ard, "but it seems almost cowardly to remain at home." "It sometimes takes more courage to do one's duty alone than to do a difficult task in the hour of a crisis." Richard made no answer, for he knew these words were true of himself. "And there are other National calls besides that of freeing the slaves. These will be almost forgotten, for a time, in the necessary attention that the war will demand and the resources which it will consume. As our country grows older, the moral and spiritual needs will multiply. The battlefield is not the only place, and possibly for you and many others, not the largest place of influence." Richard looked more cheerfully upon his remaining at work after this conversation and further thought upon it. The day came at last for the departure of the company. Farewell words were spoken. by the President. The personal goodbyes had been said. Whole classes were broken up. Mothers gave up sons and wives. bade adieu to husbands, not knowing whether the next meeting would be here or Farmers left their on the Eternal shores. land to be tilled by their wives and daughters, and artisans dropped their tools and teachers their books, to take the musket and the sword. Richard has permitted me to copy from his note book of that date: "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! toward the South; while trumpets blare and breaking yet patriotic hearts compel the lips to speak the word of Godspeed and encouragement. "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! toward the battle fields and prisons, over impassable roads and through bottomless swamps, brother to shoot down brother, while loneliness and uncertainty are consuming the hearts of those that wait and labor at home; until the awful sin of slavery is atoned for and the regiments come home again, decimated and maimed, amid the applause and tears of a grateful, yet bereaved country. "Love makes war necessary sometimes, but it will in the end drive the monster from the world and brood with the wings of peace over a battle scarred earth. "Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say-'Peace!'" It is the five years after college which are the most decisive in a man's career. Any event which happens then has its full influence. The years which come before are too fluid. The years which come after are too solid. -Phillips Brooks. CHAPTER XII. A CALL. From June until September Richard rested at his home, and tried to decide what his work in life should be. The months at home brought back the glow of health to his cheek and the old elasticity to his step. He roamed through the woods as of old and drank in their silence and learned more of their secrets. Led by the charm of earlier days, he even fished again in the little pools of the brook. Everything looked both smaller and larger than of old. There was a sense of disappointment as he found that the trees and brook, the fish, the fields and the buildings seemed to have shrunk during the seven years since he had roamed among them. But the suggestions they made to him were more far-reaching now than then, and this was more than recompense for the sense of loss. The imaginings of youth that the trees touched the sky had vanished but the suggestiveness of their heaven pointing |