Here pondering, one thought of awe, yet rapture, thrills through my soul. If to our poor humanity such honeyed drops of healing do earth's frailest flower-cups yield, how cool, how crystal-clear the nectar from amaranth and asphodel distilled for those 'Who walk in soft white light, with kings and priests abroad; Who summer high in bliss upon the hills of God!' SOUTHERN HATE OF THE NORTH. A fact which stands broadly out on the page of our current history is the intense and peculiar hatred wherewith the people of the North are generally regarded by those engaged in the Southern rebellion. That _it is_ a fact, is established by the concurrent testimony of the whole insurgent press and of our soldiers returned from Southern captivity, and nearly all those, whether in civil or military life, who have visited the States deeply infected with the virus of Secession. Probably never before were prisoners of war in a civilized country subjected to so much obloquy and vituperation from women and children as our captured volunteers in the South during the past year. Hate of the abhorred 'Yankees,' scorn and the loathing of 'Lincoln's hirelings,' detestation of the mean, sordid, groveling, mercenary spirit of the Northern masses, have been the burden of Southern oratory and journalism for the last eighteen months. No devilish hate expressed in Milton's magnificent epic surpasses in intensity, however it may in dignity and genuine force, that which is breathed through every oracle of Southern popular sentiment. And this is insisted on by Southern letter-writers and journalists as demonstrating the impossibility of 'reconstruction.' 'How can those who hate each other so implacably ever again be one people? What use in seeking to restore a Union which hereafter can, at best, be but the result of overwhelming force on the one side, and utter subjugation on the other?'