The poor wounded soldier was assured in tones, to whose pleasant and homelike accents his ear had long been a stranger, that his valor should not be forgotten, that they too had a son, a brother, a father, or a husband in the army. After a pallid face and bony fingers were bathed, sometimes a chapter in the New Testament or a paragraph from the newspapers would be read in tones low but distinct, in grateful contrast to the hoarse battle shouts that had been lingering in his ear for weeks. Then the good lady would act as amanuensis for some poor fellow who had an armless sleeve, and write down for loving eyes and heavy hearts in some distant village the same old soldier's story, told a thousand times by a thousand firesides, but always more charming than any story in the Arabian Nights,--how, on that great day, he stood with his company on a hillside, and saw the long line of the enemy come rolling across the valley; how, when, the cannon opened on them, he could see the rough, ragged gaps opening in the line; how they closed up and moved on; how this friend fell on one side, and poor Jimmy ------ on the other; and then he felt a general crash, and a burning pain, and the musket dropped out of his hand; then the ambulance and the amputation, and what the surgeon said about his pluck; and then the weakness, and the pain, and the hunger; and how much better he was now; and how kind the ladies had been to him. Such offices as these lift woman above the plane of earthly experience and place her a little lower than the angels. Only she can fill the measure of such duties, and only she does fill them. * * * * * Among the deities of the Eastern Pantheon, the god representing the destroyer is embodied under the form of a man, while the preserver is symbolized under the form of a woman. This is an adaptation in Polytheism of a great and true idea. Woman is a preserver. Her's is the conservative influence of society. It is from man that the destructive forces that shake the social organization emanate. He wars on his kind and the earth shakes under the tread of his armies. He organizes those mighty revolutionary movements which pull down the fabric of states. He is restless, aggressive, warlike. But it is woman's province to keep. Her mission is peace. A party of soldiers passing through the western wilds, sees in the distance a body of horsemen approaching. Cocking their rifles and putting themselves in a defensive attitude, they prepare for battle. But when they see that there are women among the riders who are galloping towards them, they relax their line and restore their rifles to their shoulders. They know there will be no battle, for woman's presence means peace. Woman is the guardian of our race. In the household she is saving; in the family she is protecting, and everywhere her influence is that which keeps.