the brain of Jove, armed with the full panoply of destructive war, clothed in the garb of maturity, and endowed with gigantic strength. Such has been the case in our day. As the early spring sun, warming the long-frozen soil and heating the foul moistures of the earth, brings to life and to the surface of the ground swarming myriads of noxious insects and reptiles, who, during the long winter months, have slept silent and torpid far down within the oozy depths, and hatches the thrice-told myriads of eggs deposited in seasons passed away, and which have long waited for his life-giving influence to pour forth their swarming millions to the upper air; even so this war has hatched the eggs of error, and brought forth the torpid defects of long gone-by decades, affording them a broad field of operation in their work of destruction; while it has at the same time torn away the veil which has hitherto blinded our eyes, and shown us, in the disasters of to-day, the culmination of the evil effects of causes which have for long years been working secretly at the very core of the body politic. But not alone has it brought forth error and corruption; for the same harsh influence has also revivified the seeds of virtue and awakened the sleeping lion of justice, uprightness, and national honor, which shall act as healthful counterbalances to all the evil, and supplant the monsters of destructive error. For in the [Greek: gnothi seauton] of the Greek philosopher lies the secret of all reform. To know one's faults is already one half the battle to correct them. He who becomes conscious that health of body and mind are steadily yielding to the inroads of an insidious foe, is worse than a fool if he do not at once apply the knife to the seat of disease, however painful may be the operation. And though to-day we hear but little of reform, and all parties seem striving which shall display the most devotion to the cause of the past, the most affection for the unchanged and unchangeable _status quo ante bellum_ in all things, yet is the popular mind not the less earnestly though silently working. To-day we have a task which occupies all our attention, absorbs all our powers and resources, and there is no time for reform: the all-absorbing and vital question being the establishing of things upon the old footing. But, peace restored, and the deathblow given to treason, the work of reform will commence. Then will become manifest the workings of the great mind of the nation during all this trying and bloody war. To acknowledge our defects and miscomings now, is but to give a handle to the enemies of our cause: but, this danger removed, the axe will at once be laid at the root of those evils which have come nigh to working our destruction; all the unsightly excrescences which have for years been accumulating upon the trunk of our goodly tree will be carefully pruned away, and the result will be a healthier and more abundant fruit in the days to come.