"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand." And the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offense.

Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and turned up the pale, anxious face toward his. How tall he seemed, and he was the President of the United States, too! A dim thought of this kind passed through Blossom's mind, but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read. He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines, and rang his bell. Blossom heard this order given: "Send this dispatch at once."

The President then turned to the girl and said: "Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back; or-wait until to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you.”

"God bless you, sir," said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the prayer?

Two days after this interview the young soldier came to the White House with his sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened “upon the shoulder." Mr. Lincoln then said, "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country."

Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill Depot to welcome them back; and, as Farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently, "The Lord be praised!"

Mrs. R. D. C. Robbins (Adapted)

THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

THE need of a great national song to meet the new and exciting conditions at the beginning of the Civil War was strongly felt.

A committee was appointed to select such a hymn as could be sung in the homes in the North and in the army on the field. Many songs were offered, but none of them met the requirement of a fire of patriotism running through them.

Julia Ward Howe, a poet not widely known at that time, in December, 1861, in company with her husband and some friends, visited Washington which presented the appearance of a great armed camp. She noted the railroad patrolled by pickets and the "watch-fires of a hundred circling camps."

Mrs. Howe and her party drove to a distance from the city to review the troops. At this time an attack of the enemy interrupted the program and the return drive was made between lines of soldiers and therefore was necessarily very slow. To relieve the tediousness, Mrs. Howe and her friends sang army songs.

That night she slept quietly, but waked toward dawn and found line after line taking shape in her mind. Fearing the words would be forgotten she sprang out of bed, and hastily wrote down the verses, then returned to bed and fell asleep.

Upon her return to Boston, she showed the verses to James T. Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. At his suggestion the title "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was given to the song and it was published. It may be of interest to know that Mrs. Howe received five dollars for her poem.

All through the terrible struggle of the Civil War this great battle hymn was a source of inspiration to the armies of the North. It justifies war when the cause is for freedom, and thus it has become a song that can never perish, being the war song a Christian nation.

of

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are

stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling

camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and

damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring

lamps.

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall

deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe

THE NOBLEST SOUTHERNER, ROBERT E. LEE WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Virginia, is a little county lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, which was originally cut off from Northumberland County. It is not more than thirty miles long and about half as broad, but it has probably produced more great men than any other spot of its size in the United States.

Stratford, the Lee home, was one of the most beautiful and interesting of the Colonial mansions of Virginia. Its timbers were of solid hewn oak of great size, and the bricks used in the building were brought from England. The walls of the first floor were two and a half feet thick and those above were two feet. The house was meant to be a permanent family home, after the fashion of English houses, and was very stately. It is still standing.

In this home, on January 19, 1807, was born Robert Edward Lee. The room in which he was born was the same one in which two signers of the Declaration of Independence had first seen the light. All the surroundings were full of tradition, and all suggested culture and refinement, and stood for honor, sincerity, and patriotism. Here was a fit nursery of greatness, and the mind of the small boy, who was surrounded by books, by portraits of soldiers and statesmen, by beautiful silver and mahogany, must have been impressed to his future advantage.

His father, having died when Robert was very young, left him almost entirely to the care of his mother. She impressed upon him habits of action and thought destined to remain with him throughout his whole life. Patriotism he was born to, and it was fostered in him through his school days at Alexandria. The place was full of associations with the "Father of his Country," and as Washington became there the hero and ideal of Lee's boyhood, so he was in many ways the model of his manhood, and study of Washington teaches patriotism.

As he grew toward manhood, he began to plan for the future, for, as there was no fortune at his command, he was anxious to be self-supporting. He applied for appointment to West Point in 1824, and on July 25, 1825, he became a part of that great institution. He graduated three years

later, with high honors, and was commissioned lieutenant in the Engineering Corps of the United States Army.

At the outbreak of the War with Mexico he was called into service and won such distinction that it may be said his whole later career was the result of this brilliant beginning.

In the years following the Mexican War a violent dispute over slavery arose in the United States. So far as slavery was concerned, Lee, like many Southerners in the Border States, never doubted its evils. He freed all the slaves he owned and was influential in getting others to do the same.

As time passed, the disagreement over slavery involved the questions of preserving the Union and the secession of Virginia.

Lee was ordered to Washington, where he was promoted to colonel of the First Cavalry, and at the time of the first call for troops the chief command of the United States Army was offered to him. Lee's reply was what might have been expected, "If I owned four millions of slaves, I would cheerfully sacrifice them to the preservation of the Union, but to lift my hand against my own State and people is impossible."

Two days later he bade Arlington a long and sorrowful farewell. He went immediately to Richmond and was nominated major general and commander-in-chief of the forces of Virginia.

The making of the Union was largely due to Virginia, and she loved it; but in all things, according to Virginia theory, Virginia came first. To remain with the Union carried with it the necessity of fighting those States most closely allied to her by ties of blood, friendship, and common interest, all of whom were acting, if unwisely, still in the exercise of what she considered their undoubted right, and she cast her lot with the South.

Lee knew the strength and resources of the North and he