Leaving Harry, Dr. Humphries went to the stable and ordered the groom to put the horse in the buggy. He was very much moved at the idea of a friendless woman being necessitated to steal for the purpose of feeding her children, and in his heart he sincerely wished she would not prove to be the wife of Alfred Wentworth. Harry's story of his friend's chivalrous conduct to him at Fort Donelson, as well as the high toned character evinced by Alfred during the few days acquaintance he had with him, had combined to procure a favorable opinion of the soldier by Dr. Humphries; at the same time, he could not conceive how any one could be so friendless in a land famed for the generous hospitalities of its people, as the South is; but he knew not, or rather he had never observed, that there were times when the eye of benevolence and the hand of charity were strangers to the unfortunate.
There are no people on the face of the earth so justly famed for their charitable actions as that of the Confederate States.—Before the unfortunate war for separation commenced, every stranger who visited their shores was received with a cordial welcome. The exile who had been driven from his home on account of the tyranny of the rulers of his native land, always found a shelter and protection from the warm hearts and liberal hands of the people of this sunny land; and though often times those who have received the aid and comfort of the South, shared its hospitalities, received protection from their enemies, and been esteemed as brothers, have turned like vipers and stung their generous host, still it passed it heedlessly and was ever ready to do as much in the future as it had done in the past. As genial as their native clime, as generous as mortals could ever be, those who sought the assistance of the people of the South would find them ready to accord to the deserving, all that they desired. It was indeed a glorious land; blooming with the loveliest blossoms of charity, flowing with the tears of pity for the unfortunate, and resplendent with all the attributes of mortal's noblest impulses. Gazing on the past, we find in the days of which we write no similitude with the days of the war. A greater curse than had fallen on them when war was waged on their soil, had fallen on the people of the South; all those chivalrous ideas which had given to her people a confidence of superiority over the North had vanished from the minds of those who had not entered the Army. It was in the "tented field" that could be found those qualities which make man the true nobility of the world. It is true that among those who remained aloof from active participation in the bloody contest were many men whose hearts beat with as magnanimous a pulsation as could be found in those of the patriots and braves of the battle-field; but they were only flowers in a garden of nature, filled with poisonous weeds that had twined themselves over the land and lifted up their heads above the purer plants, which, inhaling the tainted odor emitted by them, sickened and died, or if by chance they remained and bloomed in the midst of contamination, and eventually rose above until they soared over their poisonous companions, their members were too few to make an Eden of a desert, and they were compelled to see the blossoms of humanity perish before them unrewarded and uncared for, surfeited in the nauseous and loathsome exhalations of a cold and heartless world, without the hand of succor being extended or the pitying tear of earth's inhabitants being shed upon their untimely graves.
While they, the curse of the world, how was it with them? But one thought, one desire, filled their hearts; one object, one intention, was their aim. What of the speculator and extortioner of the South, Christian as well as Jew, Turk as well as Infidel! From the hour that the spirit of avarice swept through the hearts of the people, the South became a vast garden of corruption, in which the pure and uncorrupted were as pearls among rocks. From the hour that their fearful work after gain commenced, charity fled weeping from the midst of the people, and the demons of avarice strode triumphant over the land, heedless of the cries of the poverty stricken, regardless of the moanings of hungry children, blind to the sufferings it had occasioned and indifferent to the woe and desolation it had brought on the poor.
But all this was seen by God, and the voice of Eternity uttered a curse which will yet have effect. Even now as we write, the voice of approaching peace can be heard in the distance, for the waters on which our bark of State has been tossing for three years begins to grow calmer, while the haven of independence looms up before us, and as each mariner directs his gaze on the shore of liberty the mist which obscured it becomes dispelled, until the blessed resumption of happiness and prosperity once more presents itself, like a gleam of sunshine on a dark and cheerless road of life.
The eye of God is at last turned upon a suffering people. The past years of bloody warfare were not His work; He had no agency in stirring up the baser passions of mankind and imbuing the hands of men in each others blood, nor did He knowingly permit the poor to die of want and privation. He saw not all these, for the Eye which "seeth all things" was turned from the scene of our desolation, and fiends triumphed where Eternity was not, Hell reigned supreme where Heaven ruled not—Earth was but a plaything in the hands of Destiny. Philanthropy may deny it—Christianity will declare it heresy—man will challenge its truth, but it is no less true than is the universe a fact beyond doubt, and beyond the comprehension of mortals to discover its secrets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH.
THE RECOGNITION.
As soon as the groom had prepared the buggy, he announced to Dr. Humphries that it was in readiness. Calling Harry, who was again seated by the side of his betrothed, indulging in secret conversation, the Doctor went into the street where the buggy was.
"I will drive myself this morning, John," he remarked to the groom, "Mr. Harry will go with me."