u 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 with high disdain, but
embrace it with gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; the
gain is for all time. Go further than this. Consecrate to a holy
cause not only the incidentals of life, but life itself. Father,
husband, child,--I do not say, Give them up to toil, exposure,
suffering, death, without a murmur;--that implies reluctance. I rather
say, Urge them to the offering; fill them with sacred fury; fire them
with irresistible desire; strengthen them to heroic will. Look not on
details, the present, the trivial, the aspects of our conflict, but fix
your ardent gaze on its eternal side. Be not resigned, but rejoicing.
Be spontaneous and exultant. Be large and lofty. Count it all joy
that you are reckoned worthy to suffer in a grand and righteous cause.
Give thanks evermore that you were born in this time; and BECAUSE it is
dark, be you the light of world.

And follow the soldier to the battle-field with spirit. The great army
of letters that marches southward with every morning sun is a powerful
engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and
suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the
dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the
South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will
damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the
foe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest man
idealizes his far-off home, and every word of love uplifts him to a
lover. But let your tenderness unfold its sunny side, and keep the
shadows for His pity who knows the end from the beginning, and whom no
foreboding can dishearten. Glory in