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4 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.