character to be degraded rather than elevated by the employments and experiences of war, it is nevertheless certain that these bad effects do not always, perhaps not generally, outweigh and overpower the good. History does not present another example of large armies made up of such men as those who now constitute the defenders of the Union. For intelligence and moral worth, they are unsurpassed by the masses of any population in the civilized world, and certainly they are far superior in all respects to those usually constituting the armies of other nations. To our shame and regret, there are certainly some exceptions to this statement; but these are comparatively few, and mostly confined to those who have not enjoyed the full advantage of our noble system of universal education. In many instances, the best young men in the land have gone into the army as privates; while in the rural districts and from the Western States, the very bone and sinew of the population--the sober, steady, intelligent, industrious, and prosperous part of the people--have taken up arms in the cause of the Union, from a deliberate approval of the policy of the war on our part, and from the noblest and most unselfish motives of patriotism. The preponderance of such men in our armies evidently makes them, on the whole, susceptible to the good, rather than to the bad influences of war. Reflection, self-respect, rational views of the causes and objects of the war, and elevated motives of action, cannot fail to bring those who possess these qualities all the benefits of self-denial, of patriotic labor willingly expended, and of sacrifices made and sufferings endured in a good and noble cause. The mental cultivation and moral training of the American citizen constitute a shield, from whose solid and polished surface the missiles of temptation, which easily penetrate other defences, usually glance or rebound with harmless effect. The carnage of the battle field, the bombardment and capture of cities, and the ravages of armies, marching or in camp, which too often harden the hearts and blunt the sensibilities of the ordinary soldier, have no such effect, or, at least, a much less effect, in this particular, on the minds of humane and educated men. Hence we may fairly anticipate that the influence of this war on the men who compose the army, and who must sooner or later return to the occupations they have temporarily left, will be of a far better character than that of any war ever hitherto waged in any part of the world. No such conditions have ever heretofore existed in reference to any great national contest. Our immense volunteer army, so largely composed of intelligent and respectable men--men who are fully capable, and entitled by their votes, to influence the great measures of war or peace--presents a spectacle new and wholly unexampled in history; and the consequences of our contest to the moral and social condition of the