In {359}the spring of 1863 two great armies were encamped on either side of the Rappahannock River, one dressed in blue and the other dressed in gray. As twilight fell, the bands of music on the Union side began to play the martial music, “The Star Spangled Banner,” and “Rally Round the Flag;” and that challenge of music was taken up by those upon the other side, and they responded with “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and “Away Down South in Dixie.” It was borne in upon the soul of a single soldier in one of those bands of music to begin a sweeter and a more tender air, and slowly as he played it they joined in a sort of chorus of all the instruments upon the Union side, until finally a great and mighty chorus swelled up and down our army--“Home, Sweet Home.” When they had finished there was no challenge yonder, for every band upon that farther shore had taken up the lovely air so attuned to all that is holiest and dearest, and one great chorus of the two great hosts went up to God; and when they had finished the sweet and holy melody, from the boys in gray there came a challenge, “Three cheers for home!” and as they went reverberating through the skies from both sides of the river, “something upon the soldiers' cheeks washed off the stains of powder.” THE REV. O. H. TIFFANY, D. D. |HOW solemn a thing is death!--and yet, how wonderful a thing {360}is life! God appoints it, man develops it, death seals its destiny, eternity unfolds its ultimate issues. Each human soul in which this power of life is has “its secrets and histories and marvels of destiny, heaven's splendors are over its dead, hell's terrors are under its feet, tragedies and poetries are in it, and a history for eternity.” Every social organism, every grand national aggregation of lives but generalizes the history of the individual, and thus the history of all life and of all living, whether in individuals, families, societies or nations, is one history, and that history the record of its conflicts, its defeats, its victories. The dawn of this life is a struggle for being, its growth a constant warfare with antagonisms, its maintenance is by continued defenses. And each and all of these create crises of destiny which may retard or advance, destroy or establish the whole. Our national birth was a contest with physical difficulties, our establishment a victory over political antagonisms; the last desperate struggle was a conflict of ideas, a contest of moral principles; and we may hope that its issue shall be one of prosperity and peace. Mountains are rock-ribbed and enduring because the earthquake has settled them on their foundations; the pines that crest them like a coronet withstand the rudest blasts, because they have been rooted by the storms which toss their giant branches. So universal freedom has been made sure by the passing turbulence of rebellion, and our national prosperity established by the rude blast of war.