During the period of comparative vacillation and uncertainty, when McClellan was the commander-in-chief, and war was being made on political principles, Mr. Phillips did his utmost in speeches and public addresses in the papers, to stir up the people to demand a more efficient policy. Since the termination of the war and the emancipation of the slave, Mr. Phillips seems to show that the class of gifts and faculties adapted to rouse a stupid community, and to force attention to neglected truths are not those most adapted to the delicate work of reconstruction. The good knight who can cut and hew in battle, cannot always do the surgeon's work of healing and restoring. That exacting ideality which is the leading faculty of Mr. Phillips' nature leads him constantly to undervalue what has been attained, and it is to be regretted that it deprived him of the glow and triumph of a victory in which no man than he better deserved to rejoice. Garrison hung up his shield and sword at a definite point, and marked the era of victory with devout thankfulness; and we can but regret, that the more exacting mind of Phillips was too much fixed on what yet was wanting to share the well earned joy. When there is strong light there must be shadow, and the only shadow we discern in the public virtues of Mr. Phillips is the want of a certain power to appreciate and make allowances for the necessary weaknesses and imperfections of human nature. He has been a teacher of the school of the law rather than that of the Gospel; he has been most especially useful because we have been in a state where such stern unflinching teachings have been indispensable. Mr. Phillips' methods indeed, of dealing with human nature, savor wholly of the law and remind us forcibly of the pithy and vigorous account which John Bunyan puts into the mouth of his pilgrim. "I saw one coming after me swift as the wind, and so soon as the man overtook me, it was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said because of my secret inclining to Adam the first, and with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward, and so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So when I came to myself, I cried him mercy; but he said, I know not how to show mercy, and with that he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me but that one came by and bid him forbear. Who was he that bid him forbear? I did not know him at first but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and his side." There is a time for all things, and this stern work of the land had to be done in our country. Almighty God seconded it by awful providences, and pleaded against the oppressor in the voice of famine and battle, of fire and sword. The guilty land had been riven and torn, and in the language of scripture, made an astonishment and a desolation!