What then are to be the results of great efforts and sacrifices in a cause which, though we believe it to be bad, they consider holy? Are their chivalrous deeds to be less ennobling to the character of Southern men, than similar ones, springing from like motives, on the part of our armies? It is the motive which gives character to all actions, and mistake or error of the most perverse kind, when arising from honest conviction, cannot alter the merit of what is done or suffered. If it be said that the assumed convictions of the Southern people are incredible, it is only necessary to look back a few centuries, in order to see the whole Christian world entertaining sentiments equally abhorrent to the enlightened conscience of the present day. The universal participation in the slave trade, and the horrible persecutions for religious heresy, which everywhere prevailed, are sad evidences of the possibility of indulging the most disastrous errors with perfect sincerity. Besides, if we consider how great a diversity of opinion prevails among the people of the loyal States, on the subject of the rebellion and its causes, it will require no great degree of credulity to induce the belief that the Southern people are impelled by deep convictions in their present struggle. Failure and defeat on their part will cast the usual discredit on the cause which is overthrown; and in this case we do not entertain a doubt that ultimately the right will prevail, and that the discomfiture and disgrace will fall where justice would require. Men will be deeply mortified to find themselves utterly overcome, and all their brave deeds and their magnanimous sacrifices and sufferings expended in a failing and a bad cause. It will be their great misfortune that serious reflection and conviction should come to them only after these great events, and when it is too late to recall them. But it is the peculiar characteristic of contests like this, that they do eventually make clear the subjects of dispute in which they originate. All the wranglings of politicians, and all the learning and logic of contending theologians in divided churches, could never accomplish the speedy and thorough decision of contested questions which will follow this tremendous war. Bold and extra-constitutional expedients necessarily grow out of the prevailing violence. They will soon test the possibility of measures which are too great for ordinary times, and will push the existing tendencies toward fundamental change into sudden and premature development.