The wild future of the minister I did not anticipate.  Hereafter it may possibly be written, to show such lessons as it has.  But on that autumn night he walked up the gray pathway a broken man.  The spiritual part was dead; he had lost faith in the invisible.  He walked as one in a funeral procession,—­ever doomed to follow a dead idea.

* * * * *

THE UNITED STATES ARMORY.

The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for the manufacture of small arms in the world,—­those belonging to the Austrian Government at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatly inferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the guns manufactured here is very superior to that at either of those important establishments.  Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regarded as the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced.  To attain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill and perseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country—­always prolific in inventive genius—­has produced during a period of more than half a century.  It would be impossible to estimate the value of these works during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea may be formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousand rifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at this establishment every month, and the number will soon be increased to thirty thousand.  There are at the present time one hundred and seventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting the orders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enough to arm an entire regiment.

When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about one thousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increase amounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made by the Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southern demagogues were precipitating upon us.  Indeed, the number of muskets manufactured during the last year of his administration was less by several thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815; while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to the railway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a daily procession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way to Southern arsenals!

Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed,—­the establishment being run day and night,—­and none but the most expert and industrious artisans are to be found among them.