would be imperfectly learned, did not the army and the nation alike gain from it a juster sense than they before possessed of the value of individual life.  Never has life been so much prized and so precious as it has become in America.  Never before has each individual been of so much worth.  It costs more to bring up a man here, and he is worth more when brought up, than elsewhere.  The long peace and the extraordinary amount of comfort which the nation has enjoyed have made us (speaking broadly) fond of life and tender of it.  We of the North have looked with astonishment at the recklessness of the South concerning it.  We have thought it braver to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of its value.  We have been in danger of thinking too much of it, and of being mean-spirited in its use.  But the first sacrifice for which war calls is life; and we must revise our estimates of its value, if we would conduct our war to a happy end.  To gain that end, no sacrifice can be too precious or too costly.  The shudder with which we heard the first report that three thousand of our men were slain was but the sign of the blow that our hearts received.  But there must be no shrinking from the prospect of the death of our soldiers.  Better than that we should fail that a million men should die on the battle-field.  It is not often that men can have the privilege to offer their lives for a principle; and when the opportunity comes, it is only the coward that does not welcome it with gladness.  Life is of no value in comparison with the spiritual principles from which it gains its worth.  No matter how many lives it costs to defend or secure truth or justice or liberty, truth and justice and liberty must be defended and secured.  Self-preservation must yield to Truth’s preservation.  The little human life is for to-day,—­the principle is eternal.  To die for truth, to die open-eyed and resolutely for the “good old cause,” is not only honor, but reward.  “Suffering is a gift not given to every one,” said one of the Scotch martyrs in 1684, “and I desire to bless the Lord with my whole heart and soul that He has counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of suffering.”

The little value of the individual in comparison with the principles upon which the progress and happiness of the race depend is a lesson enforced by the analogies of Nature, as well as by the evidence of history and the assurance of faith.  Nature is careless of the single life.  Her processes seem wasteful, but out of seeming waste she produces her great and durable results.  Everywhere in her works are the signs of life cut short for the sake of some effect more permanent than itself.  And for the establishing of those immortal foundations upon which the human race is to stand firm in virtue and in hope, for the building of the walls of truth, there will be no scanty expenditure of individual life.  Men are nothing in the count,—­man is everything.