Winter, with its storms and sunshine, its triumphs and reverses, wore away at length, and with the first blossoms of May Lilian came back to us, more welcome to our hearts than the breath of spring or the fragrance of forest flowers. She was accompanied by Captain, now Major May, who was on the staff of Gen. Lester, and who eagerly availed himself of an opportunity to revisit the spot where his earthly hopes were centred. During her stay at the head-quarters of her husband, Lilian had learned to appreciate the worth of the young aide-de-camp, and ardently hoped he might be successful in his suit. Why should I narrate the progress of events? It was the same old story repeated once again, a tale as old as the history of the race, yet new in the experience of every human heart—the story of faithful love meeting its reward at last in the affection of the beloved object. As Elinor heard from her cousin the recital of the gallant exploits of Major May, of his courage and devoted loyalty, she loved him not only “for the perils he had passed,” but for the high principle which had thus far shielded him from the peculiar temptations of a soldier’s life; and before his departure he won from her a promise, that when the war was ended, or his term of service expired, he might claim his reward.
Months have passed, and still the cloud of war overshadows the land, and still our beloved ones are absent from us, some with the heroic Sherman in Northern Georgia, scaling the heights of Kennesaw and Lookout mountains, and driving the eagle from his eyrie, as they plant the stars and stripes among the clouds; some are in the sultry swamps and bayous of Louisiana, exposed to a foe more insidious and deadly than the rebel armies; and others, among whom are our best and bravest, are swelling the ranks which threaten the Confederate capital.
“The time has come when brothers must fight
And sisters must pray at home.”
But while we look up to Him who alone can send help and deliverance, it is our privilege to labor as well as to pray, and while we wait upon God, to watch for every opportunity of doing whatever our hands find to do in the good cause, with our whole heart.
The heavens are dark above us, and the earth rocks wildly under our feet, but God has a divine purpose underlying all these convulsions, and it is fixed and immutable as his throne. Faith sees in the overturnings around us the majestic march of his providence, preparing a way in the tempest, and making the wrath of man to praise him, while he restrains the remainder thereof.
It is good for us sometimes, when hope deferred makes the heart sick, to go back to first principles, that we may gather strength from a review of our past history and of God’s dealings with us as a nation.
The American republic was unique in its inception and establishment. The pilgrim band who came to New England in the Mayflower were not a company of commercial adventurers, led hither by the hope of gain; still less were they a party of military freebooters, actuated by the lust of conquest, like the Spaniards, who carried fire and sword among the unoffending inhabitants of Southern America. The principle which led those noble men and women to forsake kindred and home, and to brave the perils of a howling wilderness, and which sustained them amid all their privations and sufferings, was not earthly or perishable. It was the burning, quenchless thirst for religious liberty, the strong determination to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, though the roof of their temple were the boundless sky and their altar the rough stones of the forest, that actuated the founders of this republic in their sublime enterprise.
They came to these wilds of nature that they might found a colony and build up a church, and advance the interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom, and serve as stepping-stones to others in the great work of human progress. And never has the divine declaration, “Them that honor me I will honor,” been more signally fulfilled than in the growth of the infant nation thus established. Every step of the way in which, as a people, we have been led, from the landing on Plymouth rock to the proud position which we have hitherto occupied among the nations, has been marked by special interpositions of Providence, no less real, though less miraculous, than the pillar of cloud and flame which guided the ancient Israelites to the land of promise.
But in our prosperity we have forgotten the Rock whence we were hewn, and have rebelled against our father’s God, and refused to obey his commands, until in his righteous indignation he has come out in judgment against us, and left us to our own ways and to eat the fruit of our own devices. As a nation we have deeply sinned. As a nation we are suffering a fearful punishment.