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It is one of the most astonishing signs of the times that really into the feeble hand of womanhood is given the key of the situation.  They respect these educated girls, they reverence them and give them a place of dignity in their hearts.  That makes it possible for these women to do a large and splendid work in the South.

Once let these girls that come under the influence of our Christian Northern women who go there as teachers, and the graduates of these various colleges and schools that we have planted, and are about to plant in the South; once let common womanhood in the South that has been so much under the heel of this oppression; once let girlhood feel the power that has come to girlhood, that to them as young women in the cradle of these hills, under this fair sky, is given the power to turn over in not less than thirty or forty years this whole country for God and humanity, for enlightenment and for Christian peace; once let that idea get into the minds of those girls, and we have not the same problem that we have to-day.—­Rev. D.M.  Fisk.

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There were deeds of valor by mountain heroines that shine as brightly as those of a Molly Stark or Barbara Frietchie.  Mrs. Edwards, of Campbell County, marched 150 miles in inclement weather, over the mountains, to carry information to Union troops.  Immediately upon arriving at home, having received some valuable information, she pushed her way through the rain, on horseback, alone, and saved the Union General Spears from capture.  Again and again this same woman took perilous journeys to carry information to Union officers.  Nor was she the only heroine among the mountain women.  During the siege of Knoxville, General Grant desired to send an important message to General Burnside.  “So overrun was the territory between Chattanooga and Knoxville by Confederate troops that it could only be delivered, if at all, with great difficulty and hazard.  At length Miss Mary Love, of Kingston, Tenn., agreed to take the message through the Confederate lines.”  She got as far as Louisville, Tenn., but could get no farther.  There she found but one person who was willing to run the risk of taking the message through the lines, and he was a boy only thirteen years of age, John T. Brown.  He carried the dispatch safely through the lines and delivered it to General Burnside.

Let us build school-houses and churches, where their better cabins have risen from the ashes of the past.  Let us invade their coves and press up their mountain sides with an army of Christian teachers and preachers, until the gray old forests that echoed with the shout of these loyal Highlanders shall again echo with the sound of church bell and school bell, and they who took from us the larger sacrifice of war, shall find that we are ready to share with them the blessed fruits of peace.—­Secretary C.J.  Ryder.