The room may be very humble, and the faces that look into ours may be
very plain; but who cares for that? Loving hands to bathe the temples;
loving voices to speak good cheer; loving lips to read the comforting
promises of Jesus. In the war men cast the cannon; men fashioned the
musketry; men cried to the hosts, "Forward, march!" men hurled their
battalions on the sharp edges of the enemy, crying, "Charge! charge!"
but woman scraped the lint; woman administered the cordials; woman
watched by the dying couch; woman wrote the last message to the home
circle; woman wept at the solitary burial, attended by herself and
four men with a spade. We greeted the generals home with brass bands
and triumphal arches and wild huzzas; but the story is too good to be
written anywhere, save in