At first he did not want to go. Then, as the second and wiser thought came to him, he mounted the platform and faced his fellow townsmen. In the beginning he could not quite control his voice, but it soon got back its old resonant ring, and then the audience sat in rapt attention, listening to his words. [Illustration: HE FACED HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN.] “My friends and neighbors, I do not deserve this. I never dreamed of a welcome home like this. I thought to come back quietly, alone, and slip as easily as I might into the old grooves, and I hoped that some day, possibly, you would forget. But the boys who marched with me, fought with me, suffered with me, not one of whom but has been braver, truer, more faithful, and more deserving than I,--the boys, I say, would not listen to it. So here I am, with them--and you. And now that I am here I want to say to you what I have had it in my heart to say to you, night and day, for nearly two years. I am, as you know, descended from the men and women of the South. When the war came on I sympathized with my brothers there. If I had been resident among them then, and had failed to rally to their cause, I would have been more than a poltroon. I could not see that the environment of a lifetime here should have led me into wiser counsels and better judgment. You know the story of my folly. But, like Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, I came one day into the presence of an overmastering soul. I went out from that presence changed, and utterly subdued. I saw things in a new light and with a larger vision. Not that I loved my people of the South any less, but that I loved my country more. By the grace and mercy of Abraham Lincoln, and the goodness of God, I was permitted to fight in the ranks of my country’s soldiers, side by side with my son whom you have just seen and heard. I never commended this boy publicly before, and it is not probable that I ever shall again; but I will say to-day, that no knight of old ever sought the Holy Grail with more persistent courage and deeper devotion than he has sought his country’s welfare. As for me, I am what I am to-day, I have done what I have done, because of Abraham Lincoln. If you had seen him as I saw him, if you had heard him as I heard him, you would have loved him as I loved him--yet not so deeply. For my love was greater because he loved my people of the South. Doubt me if you will, discredit me if you must, but I speak what I believe and know when I say that the men and women of the South have never had a better friend, a truer guide, a wiser counselor, than they lost when the foul assassin’s bullet sent this gentle spirit to its home. I have done what I could. I have been the best soldier I knew how to be. Now I am back with you, to take up once more the old life, and to try to prove to you through all the days and nights that are to come, that your flag is my flag, that your