dis are very close together, almost touch. May God help us to find the way between the fatal extremes ! Passing over much that I will not take time to speak of, which, perhaps, is too plain to every one's common sense to need to be spoken (all about a pastor's ways and means and plans to do good), it is to be remembered, that the pastor's sphere is the homes of his parish. His own home should be a model. A bad home in the parsonage, close by the church, will spoil the effect of even good sermons. The parsonage should give the key-note in simple refinement of taste and manners; in a genuine religious spirit; in a loving harmony; in a wise, Christian helpfulness. Happy the parish that has a home in the parsonage, where heaven and earth meet in unison ! Finally, in a word, let me set up the ideal of pastoral influence. I see it symbolized in this picture, so often seen in our houses, of Dante and Beatrice. In her translation by death to spiritual life, she became, to the poetic eye of his mind, the beau-ideal of a divine holiness; and while she, looking to the Father, rose nearer, nearer, to his excellence, he, looking up to her, rose nearer and nearer, both ascending towards the highest. "Her eyes fast fixed on the eternal wheels, Words may not tell of that transhuman change; Happy that parish which is drawn by loving sympathy to their pastor, while he is constantly ascending into all the sweet and mighty sanctities of earth and heaven, alluring to brighter worlds, and leading the way! ON Saturday evening, July 4, we saw, in the "NewYork Herald" of the same day, the name of our nephew, an officer of a Pennsylvania regiment; and against the name these ominous words, "wounded and missing." We determined to leave the next evening (Sunday) for Gettysburg, to look for him there. I went to Boston to find the Governor, and get a letter to the military authorities of Baltimore. The Governor's house was closed. He had taken the opportunity (so I learned afterwards) of the 4th of July, not to go into the country to rest and enjoy himself, as I then supposed, but to shut himself in the State House with his secretaries, and work all day, undisturbed by callers. The Common was crowded with a great multitude, whose faces would be suddenly illuminated as the electric light would flash upon them. This light, which illuminates every thing within its range for miles, would help our blockaders on a dark night immensely. Sunday evening, at six, we set out for New York; the cars filled and overfilled with men, whom we supposed to be escaping from the draft, but who were on their return to Worcester and other stations from the 4th-of-July festivities. In New York at five, A.M., Monday; in Philadelphia at twelve. There we staid till three, P.M., inquiring at the Army Directory of the Sanitary Commission, at the Medical Bureau, at the military bureaus, at the hospitals; but hear nothing of our wounded soldier. So, at three, we go on to Baltimore; and arrive at the Eutaw House at seven or eight, P.M. The halls of this excellent hotel are full of soldiers, among whom I recognize at once many friends. Massachusetts is well represented at Gen. Schenck's head-quarters. I have no difficulty about the pass to Gettysburg. In fact, almost the first person I see is an old friend, an important member of the Sanitary Commission, who is sending up car-loads of comforts and necessaries for the wounded, and agents of the Commission to distribute them. "You can go to-night at twelve," says he, as one of our agents." So I decide to go. But as it is possible that the young lieutenant-colonel we are seeking may be in Baltimore, and not in Gettysburg, my wife remains to look for him there, while I go on. 66 So, about midnight, I find myself in a dark freight-car, from which, however, I get transferred into a passengercar by and by,—and am going slowly to the scene of action. Our passenger-car is attached to a long line of freight-cars. There is no conductor to the train, only an engineer. The stops are many and long; for there is but one track. The engine toils up the steep grades, and at last stands still, dead beat. In twelve hours, we had gone about half of the seventy-five miles. Nothing to eat but a piece of bread bought at a wayside inn or grocery. "Patienza!" The sun is going down: it is five o'clock in the afternoon, when we at last stop a mile or two from the town. The first person almost whom I see is the colonel of my nephew's regiment. He tells me that the young man is in the place: "He has lost his right arm, but is doing well. Take this card you can find him by it." I go on at once to the town. It is a small one, and I But such is the utter confusion expect to find him at once. which prevails, that I do not succeed till after three hours' search. During that time, I visit the hospitals in the churches, where the men are close as they can lie; I visit the Provost Marshal's office; I hunt up surgeons; I call at one house after another. But the whole town has been turned inside out and upside down, and no one knows where any one else is. But an officer tells me that one of his friends will be able, in an hour or so, to take me to the place I am seeking. So I employ that hour in going up the Emmetsburg road to visit a part of the field of battle. It was the decisive battle of the war. One of our generals told me that he had it from one of the Confederate generals taken prisoner at Gettysburg, that Gen. Lee entered Pennsylvania with a highly disciplined army of nearly a hundred thousand men. Gen. Lee assured every one, that he should remain as long as he wished; that there was no earthly power strong enough to drive him back across the Potomac. He expected to meet, conquer, and destroy the Army of the Potomac; then to march on Baltimore, and occupy it, laying it under military contributions; then to march on Washington, and dictate terms of peace in our capital. Such was his plan. Its success depended on his defeating our army; but of that he felt certain. He had defeated it at Chancellorsville by one of his brilliant manoeuvres. He considered it demoralized by that defeat and by frequent change of commanders. He knew his own army to be larger, and better disciplined. He believed that he should be able, as before, to select his own position, and break down our army by hurling concentrated masses of troops upon the weakest points. He had from eighty to ninety thousand men; Gen. Meade, from sixty to seventy thousand. It will be seen, therefore, how important this battle was to our cause. If our army had been routed, it is certain that we could not have held Baltimore, probably not Washington. I was told in Baltimore, that the friends of the Confederates had made all their preparations to welcome the army of Lee. They - were expecting them within a week in that city. There was a home-guard there indeed, and barricades capable of resisting a dash of cavalry, but not of keeping out for an hour a victorious army. I saw these barricades in all the main avenues of the city, and fortifications recently erected on the outskirts of Baltimore, but nothing capable of an effective defence. We see, then, the greatness of the danger to which we were exposed, and from which we were delivered by the heroism of the Army of the Potomac and the skill of our generals. The more I look at it, the more I deem it the greatest crisis of the war, and the battle of Gettysburg the most decisive battle ever fought on this continent. If the Confederate Army was not destroyed nor captured, let us be consoled: it was turned back, and its pride and power effectually broken down. If Lee had occupied Baltimore and Washington, even the taking of Vicksburg and Port Hudson and Charleston would have been small conIsolation to us. Let us thank God to-day, then, for the crowning mercy that he vouchsafed us on those bloody but glorious days. As I paced over the field torn with shot, stumbled over unexploded projectiles, and kicked aside the cartridges which lay on the ground where the lines had stood; as I saw the horses and men yet lying where they fell four days before; as I marked some of the points where the great struggle took place, the lines of Bryant recurred to my heart: "Oh! never shall the land forget Where gushed the best blood of its brave, It was on Tuesday afternoon, four days after the battle, that I spent an hour on the field. The sun shone brightly over the scene. I was alone, and was glad to be alone. |