And now comes up that dread theme that first brought me to know you--war, dreadful war. My heart has stood still for weeks in anxiety, fear, and dread. Is Germany, dear Germany, to be drawn into that terrible vortex? Are her mothers to give out their sons, and her wives their husbands again so soon? Are the graves to be opened again almost before they are green, and the wounds before they are healed? Are the fair fingers of her maidens again to ply the busy hours with bandages and lint and the trembling grandmothers to labor again with shirts and socks? And you and yours, who hold and guard the weal of all, are you to stand in jeopardy, and watch in agony again so soon? Are these dreadful days I so well remember all to be lived over again? I cannot yet believe it; neither can I yet rid me of the fear which haunts me day and night. Constantly the question rises, What _can I do_? And my weakness answers back, “Nothing, nothing.” If I had the strength of ten years ago, and the war opened upon you, I should prepare myself and go, not single-handed and alone, as I was overtaken in 1870, but I would make my arrangements with my people here for all material to work with, select my assistants from the German and German-speaking populations here, take my surgeons and nurses, and go at once and ask you for a field of labor. Surely you and your good husband and father and mother would assign me one somewhere! But it is all too late for this; at the best I can only use my influence and the little strength I have at home. As a means to this, I have written our good friend, Dr. Appia, of Geneva, to ask if any help from me would be desirable, and to say that if it would be acceptable, I would, upon his writing me to that effect, make the effort to establish an international organization in my own country for the collection and receipt of supplies, which should work under the insignia of the Red Cross, and forward through a headquarters which I would attempt to establish somewhere near or at New York. Thus would I try to bring the early and organized efforts of America into direct communication with the activities of Europe, and try for once to make our charities of some timely and real benefit, which the great distance and want of proper organization has hitherto greatly hindered, or nearly prevented. Our people are generous, tender of heart, and quick in their sympathies, but they are busy and spread over a quarter of the globe. They do not become aware of the necessities for assistance in other lands till great suffering exists and the general Press brings it to their knowledge. Then they spring with a bound of sympathy and generosity and give without stint, but their stream has no channel prepared for it to flow in and runs over and wastes, so that little, very little, ever reaches the real scene of suffering and want for which it is so generously given. If I can learn that it would be acceptable and that