“Only this: a poor mother is at the Soldiers’ Home with her dying son. The physicians say he may live if he is sent north, but will surely die if left here. His furlough papers have been sent on, and I have seen them, and know they are wrong. His regiment is with Sherman on the march. Cannot something be done for the boy--for his mother?” “We have the army regulations, we cannot go behind them. You know if I do, they will rap me over the knuckles at Washington.” “Oh, that your knuckles were mine. I would be willing to have them skinned; the skin would grow again, you know.” “Where are these papers?” he said sharply. “I have them here in my pocket.” “Let me see them.” The woman took them slowly out, blank side upwards, and gave them to him. He turned them and his face flushed as he said, “Why I have had these papers and disapproved them. This is my signature.” She replied tremblingly, “I knew it, but forgive me. I thought maybe when you knew about it, General--and the mother was weeping with the skeleton arms of her boy around her neck--I thought maybe you would do something or tell me something to do.” “Suppose I do approve these papers, it will do no good. The general in command will stop them and censure me.” “But you will have done all you could and have obeyed the higher law.” In the meantime this truly noble man had firmly crossed out his own words and signature, and rewritten under it words of approval, and in a quick, husky tone, said, “Take it and don’t you come here again today.” As the woman raised her eyes to thank him, she saw a scowl on his brow, but a smile on his lips, and a tear in his eye. “The general in command,” said she in relating the story, “never went behind the medical director’s signature. The boy started for home that night with his mother, full of hope.” Not long after this an incident occurred showing how easily man yields to the higher law when once he makes humanity his standpoint. An erring boy of nineteen, who had deserted from a Minnesota regiment, changed his name, enlisted in the gunboat service from which he again deserted, again changed his name, and enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment, a little unsteady to be sure, but still a soldier. He was wounded in a battle, honorably discharged from the service, and paid off. On Saturday night he reached St. Louis and found his way to one of her lowest dens, was drugged and robbed of everything he possessed. On Monday he was found tossing from side to side stricken by disease. His surroundings were terrible, and he was lying on an old, filthy mattress which had been thrown into the open hall by the frightened inmates. He was screaming with pain and was at times delirious. As soon, however, as he heard the soothing tones of a human voice, and recognized the hand of kindness on his burning brow, he cried, “Mother! Oh, Mother, forgive me, God forgive me! I have sinned. What shall I do! What shall I do!” Conscience and disease were doing their work.