Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had won? Boardings and rafters and doors-an embrasure! make way for the gun! Now double-charge it with grape! It is charged and we fire, and they run. Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face. have his due ! Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few, Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them, and slew, That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew. Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight! But to be soldier all day and be sentinel all through the night Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms, Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms, Ever the labor of fifty that had to be done by five, Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive, Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around, Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground, 25 10 15 20 5 Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies, Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies, 5 Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field, 10 Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be healed, Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful-pitiless knife, Torture and trouble in vain,—for it never could save us a life. Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed, Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead, 15 Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief, Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief, Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that we knew 20 Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still-shattered walls. 25 Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannonballs And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew. Hark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout, Outram and Havelock breaking their way through the fell mutineers? Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears! All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout, Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer with conquering cheers, Sick from the hospital echo them, women and chil dren come out, Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock's good fusileers, Kissing the war-hardened hand of the Highlander wet with their tears! Dance to the pibroch!-saved! we are saved!—is it you? is it you? Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing 66 of Heaven! Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eightyseven ! And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew. 10 15 5 ALFRED TENNYSON. HEALTH. The questions now coming into prominence pertain chiefly to social science. While there are political and religious questions that still vex and interest society, it is plainly to be seen that the eye of the world is fixed on this matter of living; an art it is getting to be called. It has never yet seriously engaged the 5 attention of the people; it is a new subject, and not fairly before us. The Greeks gave great heed to the individual body, and the Romans secured personal cleanliness by their vast system of baths, but neither seems to have had any conception of the public health; hence, with all their fine training and care of the body, their cities were subject to pestilence, and the average of life remained at a low point. The only successful attempt to connect hygiene with the social order was 10 made by Moses, who interwove its requirements with those of religion. If this critical generation could be diverted for a moment from the "mistakes of Moses " to some thought of his measures that were not mistakes, it would find itself in possession of some very 15 suggestive facts. No nation has been so exempt from contagious and hereditary disease as the Jews, or can show vital statistics so remarkable. There is no question but that this racial vitality and toughness are due to certain hygienic rules which Moses made effective and lasting by connecting them with religion, where, indeed, they belong. But, aside from the Jews (and in how many respects are they an exceptional people,) the art of health is a modern subject. It is a singular fact that when men first reflectively examined themselves they began with their moral nature, then passed to their minds, which is, as far as they have reached. Strange as it seems, it is the natural order, and shadows a tremendous truth,-morals first, mind next, body last. It is the eternal and fit order. 30 Aristotle mapped out philosophy and morals in lines 20 25 the world yet accepts in the main, but he did not know the difference between the nerves and the tendons. Rome had a sound system of jurisprudence before it had a physician, using only priestcraft for healing. Cicero was the greatest lawyer the world has seen, but there was not a man in Rome who could have cured him of a colic. The Greek was an expert dialectician when he was using incantations for his diseases. As late as when the Puritans were enunciating their lofty principles, it was generally held that the king's touch would cure scrofula. Governor Winthrop, of colonial days, treated "small-pox and all fevers" by a powder made from "live toads baked in an earthen pot in the open air." And even now, in New England, where we split hairs in theology, and can show a philosopher for every square mile, at least one half of the treatment of disease is empirical; that is, there is no ascertained relation between the remedy and the sickness; it is largely a matter of advertisement and pretense. But a new day is dawn-20 ing. Legislation is crowding the quack into the background, and the Board of Health is coming to the front. The old Greeks put health so high as to deify it. Hygeia was a goddess, young and smiling and beautiful. We are catching glimpses of her laughing face, and erelong we shall deify her. It is a part of our sin that we are sick; it should be a part of our religion to be well. all this to young men because it is well that 30 25 15 10 5 |