An institution asking of Government only permission to live and opportunity to work, planting itself firmly and squarely on the generosity of the people, subsisting solely by their free-will offerings, it is a noble monument of the intelligence, the munificence, and the efficiency of a free people, and of the alacrity with which it responds when the right chord is rightly touched. It is, however, not unnatural that doubts should exist as to the success of a plan so far-reaching in its aims and hitherto so untried. Stories have been circulated of a mercenary disposition of its stores and trickery among its officers. Where these stories have found considerable credence, they have been tracked to their source and triumphantly refuted; but it would indeed be hardly less than miraculous, if an institution ramifying so widely, with agents so numerous, and resources so extensive, should have no knaves among its servants, and no waste in its circulation. The wonder is, that more leakage has not been proved than has ever been suspected. All that is necessary to remove floating doubts, to convince all heads of the wisdom which projected this Commission, and to warm all hearts up to its continued and sufficient support, is a knowledge of what it has done, is doing, and purposes to do. This information the Commission has, at different times, and by piecemeal, furnished: necessarily by piecemeal, since, as this book justly remarks, the immense mass of details which a circumstantial account of its operations in field and hospital must involve would prove nearly as laborious in the reading as in the performance. In this little volume we have, photographed, a single phase of its operations. It consists simply of extracts from letters and reports. There is no attempt at completeness or dramatic arrangement; yet the most elaborate grouping would probably fail to present one-half as accurately a picture of the work and its ways as these unpretending fragments. It delights us to see the--we can hardly say cheerful, as that savors too much of the "self-sacrifice" which benevolence sometimes tarnishes by talking about--but, rather, the gay, lively, merry manner in which the most balky matters are taken hold of. Men and women seem to have gone into the service with good-will and hearty love and buoyant spirits. It refreshes and strengthens us like a tonic to read of their taking the wounded, festering, filthy, miserable men, washing and dressing them, pouring in lemonade and beef-tea, and putting them abed and asleep. There is not a word about "devotion" or "ministering angels," (we could wish there were not quite so much about "ladies,") but honest, refined, energetic, able women, with quick brains and quick hands, now bathing a poor crazy head with ice-water, to be rewarded with one grateful smile from the parting soul,--now standing in the way of a procession of the slightly wounded, to pour a little brandy