"My friends, you kin find in the Skripter suthin applicable to every occasion, and this parable fits the present time like a ready-made coat. The South is the Prodigal Son. We went out from our father's house on a expedition wich heznt proved altogether a success. We spent our share uv the estate, and a little more. We run through with our means, and hev cum down to rags, and dirt, and filth, and hunger. We are, and hev bin some time, a chawin husks. We run out after them twin harlots, Slavery and State Rights, and they've cleaned us out. Our pockets are empty. No more doth the pleasant half-dollar jingle in sweet unison agin its fellows. Our wallets is barren uv postal currency, and the grocery-keepers mourn, and refuse to be comforted, becoz we are not. We hev got to the husk stage uv our woe, and wood be tendin hogs, ef the armies, wich past through these countries, hed left us any. We hev kum back. In rags and dirt we hev wended our way to Washington, and ask to be taken back. Now, why don't our father, the Government, fulfil the Skripter? Why don't it see us afar off, and run out to meet us? Why don't it put onto us a purple robe? Where's the ring for our finger, and the shoes for our feet? and where's the fatted calf he ought to kill? My brethren, them Ablishnists is worse than infiddles--while they preach the gospel they won't practise it. For my part, I--" At this point a sargent, belongin to that infernal Burow, who wuz in the awdience, with enough uv soldiers to make opposin uv him unpleasant, sed he hed bin a sort uv an exhorter in his day, and desired to say a word in explanation uv that parable, ez applicable to the present time; and, sez he, "ef I am interrupted, remember I b'long to the church military, wich is, just now, the church triumphant." And cockin his musket he proceeded, very much uninterrupted. "The prodigal son," sez he, "wuz received by the old man with considerable doins, but, my worthy friends, he went out decently. He didn't, ez soon ez he withdrawed from the house, turn around and make war onto the old gentleman--he didn't burn his house and barns, tear up his garden, burn his fences, and knock down the balance uv the children. Not any. He went away peaceably, a _misguided_ good-for-nothin, but yet a _peaceable_ good-for-nothin. Secondly, he come back uv his own akkord. The old man didn't go after him, and fight for four years, at a cost uv half his substance, to subdue him and bring him back, but when he hed run through his pile, and squandered his share uv the estate, and got hungry, he came back like a whipped dog. "My friends, let me draw a small parallel between these cases. "The Prodigal Son went out,--so did the South,--thus farly the cases is alike. "The Prodigal didn't steal nothin. The Confederacy took everything it cood lay its hands on.