Colonel Higginson was once asked what was the bravest deed that he ever saw done in the Civil War. He replied that the bravest deed he ever witnessed was not done in battle. It was at a banquet, where several officers had related salacious stories, and the turn came of a young lieutenant. He rose and said, "I cannot tell a story, but I will give you a toast, to be drunk in water,—Our Mothers."
There was a hush of guilty silence, and soon the party broke up.
May our sons never be placed in similar circumstances, but if they are, may they show a similar bravery!
It may be remembered that a story almost identical with this was told of General Grant.
The lives of Livingston, of Stanley, of Paton, of Elizabeth Fry, of Florence Nightingale, of Julia Ward Howe, of Alice Freeman Palmer, of Anna H. Shaw,—of Wilberforce, of Judson, and of men like the late Joseph H. Choate should be made familiar to our young people and a desire awakened to emulate their example.
Unfortunately the "path of duty" is not often at present "the way of glory,"—but it is a part of religion that the glory of an approving conscience and of the final smile of God should rank far above fleeting earthly fame. The Boy Scouts, in their excellent creed, embody this idea, and so do the Camp-Fire Girls. Both set up the right ideals, which is the main object of true education.
"The Country Contributor" to the Ladies' Home Journal, feels that our nation is suffering from a falling-away in this respect, and that our ideals and our strength to follow them are going to be improved by the great war.
"We shall have heroes to mourn for," she says, "not moral degenerates, not financial failures, not self-satisfied good citizens, dying of slow spiritual decay. Maybe our men will wake up. Perhaps new-born men may flash upon our vision as Custer did at the Grand Review.
"During that three-days' march of the Grand Review, somebody flung a wreath of flowers from a window, and it dropped upon the beautiful head of General Custer, with his leonine mane of yellow hair falling on his shoulders. His horse was frightened and ran; so Custer rode, a wild, beautiful figure of young Victory, down the length of Pennsylvania Avenue. Or like Phil Kearney at Seven Pines, with his one arm still left and the reins in his teeth."
Alfred Noyes, in the Bookman, has pointed out to a scoffing man who has belittled our heroes and our history, and says, "There are no ghosts in America," the fact that we have abundant romance and heroism within our annals, and names some of the men and events which stand for them, adding: