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KIT*. A. I BYAK, Editor-
AUGUSTA, GAi, APRIL 4, 18G8.
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS,
“Viola.” —Mobile. —Thanks for your
letter. Your poetry, which needed some
correction, will appear next week. You will
always be welcome to our columns.
Ret. J. A. B.—Pensacola.—Your letter
received, and “Aner.” Next week will no
tice your work and insert a chapter.
Rebel.” —Baltimore.—You r composition
is too political tor our journal, andps there
fore respectiully declined.
J. D. S. —We have stated plainly enough
our principles and position in our first
number. We have nothing to modify. If
you do not approve, we cannot help it.
Your approval is not necessary—we can
do without it.
“Kollo.” —Articles respectfully de
clined. You need practice in composition.
Try again.
11. B. M.—Savannah. —Your verses jin
gle very well, hut jingle of words is not
poetry, and wo must decline them.
R. P. Grey. —Savannah. —Will answer
your note this week.
SOUTHERN WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Where are the women and children in
History ? Why do they so seldom appear ?
Have they had nothing to do with shaping
the events of this world? Are men the
only actors in the great drama ? Have the
women and children no part to play ?
And if they have, why do we so very
rarely meet with them in the scenes and
acts of history ? And when their gentle
faces do appear, how is it that they are
kept afar off in the obscure back-ground,
dim us shadows, scarcely seen at all—or, if
seen, almost unnoticed ( We read the an
nals of.a thousand years ; we turn over
page after page ; but the names upon them
written, and the deeds in them recorded,
are names and deeds of men. What of
the women and children of those thousand
years? Have they done nothing worth
recording? and if they have, where is the
record ? We follow the histories of a hun
dred nations, through all their vicissitudes i
from their births to their burials we find
the footprints alone of men. Has no mark
been left to tell that women and children
had aught to do with the destinies of the
nations ? Do men alone make History ?
From them alone is all its glory derived?
Have they so occupied the stage upon
which the drama of history is acted as to
leave no room upon it for the women and
children? Do these exert no influence
on the course of events ? or so impercepti
ble ail influence that only once or twice in
a hundred years they make a mark and
leave a memory ?
There are his' nans of men and men’s
achievements, out women and children
have neither history nor historian. And
yet, the weak hands of women and children
have done their part in the building up of
every nation. They have suffered too and
struggled ; they have given their tears to
the tragedies of this world; they have
helped nations to attain glory and men to
win tamo ; they have influenced every day
of history, but in the blaze of men’s
achievements they have been bidden, just
as the stars in the heavens are veiled from
our gaze by the splendors of the sun. In
the march of nations to glory we hear only
the firm tread of the warrior; we listen in
vain for the patter of little feet. In the
field of battle we hear only the shouts of
the combatants —not the sighs of women
who are wailing for those who will return
no more. Memories of the blood of brave
men shed iu sacred causes history gathers
and preserves, but the tears of the widow*
and orphans in the desolate home are forgot
ten. And which is holier—the blood of the
soldier or the tears of his orphans? The
historian finds on the battle-plain a grave,
and the name of the sleeper in it he gives
to the world; but the names of the weep
ers for that dead one find no place in his
pages. And which is holier • the pulse
less heart of the warrior buried in his bat
tle grave, or the broken hearts of the wife
and children at home? History takes pains
and feels pride in recording the sufferings
and sacrifices of men for right, but all un
known and unwritten are the greater sa
crifices of the women and children ;
greater because they feel them more in -
tensely and are less able to make them and
bear them. llow otten have wo mused
over these unwritten histories. How often
have we striven to fill up with our own
imaginings the blanks in the annals of
earth! How often have we wondered
about these women and children who
stand in the silent, shadowy background of
history, and yet who are intimately related
to every event! They share the fates of
their people—they suffer and rejoice—they
weep—they make sacrifices—they wield a
quiet, yet tremendous power, over the acts
of history; and yet historians scarcely
deign to mention them. A passing tribute
now and then they receive, but the full
meed of praise which they deserve is with
held. The great deeds of men occupy page
after page, a sentence here and there in
timates that back of the great men and
their deeds are the women and children.
Who will write their history? Were it
written how it would, in interest, transcend
the records of men! What bright and
beautiful pages—what sad and pathetic
pages it would present! how tragic it
would be! What sorrows and sufferings—
what faith and fidelity it would contain !
Do we meet in the front lines of history
with men great, good, and true ? Back of
them would we not find women and chil
dren as true, as good, and as great? Does
the heroism of men on battle-fields in just
causes thrill us with admiration? What
of the heroism in the homes of these men ?
There goes the soldier to the fray firm and
fearless ; a proud figure for the historian
to sketch ; but look at his little girl stand
ing on the doorstep, bitterly weeping, and
kissing her white little hand to her soldier
father for the last time. There goes the
warrior grandly down to death rather than
yield to wrong; history will not forget
him. But had he a mother, a wife, a child)
what of them ? lie leaves a memory .
what becomes of their memories? They
sent him forth—prayed for him —watch-
ed and waited for him —suffered the
deep anguish of suspense for him—
he is remembered —they are forgotten.
His deeds are handed down—theirs, con
signed to oblivion. His brow is crowned
with a wreath of glory, and flowers are
strewn o’er his grave—but they ! no one
knows of them; no one asks for them.
And who suffered more—they or he ?
, Which is harder —death to him in the front
of battle, or life to them when be is gone ?
Which is greater —his glory or their grief?
And if the light of his glory flashes along
many a page of history, why does not their
grief cast its shadow there?
History is wrong. Women and children
help to make it. They are actors in the
drama. They are part of every scene.
Beside every event they stand. There
never was a deed done with which they
have not been connected. But their story
is unchronicled —their fames unsounded —
their names eclipsed in the glare of the
names of men. Their hearts are beating
under every page of history; their hands,
unseen, are working at every monument ol
human glory. Amid the nations they are
moving to and fro, fulfilling their mission)
but the ranks of men hide them from view,
and the writers of the deeds of men leave
them in their obscurity.
Who will write the story of the women
and children of the South ? Who will de
scribe their sacrifices for our cause! Who
will record their enthusiasm as long as
there was hope—and their fidelity when
hope passed away ? "W ho will tell the
world, in fitting words, of their woes, and
the wrongs they endured ? We are shrining
in story and in song the fames of our men
—shall we forget our women and children ?
They are keeping our memories—shall
we let their memories perish ? They are
treasuring in their hearts our traditions—
they cling to them —they will pass them
down —they are making them household
words ; and if they do this for us, shall we
fail to record their praises ? Proud pages
in history shall the men who wore the
Grey have ; but their mothers, wives, sis
ters, children, shall they remain unchroni
cled and unknown ? No ! they were true
to us, and history must be true to them.
Devotion to a cause, greater than theirs,
the world never witnessed. Does the ivy
cling as faithfully as ever to the crumbling
tower ?so they to the lost cause. Was the
blood of our soldiers, shed in our defence,
holy and pure ? Not less pure and holy
were their tears. Were the hardships
borne in battle, siege and skirmish, in
camp, on the march, iu the trenches and
hospitals grand and worthy of remem
brance? Not less grand nor less worthy
record were the sorrows of our women and
children in twice a hundred thousand
homes. Where was the higher heroism —
on the battle-field, or far away at the lonely
hearth! Who bore more—gave more —
suffered more for country —the soldier with
sword of steel girded to his side, or the
soldier boy’s mother with the sword of grief
transpiercing her heart? Was he worn
and weary, that soidier of Lee’s army in
the trenches of Richmond? But thousands
of comrades surrounded him. What of
his wife with the woe-worn face and the
weary heart in her far-off home, looking
into the eyes of her little girl, who, to
morrow may be fatherless? Is it sad—
that grass-grown grave, without a name, in
the shadow of the woods of Tennessee?
A boy without coffin or shroud, with only
his grey suit on, is resting there ; and his
sorrows are over. But there i3 a grave in
that hoy’s only sister’s heart, away down
in some ltttle village of Georgia, and her
sorrows still endure. Is that not sadder?
Was it not mournful—that dying cry of
the poor soldier in a Northern prison ? But
the moans of his mother in the silence of
the night, when his pale face flits through
her dreams —are they not more full of
agony ? a. j; it.
GIVE GOD HIS PLAGE,
NUMBER THREE
Science, in our day, is materialistic. It
gathers facts—but look* not back of them
to grasp their spirit. It meddles with mat
ter, but strives not to read the name of
God which i» written on every atom of
matter. It deals with earth’s dust, but
will not learn the meanings which heaven
has hidden there. Its eyes are turned
downwards, seldom lifted aloft to see in
the heavens the explanation of the phe
nomena of this world. It satisfies itself
with the outside of things and seldom
takes the trouble to lift the veil and look
beyond it. It argues about the visible and
sensible and will not rise to to the invisi
ble. The unrealities of earth it accepts as
realities, and the realities above earth it
repudiates as unreal. It grasps the sha
dow of things terrene and forgets the
substance. It theorizes and speculates—
and filled with complacency for its theories
and speculations, it rises no higher. It
works down in the natural order—and
works hard and industriously—but it
scarcely ever gives a thought to the super
natural. And men of science for the most
part become imbued with materialism.
They handle matter so much —they are in
such constant communication with it in all
its shapes and forms, that the idea of the
spiritual gradually weakens in their minds,
and, at last, almost wholly disappear*.
The God of the world becomes to them a
myth, and, losing his personality, they lose
that faith in Him and reverence of Him
which form man's first duty. In the maze
of their scientific researches lie disap
pear*. They begin their researches as
Christians —they come back materialists.
They then give the world their theories ;
they present the result of their investiga
tions ; and, in them, we look for God s
pl ftce __but look in vain. Foolish men!
and blind! and proud! every phenome
non which science investigates is a link in
that chain of logic which necessarily leads
reason back to God. Every fact they find
at their feet is more than a mere fact—is
au argument in favor of God. Every visi
ble leads away to the invisible; everything
that falls under the senses points to a
world above the senses. Every atom is a
star to guide reason to God. This universe
is a consequence which must be traced back
to the Creator as its living Premises. And
he is more than blind—he is guilty—guilty
at the bar of intelligence as well as at
God’s tribunal, who accepts that conse
quence and rejects its Premises. Science
in its calculations must take God into ac
count —not merely as an infinite, lifeless
quantity—but as an infinite, living person
ality. It is 110 honor to science to deny
Him. That denial makes science sense
less—makes all its facts absurdities, all its
conclusion* falsehoods, [here is nothing
intelligible without Him. Reason abdi
cates her powers the hour she repudiates
Him ; and the dark, strange riddles of this
earth no man can unravel, when he once
loses hold of the truths of God.
God has not his place in science. Men
of science have taken Him away. They
must bring Him back —else their efforts
shall work deep injury on the age. Their
theories must tabernacle Him ; their prin
ciples must lead on to Him ; their research
es must be made in Ilis light: then will
they give us a wisdom whose blessings
shall be incalculable. They must make
material things stepping stones up to Him;
they must make the sciences guards ot
:ionor around religious truth.
Not less than science is art anti-religious.
Art too has lost her vocation. Time was
when she was the hand-maid of religion ;
but the hand-maid has deserted her queen.
Art now ministers to sensualism, and exerts
ler influence against morality. Once she
wore a virgin's veil and haunted the tem
ples of God ; but the virgin's veil has been
flung aside; the first love has been lost,
and art has espoused herself to passion.
The worshipper in the temple of truth and
purity has become a castaway, and she,
who once charmed men to virtue, lures
them now to vice. Music, the most beau
tiful of the sisters of art, once sang hymns
at the aLtars, but now, alas, is more fre
quently heard singing the ribald song of
the streets. The notes which filled men’s
souls with lofty thoughts and pure, fill them
now with sentiments low and base. Music
once the acolyte at the shrines of divine
ove, ministers more to the unholy desires
of human loves. Poetry, too, serves sin.
From Parnassus she went to Calvary; but
she has gone down from the holy mount
into the valleys of passion. God, with
'tier, was once the great reality—now only
a figure of speech. Her voice corrupts—
not purifies. Vice, not virtue, is too often
draped with her verses. She gathers
flowers of thought—but not to wreathe
them Found Religion’s brow. The drama
and painting and other forms of art pan
der all to vicious taste. They are demor
alizing in character and tendency. They
are vitiating our civilization which is vi
tiated enough already. God has not his
place in them. The laws of morality and
decency they put to shame. They ac
knowledge no standard of ethics. They
teach evil not good ; and day by day their
influences are growing worse. Religion, in
vain, appeals to them ; they laugh at her
voice ; in vain calls upon men to avoid
their influences; men neither hear nor heed.
Art, then, iu all her forms, must he regen
erated. She needs to be purified. She
must go back again, like a Magdalen, fall
at the feet of religion, ask forgiveness, and
sin no more.
And how* is it with politics? Has God
his place there? has religion any influence
there ? Or, does politics claim, and exer
cise independence of Gojl and religion !
What is the relation of Politics with the
eternal principles of justice? Through poli
tics men are struggling for the rights of
men, do they take into account the rights
of God, or do they leave Him and His
rights out altogether? Does religious prin
ciple rule political principles ? Why ask
the question ? Politics claim total separa
tion from religion; or, if men do bring
God into their political theories, it is too
often only to use His name as tho sanction
of injustice. Is not this the casein our
own country ? Is not principle altogether
disappearing from our politics ? when ap
peal is made to principle is it not the veriest
mockery? Is not the legislature of the
“best government the world ever saw” a
libel on law ? Are not our legislators
and politicians, in the main, visionaries,
fanatics, or knaves ? Is notofficean article
of sale? Is not venality the very soul aud
life of our politics? Is not a price set
upon principle? Is not a deadly moral
miasma rising out of the corruptions of
politics and spreading over the entire
country ? No one can deny it ;-no one can
clo»e his eyes to the appalling fact. And
men, their faces white with fear, are
looking tow*ards the future, and listening
for the dread step or anarchy that waits on
the frontiers of nations till the barriers of
law are down, then comes and sounds the
tocsin of their doom. Politics cannot save
us. The corrupt cannot regenerate the
corrupt. Try as you inay by every law
and measure to ameliorate the social con
dition of a people, unless religion has the
influence which she ought to have, your
amelioration is a farce and a falsehood.
Only religion cun reach the heart of a people.
Politics may affect the surface of society;
religion alone goes deeper than the surface*
And that nation whliich eschews religious
principles from politics is near to ruin.
Did we not, then, speak rightly when we
said that our Civilization should kneel
dow r n and kiss the cross?
- ♦ —
Guilt is that which quells the courage
of the bold, ties the tongue of the eloquent,
aud makes greatness itself sneak and lurk
and behave itself poorly.— South.
Music in Society.— Many persons,
either from a desire to exhibit their skill
on the pianoforte, and to show how diffi
cult a piece they can play, or, from bad
taste in not knowing 1 what to select to
play before a mixed audience, often
weary their listeners with a tedious sonata
wherein is no taking melody, but a suc
cession of modulations, cadences and
chromatic scale passages, which would
onty delight the ear of a real student of
music ; or some lengthy fantasia, the
melody of which is so interwoven with
fugue passages, variations and the like,
that only the finely cultivated ear could
detect it. Having seen and heard so
much of this style of performance, and
seen the evil effects it produces, we have
concluded to say a word about it. Every
person that plays, and wishes to make
that accomplishment a source of pleasure
to their friends as well themselves, should
be careful to adapt the style of music
they perform to the company they are in ;
for instance —should 3*oll be in compa
ny with persons who can appreciate
classical music, it will be proper to play,
provided you are so requested, some
piece by one of the old masters ; but it
is not, even in such a case, necessary to
choose the most difficult, composition of an
author, for, in nine cases out of ten, a
simple piece played well will please better
than a difficult one but indifferently exe
cuted. Should you chance to be thrown
into a mixed assembly, the musical tastes
of which you arc not certain, and you
are requested to favor them with a solo,
it would not be in good taste, and your
labor and talent would be entirely thrown
away, should you select the same style
as that you played to the circle before
named ; but select such a piece as will
please the majority of persons, and you
will receive more credit and give better
satisfaction to the listeners. Something
short, lively, and which has a pretty
melody running through it, such as a
galop, waltz, polka, or a simple transcrip
tion of some popular air, will generally
please. But for your own private prac
tice, select from the best classical compo
sitions and give them thorough study.
Speaking Out. In the long- run, the
habit of keeping back much of what he
thinks acts destructively on the man
himself. The practice dims his con
science, and alters his very creed. lie
suppresses so much that in the end he
blots out part of himself, and hardly
knows what he believes as a man, and
what as a partisan. While the process of
decline is going on, the man’s utterances
lack the warmth, the clear ring, the sharp
edge, which we find in the ideas that
come straight from the heart and brain.
That is why partisan speeches sound so
hollow'. That is why the writing of able
men in the leading columns even of the
chief journals so often lack edge and dis
tinctness, and seems the work of an in
tellectual machine, rather than of a living
intellect. It is for the same reason that
most men are so much smaller than Na
ture meant them to be. Nature meant
them to be big and well formed ; but
they are stunted and disproportioned,
because some of their faculties have never
been exercised at all. They will not
say what they think ; so they become
like unto the thing they worship—the
God of Corporate Action, whose gospel
is that of Suppression, whose hymns are
made up of abstract phrases punctuated
with winks, and unto whose throne goes
up, day and night, the incense of hypo
crisy. Mr. Mill believes this lack of in
dividuality to he the most dangerous
sign in modern civilization. At least, if
men w'ould dare to lead the lives marked
out for them by nature, they would speedi
ly be very different from a race of mental
and moral dwarfs, Keats spoke the
truth under the veil of poetic exaggera
tion when lie said that if each would ex
press himself each would be great, and
humanity would become “ a grand de
mocracy of forest trees.”
[ Fraser's Magazine.
Now'! —Now r ! for time is short, and
death is near and judgment threatens!
Now ! for in eternity it will be too late,
and your very next step may land you
there ! The only season of which you
can be sure is now ! The only season in
which you can work is now ! The pur
pose may not last till to-morrow; fulfil
it now ! Fresh difficulties will flood the
channel to-morrow—wade it now ! The
chain of evil habit will bind you more
tightly to-morrow ; snap it now ! Keli
gion is a work for every day; begin it
now ! Sin exposes to present miseries ;
escape them now ! A Holiness confers
present joys; seize them now ! God of
love entreats ; be reconciled now ! The
Father from bis throne invites ; return
now! The Saviour from His cross be
seeches ; trust Him nowr! The Holy
Spirit is striving in your heart; yield
now! “ Behold now is the accepted
time, behold now is the day of salvation!”
— Rev. Newman Hall, D.U.