to speak only of their own personal experience. Where friends and foes are falling by scores, and every species of missile is flying through the air, threatening each instant to send one or more into eternity, little time is af forded for more observation or reflection than is required for personal safety. 2. The scene is one of the most exciting and exhilarating that can be conceived. Imagine a regiment passing you at "double-quick," the men cheering with enthusiasm, their teeth set, their eyes flashing, and the whole in a frenzy of resolution. You accompany them to the field. They halt. An Aid-de-camp2 passes to or from the commanding General. The clear voices of the officers ring along the line in tones of passionate eloquence; their words burning, thrilling, and elastic. The word is given to march, and the body moves into action. 3. For the first time in your life, you listen to the whizzing of iron. Grape and canister fly into the ranks, bombshells burst overhead, and the fragments fly around you. A friend falls; perhaps a dozen or twenty of your comrades lie wounded or dying at your feet; a strange, involuntary shrinking steals over you, which it is impossible to resist. You feel inclined neither to advance nor recede, but are spell-bound by the contending emotions of the moral and physical man. The cheek blanches, the lips quiver, and the eye almost hesitates to look upon the appalling scene. 4. In this attitude you may, perhaps, be ordered to stand an hour inactive; havoc, meanwhile, marking its footsteps with blood on every side. Finally the order is given to advance, to fire, or to charge. And now, what a metashot, you become a new 3 morphosis! With your first man. Fersonal safety is your least concern. Fear has no existence in your bosom. Hesitation gives way to an uncontrollable desire to rush into the thickest of the fight, and to vie with others in deeds of daring. 5. The dead and dying around you, if they receive a passing thought, only serve to stimulate you to revenge. You become cool and deliberate, and watch the effect of the bullets, the shower of bursting shells, the passage of cannon-balls, as they rake their murderous channels through your ranks, the plunging of wounded horses, the agonies of the dying, and the clash of contending arms which follows the dashing charge, with a feeling so calloused by surrounding circumstances, that your soul seems dead to every sympathizing and selfish thought. Such is the spirit which carries the soldier through the exciting scenes of the battle-field. 6. But when the excitement has passed, when the roll of musketry has ceased, the thunderings of the cannons are stilled, the dusky pall of sulphureous smoke has risen from the field, and you stroll over the theater of carnage, hearing the groans of the wounded, discovering here, shattered almost beyond recognition, the form of some dear friend whom, only an hour before, you met in the full flush of life and happiness, there another perforated by a bullet, a third with a limb shot away, a fourth with his face disfigured, a fifth almost torn to fragments, a sixth a headless corpse, the ground plowed up and stained with blood, human brains splashed around, limbs without bodies, and bodies without limbs, scattered here and there, and the same picture duplicated scores of times,-THEN you begin to realize the horrors of war, and experience a reäction of nature. 7. The heart opens its flood-gates, humanity asserts herself again, and you begin to feel. Friend and foe alike now receive your kindest ministerings. The You sup enemy, whom, but a short time before, full of hate, you were doing all in your power to kill, you now endeavor to save. ply him with water to quench his thirst, with food to sustain his strength, and with sympathizing words to soothe his troubled mind. All that is humane or charitable in your nature now rises to the surface, and you are animated by that spirit of mercy "which blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." A battle-field is eminently a place that tries men's souls. LESSON XII. 1 TOUR' NA MENT, (tur' na ment.) A mock-fight or military sport, in which a number of combatants are engaged, for an exhibition of their address and bravery. 2 GUER' DON, (ger' don,) reward; recompense; requital. 3 BAS' TION, (bast' yun,) a part of the main inclosure of a fortress, which projects toward the exterior, consisting of faces and flanks. 1. I SONG OF THE CANNON-BALL. ANON. COME from the ether, cleft hotly aside, Through the air of the soft summer morning; I come with a song as I dash on my way, gay, Of armor-clad knight, at tournament 1 Whistling so airily Past the ear warily, Watching me narrowly, 2. Swift-hurled from the bastion,3 'mid volumes of smoke, I dash a grim messenger flying; Before me the living- behind me alas! (pl.) There are wounded men gasping and dying. I carry dispatches, written in blood, With a death-wound I seal and deliver. Is it strange that a destiny fearful as this 3. I swerve from the track, when the stout ashen lance Is crowned with the banner of glory; I kiss the bright folds as I dash on my way, None ever flying there, Nevermore sighing there, 4. I turn me aside from the young soldier lad, Where the angels their bright robes fold o'er him; I see their bright wings as they ward me aside, – 'Tis the prayer of the faithful who love him. Close, close to his temples, I brush the bright locks, He laughs at my song, never guessing * Pronounced hym'ning with the n sounded. How his mother, bent low at the foot of the cross, 5. How I laugh when the oak to his rugged old breast Nay-better than this when I've written my name Waving their blossoms fair, Silent forever! LESSON XIIL THE CHILDREN OF THE BATTLE-FIELD. JAMES G. CLARK. The following touching stanzas received the prize offered by the Philadelphia Christian Commission for a poem on the death of Sergeant Humiston, of Portville, N.Y., who was found dead at Gettysburg several days after the battle, with his eyes fixed upon the ambrotype of his three children. 1. UPON the field of Gettysburg The summer sun was high, When Freedom met her haughty foe, |