There were those, on the other hand, who emerged from the military service depraved and brutalized; and those who, in the rush of business incidental to the war, were not trained to self-sacrifice and duty, but habituated to the seeking of selfish interests in the midst of the public peril and affliction. We delight in the evidences that these cases were a small proportion of the whole. But even a small percentage of so many hundreds of thousands mounts up to a formidable total. The early years of the peace were so marked by crimes of violence that a frequent heading in the daily newspapers was "The Carnival of Crime." Prosperity, or the semblance of it, came in like a sudden flood. Immigration of an improved character poured into the country in greater volume than ever. Multitudes made haste to be rich, and fell into temptations and snares. The perilous era of enormous fortunes began. FOOTNOTES: [340:1] E. B. Andrews, "History of the United States," vol. ii., p. 66. [342:1] Read "The Kansas Crusade," by Eli Thayer, Harpers, New York, 1889. It is lively reading, and indispensable to a full understanding of this part of the national history. [346:1] Thompson, "The Presbyterians," p. 135. [346:2] "Narrative of the State of Religion" of the Southern General Assembly of 1864. [348:1] For interesting illustrations of this, see Alexander, "The Methodists, South," pp. 71-75. The history of the religious life of the northern army is superabundant and everywhere accessible. CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE WAR. When the five years of rending and tearing had passed, in which slavery was dispossessed of its hold upon the nation, there was much to be done in reconstructing and readjusting the religious institutions of the country. Throughout the seceding States buildings and endowments for religious uses had suffered in the general waste and destruction of property. Colleges and seminaries, in many instances, had seen their entire resources swept away through investment in the hopeless promises of the defeated government. Churches, boards, and like associations were widely disorganized through the vicissitudes of military occupation and the protracted absence or the death of men of experience and capacity. The effect of the war upon denominational organizations had been various. There was no sect of all the church the members and ministers of which had not felt the sweep of the currents of popular opinion all about them. But the course of events in each denomination was in some measure illustrative of the character of its polity.