138 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



principle, the principle written by Cromwell on the statute book of 

 Pariiament: 'All just powers under God are derived from the consent 

 of the people.' Since this war many patriotic societies have arisen, 

 tinding their inspiration in personal descent from those who fought 

 for American independence. The assumption, well justified by facts, 

 is that these were a superior type of men, and that to have had such 

 names in our personal ancestry is of itself a cause for thinking more 

 highly of ourselves. In our little private round of peaceful duties, we 

 feel that we might have wrought the deeds of Putnam and Allen, of 

 Marion and Greene, of our revolutionary ancestors, whoever they may 

 have been. But if those who survived Avere nobler than the mass, so 

 also were those who fell. If we go over the record of brave men and 

 wise women whose fathers fought at Lexington, we must think also of 

 the men and women who shall never be, whose right to exist was cut 

 short at this same battle. It is a costly thing to kill off men, for in 

 men alone can national greatness consist. 



XLII. But sometimes there is no other alternative. It happened 

 once that for 'every drop of blood drawn by the lash another must be 

 drawn by the sword.' It cost us a million of lives to get rid of slavery. 

 And this million, North and South, was the 'best that the nation could 

 bring.' North and South, the nation was impoverished by the loss. 

 The gaps they left are filled to all appearance. There are relatively 

 few of us left to-day in whose hearts the scars of forty years ago are 

 still unhealing. But a new generation has grown up of men and women 

 born since the war. They have taken the nation's problems into their 

 hands, but theirs are hands not so strong or so clean as though the 

 men that are stood shoulder to shoulder with the men that might have 

 been. The men that died in 'the weary time' had better stuff in them 

 than the father of the average man of to-day. 



Read again Brownell's rhymed roll of honor, and we shall see its 



deeper meaning: .„ ^ a- a t tx. 

 ^ ^ Allen, who died for others, 



Bryan of gentle fame, 

 And the brave New England brothers 



Who have left us Lowell's name; 

 Bayard, who knew not fear. 



True as the knight of yore. 

 And Putnam and Paul Pevere, 



Worthy the names they bore. 

 Wainwright, steadfast and true, 



Rodgers of brave sea-blood. 

 And Craven, with ship and orew, 



Sunk in the salt-sea flood. 

 Terrill, dead where he fought, 



Wallace, that would not yield; 

 Sumner, who vainly bought 



A grave on the foughten field, 



