I must not fail to speak in this connection of another beautiful ministry,--the home for soldiers' wives and mothers. A soldier is like other human beings. In his sickness he yearns for a sight of the familiar faces, and sends for wife or mother; or wife or mother, unable to bear longer the uncertainty, when she can get no tidings from the absent, starts for Washington. There, searching vainly for husband or son, she spends all or nearly all her money. Or if she finds him, it may well be that he has no funds with which to help her. In the little buildings on one side of the refuge for the sick are rooms where some sixty-five can receive decent lodging and nourishing food; and if actually penniless, the Commission will procure them tickets and send them back to their friends. We often hear people wondering, almost in a skeptical tone, where all the Commission's money goes. When I was at Washington and City Point, I only asked where it all came from. Consider what it must cost simply to feed and lodge these soldiers and their wives at Washington. And then remember that this is but one of many similar homes scattered everywhere: at Baltimore, Washington, and Alexandria, in the Eastern Department; at Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, in the Western; at New Orleans and Baton Rouge, in the Southwestern; and at many another place beside. And, finally, reflect that this whole system of homes is really but one portion of one branch of Sanitary work. The collection of back pay, bounties, and pensions,--how many have a definite idea of this work? Not many, I suspect. Yet it takes all the time of many persons to accomplish it, and it was the branch of Sanitary work which awakened in my own mind the deepest regard; for it has its foundation in a higher virtue than any mere sentimental charity,--yea, in the highest virtue known in heaven or on earth,--justice. However impossible it may be to prevent such occurrences, certainly it is a cruel and undeserved hardship to a soldier who has served faithfully and fought for his country, and has perhaps been wounded and almost died at the post of honor and duty, that he should be unable to obtain his hard-earned pittance, when, too, he needs it for his own comfort, or when it may be that his family need it to keep them from absolute suffering.