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Show ONCE upon a time an innkeeper, awakened at midnight by caterwaulings in the hall below, was filled with wrath, and, leaping from his bed, seized a poker, and rushed down stair to demolish the cats. But he did not wait to light a lamp for the expedition. The unexpected re ults were, that, in striking at the cat , he broke the hall-clock, and the halllamp ; then, falling, he broke his right arn1, broke two teeth out, and sprained an ankle. In fine, he hit and hurt nearly everything except the cats. At such a cost the innkeeper learned that blindfold zeal can do but harm. -Twenty millions of men and women, whose hands ply daily sword or needle, compelled by a purpose too great for them to define; a million men, marching and eagerly awaiting the order to march toward the valley of death; manifold Abrahams, standing be. ide their sons, whom their faith has bound and laid on altars of sacrifice ; -are not these signs of a vitality and zeal in any nation adequate for any emergency ? But where is the lamp for these ? How many more blunders and bruises must we have ere we demand light upon thi stairway, on which we can climb, down which we may fall? Thus far in this war nearly everything has been zealou ly struck, EXCEPT TilE REAL POE OF TillS NATION. The writer of these pages, having for a long time studied |