History is full of memories of brave deeds. The names of the men who did them have passed away. The deeds live on forever. Like a fleck of radium each deed is indestructible. It may be covered with the dust and débris of uncounted years, but from it pulsates and streams forever a current of example and impulse which never can be hidden, never be forgotten, but which may flash out ages later, fighting with a mysterious, hidden inner strength against the powers of fear and of wrong. The annals of the Civil War are full of records of forgotten doers of great deeds, humble, commonplace men and women who suddenly flashed out in some great effort of duty and perhaps were never heard of again. Pray God that all of us when the time comes may burst if only for a moment into the fruition of accomplishment for which we were born and not wither away like the unprofitable fig-tree which only grew, but never bore fruit. In 1862, the battle-hospitals were crowded with wounded and dying men. The best surgeons of that day had not learned what every doctor knows now about the aseptic treatment of wounds and conducting of operations. Accordingly too often even slight wounds gangrened and a terrible percentage of injured men died helplessly and hopelessly. In the fall of that year the hospitals at Jefferson were in a fearful condition. Thousands and thousands of wounded and dying men were brought there for whom there were no beds. One poor fellow lay on the bare, wet boards, sick of a wasting fever. He was worn almost to a skeleton and on his poor, thin body were festering bed-sores which had come because there was no one who could give him proper attention. From his side he had seen five men one after the other brought in sick or wounded and carried away dead. One day an old black washerwoman named Hannah stopped in the ward to hunt up a doctor for whom she was to do some work. She saw this patient lying on his side on a dirty blanket spread out on the boards unwashed and filthy beyond all description with gaping sores showing on his wasted back. There he lay staring hopelessly at the body of a man who had recently died next to him and which the few overworked attendants had not had time to carry out to the dead-house. Old Hannah could not stand the sight. When she finally found the doctor she begged him to give her leave to take the man up and put him in her own bed. "It's no use, Hannah," said the doctor kindly, "the poor chap is dying. He will be gone to-morrow. I wish we could do something for him, but we can't and you can't."