Whatever crime she had committed, she looks ready to go out and commit it again. Her hard cold eyes glare at us angrily, as though resenting our presence. “What right have you to come out of your free sunny world to see us in our home of shame and misery?” they seem to say. We feel quite restless and uncomfortable beneath her stony gaze; we cannot avoid it, we cannot get away from it; it has a sort of magnetic attraction, a fascination for us; we turn our eyes away, and try to fix our attention on the preacher, but it is no use; there is some disturbing element in the air, and against our will our eyes are drawn back to that powerful face, with its lowering brow and rebellious lips. We are glad when the service is over, and we get out into heaven’s sunshine and breathe the pure fresh air again. Still that face haunts us and casts a shadow on the sunlight, and at night those pale steely eyes flash out between the darkness and our dreams. Somehow, on that glorious Sabbath morning, we wish we had left our devotions undone. We feel that somewhere and at some future time we shall see that face again--we should know it, years hence, among a thousand. It is perhaps here in Columbia more than in any other city that we realise to the fullest extent the ruin and desolation that has been; for though, as a rule, throughout the main streets the houses in a scrambling sort of way are built up again, yet there are wide gaps and ruins of crumbling stone and charred wood, partly covered now with soft moss or a rank growth of tall weeds. Here, round an extensive corner a hoarding is raised to hide the utter desolation that lies where once were lovely homes, now levelled to the dust, and blooming gardens, now a wilderness of thorns and thistles, scattered over with the mute signs of broken lives. These ugly features come upon us in the midst of perfect peace--a calm repose lies over the land; but still they point with spectral finger to the scar left by cruel wounds. And over the sweet golden sunshine of that still Sabbath morning a shadow seems to fall. In fancy we see the darkness of one awful night close over Columbia, the signal rockets shoot up from that State House on the hill, the fiery tongues of flame leap from crumbling homes and devastated hearths. But these things are not to be thought of now. The “dark hour” of Columbia is past, and we see her lying peacefully to-day in the light of the rosy dawn.