The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-04-23

home worn out with dissipation, nurses
him till he gets well, and starts him
again, and hopes, and expects, until
her prays, and counsels, and suffers,
until her strength gives out and she
fails. She is going, and attendants,
bending over her pillow, ask her if she
has any message TO leave, and she
makes great effort to say something,
but out of three or four minutes of in
distinct utterances they can catch bat
three words: MY poor boyl" The
simple fact is she died for him. Life
for life. Substitution!
About thirty-eight years ago there
went forth from our northern and
southern homes hundreds of thousands
of men to do battle. All the poetry of
war soon vanished and left them moth
ing but the terrible prose. They
waded knee-keep in mud. They slept
in snowbanks. They marched till their
cut feet tracked the earth. They were
swindled out of their honest rations,
and lived on meat not fit for dog
They had jaws fractured, and eyes ex-
tinguished, and limbs shot away
Thousands of them cried for water as
they lay on the field the night after the
battle and got itnot. They were home
sick, and received no message from
their loved ones. They died in barns,
in bushes, in bitches, the buzzards of
the summer heat the only attendants
on their obsequies. No one but the
infinite God who knows everything
knows the ten thousandth part of the
length, and breadth, and depth, and
height of anguish of the northern and
southern battlefelds. Why did these
fathers leave their children and go to
the front, and why did these young
men, postponing the marriage day,
start out into the probabilities of never
coming back? For a principle they
died. Life for life. Blood for blood.
Substitution!
But we need not go so far. What is
that monument in the cemetery? 1t is
to the doctors who fell in the southern
epidemics. Why go? Were there not
enough sick to be attended in these
northern ATTITUDES? Oh, yes; but the
doctor puts few medical books in his
valise, and some walls of medicine, and
leaves his patients here in the hands of
other physicians, and takes the rail
train. Before he gets to the infected
region he passes crowded rail-trains
regular and extra, taking the flying
and affrighted populations. He ar
rives in city over which great hor
ror is brooding. He goes from couch
to couch, feeling the pulse and study
ing systems, and prescribing day after
day, night after night, until fellow
physician says: Doctor, you had bet
ter go home and rest; you look misera
ble." But he can not rest while sc
many are suffering. On and on, un
til some morning finds him in g
delirium, in which he talks of home
and then rises and says he mast &C
and look after those patients. He il
told to lie down; but he fights his at
PENDANTS until he falls back, and is
| WCdhCl anu WCdhCI, anu ulCo III pCO
pie with whom he had no kinshlp, and
far away from his own family, and is
hastily put away in strangers tomb
and only the fifth part of newspaper
line tells us of his sacrifce-hjs name
just mentioned among five. Yet he
has touched the furthest height of sub
Unity in that three weeks OF humane
tartan service. He goes straight as al
arrow to the bosom of Him who said
II was sick and we visited me-" Lii,
for life. Blood for blood. Substitu
ton!
In the legal profession | see the samC
principle of self-sacrifice. In 1916
William Freeman, pauperized and idi
otto negro, was at Auburn, N. Y, or
trial for murder. He had slain the en-
tire Van Nest family. The foamins
wrath of the community could be KEEP
off him only by armed constables
Who would volunteer to be his counsel
No attorney wanted to sacrifice hi
popularity by such an ungrateful task
All were silent save one, a young law
yer with feeble voice, that could hardl,
be heard outside the bar, pale and thil
and awkward. 1t was William Ii
Seward, who saw that the prisone
was idiotic and irresponsible, ant
ought to be put in an asylum, rattle
than put to death, the heroic counse
uttering these beautiful words:
speak now in the hearing of pee
pie who have prejudged prisoner an,
condemned me for pleading in his be
half. He is'a convict, pauper, ne
gro, without intellect, sense or emo
ton. My child with an affectionat
smile disarms my careworn face of it
frown whenever | cross my threshold
The beggar in the street obliges me t
give because he says: God bless you,
as l pass, My dog caresses me wit
fondness if will but smile on hin
My horse recognizes me when | fill hi
manger. What reward, what graf
tude, what sympathy and affe,
ton can l expect here? Their
the prisoner SITS Look at hin
: Look at the assemblage aroun
you. Listen to their ill-suppresse
censures and excited fears, and tell IN
where among my neighbors or my fe
, lowmen, where, even in his heart,
can expect to find sentiment,
thought, not to say of reward or of a
acknowledgement or even of recognition
Gentlemen, you may think of this ev
dence what you please, bring in whs
verdict you can, but asseverate befoi
Heaven and you, that, to the best {
nay knowledge and belief, the prison'
, ut the bar does not at this momer
know why it is that my shadow fal
1 on you instead of his own.
Y The gallows got its victim, but tt
: post mortem examination of the poo