Whatever view may be taken of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, and of its effect on the mass of slaves in the rebellious States, a very large and increasing number will certainly escape from bondage and force their way into the lines of our army, with every advance which it makes into the enemy's territory. Our Government invites them and the army will be bound to receive them. It may be safely assumed that many thousands (it is hardly possible to say how many) will throw themselves into our power; and they will certainly have the strongest possible claim to the care and protection of those who have lured them from such homes as they possessed, from regular employment and adequate sustenance, and from all fixed habits of their peculiar condition. Winter will be already upon them, and they will be without homes, and in a great measure, too, without food and clothes. It is not possible that the large numbers destined to abandon their masters at the call of the President, can be advantageously employed as laborers and servants in the army, and it will therefore be absolutely necessary to find other useful and appropriate occupations for them, sufficiently profitable to make them sure of subsistence and of some degree of comfort, from the inception of their new condition. It must be remembered that the plantation negroes, and, indeed, the negroes generally, in all the rebellious States, have never been accustomed to take care of themselves, or even to direct their own daily labors. They have not the least experience in the management of affairs, except under the control of masters or overseers. They have neither foresight nor enterprise, nor any cultivated capacity to provide for their own wants or for those of their families. If they have lived as families at all, the head of the domestic organization has never had the responsibility which naturally belongs to that position, and, consequently, has not acquired any of the manly and noble impulses which the sense of that responsibility invariably gives. These unfortunate creatures, deprived of all opportunity for education, never having known the cares and blessings of independence, but receiving their daily support from the hand which guided and compelled their labor, emerge from this condition almost as helpless as children. Generally, in the glimmering twilight of their intellects, they entertain no other idea of liberty but that of living without work. Doubtless they will readily arrive at a better understanding of their new condition; but it is of immense importance that they shall be started in the right path and tutored in the ways of freedom.