by earnest prayer and simple faith.  With this he strove to soothe the unhappy, anxious ones who looked to him for comfort.  His heart yearned over his little flock, wandering in a pathway beset with sharpest thorns.  But upon his troubled face was plainly written, “Of myself I can do nothing.”  A few faltering words he essayed, but, as if conscious of the utter uselessness of any language save that of prayer, he raised imploring hands to heaven, saying, simply, “Let us pray.”

Calmer, if not comforted, all arose from their knees, and, having finished their labor of love, separated, to return to the homes which had known beloved forms and faces, but would know them no more for years, perhaps forever.

Upon reaching once more our own home, we crept, one by one, to a darkened chamber, where lay a martyred mother whose son had been slain at the battle of Seven Pines.  Pale as death she lay, her Bible clasped to her breast, the sad eyes closed, the white lips murmuring always words of prayer for patient submission to God’s will, the nerveless hands never losing their grasp upon the “rod and staff” which comforted her.

Of this family, every man, and every boy old enough to handle a gun, had long ago joined the Confederate army.  The dear boy whom our hearts now mourned had just graduated with the highest honors when the war broke out.  Never a blind enthusiast, but an intelligent patriot, he had been among the first to lay ambitious hopes and literary aspirations upon the altar of his country.  His brothers were cadets at the Virginia Military Institute, and afterwards did good service under Stonewall Jackson.  Our slain hero joined the Third Alabama Regiment, and, notwithstanding his tender age and delicate health, had already made his mark as a soldier, brave as the bravest, never succumbing for a moment to unaccustomed hardship.  His record as a son was all that a mother’s heart could desire.  He had been seen by a comrade during the terrible battle, sitting up against a tree, shot through the breast and mortally wounded.  The enemy swept over the ground and he was seen no more.  Not even the poor comfort of knowing that his last hours were rendered comfortable or where his grave was made, was vouchsafed to this distracted mother.  Two more brave boys of the household were still unheard from, but believed to be unhurt, as they were not reported “dead,” “wounded,” or “missing.”  And yet the noble women of this as well as of numberless families so situated in every State of the new Confederacy never intermitted, even for a day, their work for “the soldiers,”—­left no domestic duty unattended to,—­in many instances taking the place and doing the work of the men whom patriotism had called to the field.

Much as I admired and revered this “noble army of martyrs,” I lacked moral courage to emulate their example.  Such a life of anxiety and suspense would have driven me mad.  The pitiful faces of the sick and wounded haunted me every hour.  I yearned to be with them.  I felt sure that I was called to this work.  My health being restored, I could no longer remain idle.  But where to go, how to begin, I knew not.