The Laborers and their Work.

Our stores were placed in the hands of Mr. Town for Indianola. and of Mr. Martin for Brownsville and the Upper Rio Grande. Rev. Mr. McLeod was laboring with a brigade of white soldiers, three miles from town. In his Commission tent he preached every Sabbath, with help from myself and others. Mrs. Porter and Miss Gary took up their abode in a tent pitched for us at Orange Grove Hospital. Here Mrs. Porter distributed her stores, and Miss Gary taught the colored soldiers in a tent prepared for a dining-hall and place of worship.

On the night of Nov. 29th we had our first social meeting in the Commission Rooms in town. Thirty-five attended, and the Holy Spirit was evidently present. Prof. Shephard, of Yale College, returning from a geological expedition to the Mexican mines, with Mr. Lyon, an American merchant of Monterey, encouraged us by their presence and remarks. Three Christian army officers spoke, and prayers were asked for many.

Among the colored soldiers, we found many strange notions and perverted, physical ways of looking at spiritual realities, which did not however prevent a precious and beautiful simplicity of trust in Christ. A soldier named Emanuel Rickets had Wanting to Go. entered the army in New York, about ten months before. He told me his history, when I met him first, and spoke with confidence of his knowledge of Christ as the Saviour; with this he could compare no earthly pleasures or hopes. The next timę I passed his cot, I found him sinking rapidly. Thinking an orange would comfort him, I gave him one. He was engaged in earnest prayer as I offered it to him:

Do take me to Thyself, dear Father; I want to go."

After prayer he exclaimed—

"I see my Father; I see Him. Don't you see Him? Around Him they are singing and dancing. Why shouldn't they dance? Well, I'll dance soon."

He tried to thank me for the orange, but could do it only with the simple words

"My Father has oranges enough."

"Tell my mother," said he, as I went away, "I die happy; I didn't want to stay here; it ain't a good place."

Soon after the first of the new year he went home.

We were grieved to find in Brownsville no Protestant school of any kind, and planned one for our soldiers and the Southern children of the town. Aided by Government officers, a building was secured and seated as a school. On the 1st of March, 1866, we took possession of the Seminary for our own dwelling.

A Protestant School in Brownsville.

Our school began with six scholars, all from one family. But in a few days some Mexican children came in, and prejudice began to give way. One anxious father asked Mrs.

Porter

"Do you teach any 'religion' here?"

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Oh, yes," was the answer; we teach the children to love one another, to love and obey their parents, to be kind and gentle, to obey God, and to love the Lord Jesus; and we teach the ten commandments."

"Oh, that's good," said he, considerably relieved.

At the end of four months, the ladies had sixty scholars, more than half of them from Spanish Catholic families. In April the Commission closed its work, and all its Delegates and Agents, except ourselves, left the field. In the middle of June, our work accomplished, we left Brownsville, the last Commission Delegates.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE HOME SIDE.

BEAUTIFUL and wonderful as were the sacrifice and Christian experience which the workers of the Commission beheld in hospital, in camp, on the march and on the field, in many a saddened, anxious, loyal home other sacrifices were made and other experiences perfected. There were poor men and women whose mites .swelled the millions which the nation gave; there were mothers and children who could not be denied the privilege of foregoing many luxuries and comforts, that the boys at the war might be helped and cheered. The purpose of this chapter is to preserve a few of the many incidents of the home side of the war.

Mr. Charles Demond, whose long charge of Commission work in New England brought him closely in contact with those who prayed and gave, furnishes the following:

At a meeting in a small town in New Hampshire, Prof. E. T. 'Quimby, of Dartmouth College, who had been a Delegate in the Army of the Cumberland, told his experience. When the boxes were passed, an old man of eighty put in a small, red cotton handkerchief. The collector, thinking he had made a mistake, was about to return it, but the old man made a sign to have it retained. When the meeting was over the clergyman of the place said to the speaker

Captain Weston's Handkerchief.

Captain Weston has given to you the last thing owned by him which he could give. A few years ago, the only one of his sons who could aid him came home to take charge of the aged parents, and they looked to him for support in their declining years. When the war came the son felt it his duty to enlist. He went with his father's blessing, and he now fills a soldier's grave in the South. Since his fall the old man has supported himself and his aged wife by his own labor. He is utterly penniless. He recently told me that he would be glad to do something for benevolence, but for six months,' said he, 'I have had but three cents of my own."

Rev. E. G. Parsons, of Derry, N. H., had been a Delegate in the Potomac Army. Under date of July 28th, 1864, he wrote me : "I told my little story to my congregation last Sunday afternoon, and took up a collection. A silver dollar was sent in afterwards by a good lady, who has a son in the Union Army. With it came this message:

"Mother Would Have Given it."

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My mother, dying twenty years ago, gave me this dollar, which I have sacredly cherished; that mother, if now living, would have five grandsons in the army. One has fallen upon the battle-field and * another has barely escaped death of malignant disease, and I think she would have given this dollar for the soldiers.'

"Acting up to her convictions of her mother's wishes, she sends the precious coin to your treasury."

One of the most touchingly suggestive incidents I remember was that of a widow, who sent me her wedding-ring. She first gave her only son to die for the country, and then withheld not this dear pledge of love, made sacred by the death of him who gave it. Such benevolence gives to patriotism a purer lustre, and makes even the smoke and carnage of battle radiant with the reflected brightness of heaven.

The Widow's Mite.

Mr. B. F. Jacobs, the Secretary of the Chicago Branch of the Commission, tells two incidents of scenes in his collecting tours through the Northwest:

Speaking at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, after the addresses were over, we were raising a contribution and men were announcing their subscriptions. A soldier in the far gallery rose and said

"Maloney, $5."

Three or four gentlemen who stood near me at once remarked

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'He can't afford to give a cent. He ought not to

Why Mr. Ma

loney gave Five Dollars.

do it. He has a wife and four children and they are very, very poor. He has hardly been able to support them with his soldier's pay." At the close of the meeting I asked for him, and he came forward to the desk:

"Mr. Maloney, they say you ought not to give $5 to this cause." "They don't know anything about it," said he, very emphatically. "Well, do you think you ought to?"

"Let me tell you,” said he : Seven years ago, when you were a clerk in Chicago, I used to buy goods of you. I failed in business, became dissipated till I was nothing but a miserable, drunken, wretched sinner, and my wife and children were well-nigh beggars— and almost worse than that, before I entered the army. In Virginia there, I was led to the Christian Commission meetings. I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. After that I saved every dollar of my pay to send home, whereas before I never sent a cent. All that I have, and all that my family have for time, and all that I hope for in eternity, under the blessing of God, I owe to the Commission. Don't you think I ought to give five dollars?"

Early in 1864, a Commission meeting was held in Milwaukee. After the audience had retired, I was told that a lady was waiting to speak with me. She was standing near the doorway, dressed in deep mourning. As I went to meet her, she put out her hands with great earnestness, and said—

"I could not go away without thanking you and telling you how grateful I am."

"She was a Mother to my Boy."

I replied that she must be mistaken, as I did not remember to have met her before:

"Oh no! I'm not mistaken; it's no difference; any Delegate of the Christian Commission would be the same."

"What has the Commission done for you, madam?"

"My only son died in the hospital at Memphis. I was too poor to go and see my boy, after the letter came telling me that he was sick. But a lady Delegate of the Commission visited him daily in the hospital, ministered to his wants, comforted him in his loneliness,