There was a sense of weariness, a tendency to fitful strokes of local energy, without that overwhelming sense of need which first rallied all sections to a common cause. Congress also seemed, at times, almost to stagger under its load. But Washington, who sometimes grew weary and groaned in spirit, and sometimes panted with shortened breath while toiling upward to surmount some new obstruction, never, never staggered. For him, there were “stepping-stones in the deepest waters.” For him, though tides might ebb and flow, the earth itself forever kept its even course about the guiding sun; and for him, the sun of Liberty was the light of the soul. Every circling year but added blessings from its glow, and energy from its power. The intensity of his emotion when he penned those solemn truthful words to Harrison, showed but the impulse of a spiritual power which the times demanded, but would neither comprehend nor brook if from other sources than Washington’s majestic will and presence. From the summit of his faith, he clearly indicated with pen-point the driveling selfishness which postponed triumph and made the chariot-wheels drag so heavily through the advancing war. The scenes were suddenly shifted to the southern stage of operations. New characters were to take the parts of some who had fulfilled their destiny; but many of both men and ships that participated in the siege of Boston itself, were still to act an honored part until the revolution should be complete. The cities of Charleston and Savannah were to be visited, as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia had been visited: not with a paternal yearning for their return to a cheerful “mother-home”; but in the spirit of a master dealing with overworked and fractious slaves. But the slaves had both burst and buried their shackles; and whether in city or country, on mountain or in valley, in forest or in swamp—wherever animal life could exist, there, and everywhere, the South, ever generous, ever proud, ever self-respecting, and ever loyal to completions of duty, were to besprinkle the altar of their country with life-blood, and consummate the War for American Independence upon her consecrated soil. The short-sighted critics of the North who had tried to play upon sectional prejudice, that some one of their self-sufficient number might till Washington’s saddle, began to wonder why he remained at his post in New Jersey; why he did not surrender the northern command to one of their number, and then go where his ancestral home was endangered and the companions of his youth were to struggle for very life itself. But the greatness of Washington the Soldier was never more apparent than now. Calmly he sustained himself at this point of vantage; stretching out his arm—in turn to soothe and warn, or to hurl defiance in the teeth of foes or stragglers, but ever to nerve the nation to duty.