which, when reclining, threatened to suffocate them.  Few would stop to be undressed:  food and rest were all they craved.  Those who crowded to the stoves soon began to suffer from their frozen feet and hands, and even ran out into the snow to ease their pain.  The surgeons worked faithfully, and the whole force was in requisition.  But, alas! alas! death also was busy among these unfortunates.  The very first man I essayed to feed died in my arms, two others during the night.  The poor wounded feet I tried to handle so tenderly bled at every touch.  The warmth of the room, while it sent some into a sound sleep which seemed death’s counterpart, caused terrible agony to others, who groaned and screamed.  It seemed to me just as if those men, having previously kept up with heroic fortitude under trials almost too great for human endurance, had, as soon as the terrible tension was loosened, utterly succumbed, forgetting all but the horrible pain that racked them.

Fever running riot in the veins of some found expression in delirious shouts and cries, which added to the horror.  My courage almost failed me.  About half-past two, Dr. Thornton, yielding to my earnest entreaties, went home and brought Mrs. Thornton to share my vigil, although, as a general thing, he was opposed to her going into the hospital wards.  Together we labored through that long night.  Soon after daylight next morning, passing into the church porch, we stood for a few moments silently, hand in hand, for, although both hearts were too full for speech, our labor of love had drawn us very near together.

Everywhere the snow lay white and glittering.  In the church-yard, upon some of the pews arranged for the purpose, had been placed the lifeless bodies of the three men who had died during the night.  There they lay, stark and stiff.  Upon these cold, dead faces no mourners’ tears would fall; no friends would bear with reverend tread these honored forms to their last resting-place.  Rough pine boxes would soon cover the faces once the light of some far-away home, careless hands would place them in their shallow graves, without a prayer, without a tear.  Only the loving hand of nature to plant flowers above them.

For months after entering the service I insisted upon attending every dead soldier to the grave and reading over him a part of the burial-service.  But it had now become impossible.  The dead were past help; the living always needed succor.  But no soldier ever died in my presence without a whispered prayer to comfort his parting soul.  Ah me!  The “prayers for the sick, and those near unto death,” are to this day more familiar to me than any other portion of the Prayer-Book, and at no time can I hear unmoved the sacred old hymns so often sung beside dying beds.  Passing to my office along the path traversed last night by the incoming soldiers, I found the snow along the whole distance stained by their bare, bleeding feet, and the sight made my heart ache sorely.  I think