between the Union and Confederate lines. To get to them Kirkland must go beyond the protection of the breastworks and expose himself to a fire from the Union sharpshooters, who, so far during that day, had made the raising above the Confederate works of so much as a head an act of extreme danger. General Kershaw at first refused to allow Kirkland to go on his errand, but at last, as the lad persisted in his request, declined to forbid him, leaving the responsibility for action with the boy himself. Kirkland, in perfect delight, rushed from the general's quarters to the front, where he gathered all the canteens he could carry, filled them with water, and going over the breastworks, started to give relief to his wounded enemies. No sooner was he in the open field than our sharpshooters, supposing he was going to plunder their comrades, began to fire at him. For some minutes he went about doing good under circumstances of most imminent personal danger. Soon, however, those to whom he was taking the water recognized the character of his undertaking. All over the field men sat up and called to him, and those too hurt to raise themselves, held up their hands and beckoned to him. Soon our sharpshooters, who luckily had not hit him, saw that he was indeed an Angel of Mercy, and stopped their fire, and two armies looked with admiration at the young man's pluck and loving kindness. With a beautiful tenderness, Kirkland went about his work, giving of the water to all, and here and there placing a knapsack pillow under some poor wounded fellow's head, or putting in a more comfortable position some shattered leg or arm. Then he went back to his own lines and the fighting went on. Tell me of a

more exalted example of personal courage and selfdenial than that of that Confederate soldier, or one which more clearly deserves the name of Christian fortitude. In that terrible War of the Rebellion, Kirkland gave up his life for a mistaken cause in the battle of Chickamauga, but I cannot help thanking God that, in our reunited country, we are joint heirs with the men from the South in the glory and inspiration that come from such heroic deeds as his.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

HE Central American Treaty was fully ratified on

THE Amty, 1850, but took effect from its

the 4th of July,

date, April 19, 1850. It recites the purpose of the parties, namely, to consolidate amicable relations, by setting forth and fixing their mutual views and intentions concerning any interoceanic canal that may be constructed by the way of the river San Juan and either one or both of the Lakes of Nicaragua or Manegua. It was a great treaty, sublime in its conception, generous in its spirit, and beneficent in its purposes. The two rival members of the British family, after long and angry alienation, met, not within the territory of either, but on that foreign and narrow isthmus which, while it unites North and South America, divides the vigorous Atlantic States of Europe and America from the immature American States and the decayed Asiatic nations which on the opposite coasts overlook the broad Pacific, the last remaining one of the barriers which nature had erected to hinder the restoration of the unity of the human race. How were they changed since they had last met in conflict! The elder had grown richer, stronger, and more imperial than ever before. The younger had reached a higher and more palmy state than any one of years so few had ever before attained. They are no longer unequal, but each was dominant, although in a separate sphere. The one, by the presence of its mercantile marine and its armed navy, kept the nations of the East in their places; the other, by the mere influence of its opinions and its laws, was supreme among the newer nations of the West. They

met on that important strait, not to contend together for dominion over it, nor yet to combine together to seize and divide an exclusive dominion there, but to make it free to each other, and equally free to all mankind. They met in the presence of the feeble and contentious republics which the influence of their own institutions had perhaps too soon crganized out of the ruins of Spanish despotism in America, not to overthrow and subjugate those republics, and seize the domains which they could not hold, but to fortify them, and guarantee their possessions to them forever. It is not the present, but the future, that stamps upon human transactions their true and lasting character. Higher than the fame of Agincourt, of Saratoga, of Waterloo, or of Buena Vista, shall be the glory of that conjunction of Great Britain and America on the heights that command the repose of the world. The truce they made there was not effected without mutual self-denial, acquired under the discipline of free government. Great Britain repressed a constitutional ambition that had long convulsed the world. The United States subdued one that nature prompted, and the voice of mankind applauded and encouraged. Let not that sacred truce be broken, and these friendly Powers engage in deadly strife and discord, and violence be thus let loose, to arrest the progress of the nations. Better for the pride of each, that the white cliffs that garrison the coast of England sink into a black and pestilential morass, and that Niagara lose forever its deep-toned voice, and ooze through a vulgar channel to the sea, than that the great and sonorous concord thus established between them be rudely broken. I counsel you, Senators and statesmen

of the United States, by all the motives that are born in the love of such a land as ours, in such an age as this-I counsel the Senators and statesmen of Great Britain, by all the motives that greatness and ambition like her own will not permit to be inactive—to preserve and maintain, at all costs and hazards, and through all discontents and jealousies, this great treaty. Let this political rainbow stand, stretching from the skies downwards on either side to the horizon, a pledge that the nations shall not again be overwhelmed by any after-coming deluge of human passions.