door life on the physical constitution is undoubtedly
good, and as the physical improves the mental is improved; and as the
mind is enlightened the spirit is ennobled. Who can calculate the
benefit derived from the contemplation of the beautiful in nature, as
the soldier sees? Mountains and valleys, dreary wastes and verdant
fields, rivers, sequestered homes, quiet, sleepy villages, as they lay
in the morning light, doomed to the flames at evening; scenes which
alternately stir and calm his mind, and store it with a panorama whose
pictures he may pass before him year after year with quiet pleasure. War
is horrible, but still it is in a sense a privilege to have lived in
time of war. The emotions are never so stirred as then. Imagination
takes her highest flights, poetry blazes, song stirs the soul, and every
noble attribute is brought into full play.

It does seem that the production of one Lee and one Jackson is worth
much blood and treasure, and the building of a noble character all the
toil and sacrifice of war. The camp-fires of the Army of Northern
Virginia were not places of revelry and debauchery. They often exhibited
scenes of love and humanity, and the purest sentiments and gentlest
feelings of man were there admired and loved, while vice and debauch, in
any from highest to lowest, were condemned and punished more severely
than they are among those who stay at home and shirk the dangers and
toils of the soldier's life. Indeed, the demoralizing effects of the
late war were far more visible "at home," among the skulks and
bomb-proofs and suddenly diseased, than in the army. And the demoralized
men of to-day are not those who served in the army. The defaulters, the
renegades, the bummers and cheats, are the boys who enjoyed fat places
and salaries and easy comfort; while the solid, respected, and reliable
men of the community are those who did their duty as soldiers, and,
having learned to suffer in war, have preferred to labor and suffer and
earn, rather than steal, in peace.

And, strange to say, it is not those who suffered most and lost most,
fought and bled, saw friend after friend fall, wept the dead and buried
their hopes,--who are now bitter and dissatisfied, quarrelsome and
fretful, growling and complaining; no, they are the peaceful,
submissive, law-abiding, order-loving, of the