Ere long the shadow will pass from these dimmed eyes forever, and I shall look on what she looks in heaven. I have lived the allotted time of man's probation. The days of the years of my pilgrimage are drawing to a close. It cannot be _long now_! A few months, it may be years, of patient endurance-- And then--Then! THE GREAT RIOT. On Monday, the 13th day of July, 1863, the national conscription was proceeding in two districts of New York city. By Monday night the buildings and the blocks in which the provost marshals had their respective offices had been burned to the ground by a furious rabble, whose onset the police had in vain attempted to stay, and the great metropolis of North America was at the mercy of a raging mob, which roamed through the streets, robbing, beating, burning, murdering where they would. By Tuesday the police had thoroughly organized, and the trial of strength between mob-law and authority began. Night closed over a still unconquered, defiant, law-contemning insurrection. On Wednesday the public conveyances of the city were stopped, the places of business mostly closed, while the rioters alternated between hanging negroes, burning their houses, and plundering generally, on the one hand, and fighting the military on the other. Thursday the final struggle ensued, and when Friday dawned, though not until then, was the city fairly delivered from the hands of the insurgents, and restored to its wonted order. Now all is tranquil, and save the occasional ruins, the groans of the wounded in the hospitals, the agony of those who have lost friends or homes in the struggle, and the diminished number of the blacks, little remains to attest the scenes of terror through which New York has passed.