O my country-women, I long to see you stand under the time and bear it
up in your strong hearts, and not need to be borne up through it. I wish
you to stimulate, and not crave stimulants from others. I wish you to
be the consolers, the encouragers, the sustainers, and not tremble in
perpetual need of consolation and encouragement. When men's brains are
knotted and their brows corrugated with fearful looking for and hearing
of financial crises, military disasters, and any and every form of
national calamity consequent upon the war, come you out to meet them,
serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formal
distortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in your
heart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of your goods.
Not only look poverty in the face with high disdain, but embrace it with
gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; the gain is for all
time. Go farther than this. Consecrate to a holy cause not only the
incidentals of life, but life itself. Father, husband, child,---I do
not say, Give them up to toil, exposure, suffering, death, without
a murmur;--that implies reluctance. I rather say, Urge them to the
offering; fill them with sacred fury; fire them with irresistible
desire; strengthen them to heroic will. Look not on details, the
present, the trivial, the fleeting aspects of our conflict, but fix your
ardent gaze on its eternal side.
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