How sadly and how strangely we misjudge our brother! We walk daily by his side, and receive the cold exterior as a type of the inner life, forgetting that hardness, sternness, and repelling reserve, may be only the crust of the crater, hiding the lava beneath. How comes it that, when, in our own case, we are all so well aware that,

yet, we will not believe in the secret sufferings of others? Instead of seeking to win the unstrung instrument back to harmony, by the tender touch of loving sympathy, we mete out precisely the measure meted to us; oppose coldness to coldness, hardness to hardness, reserve to reserve, and thus a wall is built up between us, and all hope of influence is gone. We need more trust in, and more charity for, each other. Woe to the sick soul, suffering and sorrowful, its sickness only shown by the petulant word, the rude retort, the outward expression of inward wretchedness,—woe to such a soul, I say, were it left only to man’s tender mercies. Most mercifully it is not. Infinite Love breathes balm upon it. Infinite Compassion soothes it. When shall we even begin to imitate the one, or strive to attain to the other?

These thoughts were called up by a keen sense of the injustice of my own judgment, in a special case, only discovered this very day.

A sunny, bright afternoon. Our men are all improving, none dangerously ill; the most of them have sought the yard, to walk, to smoke, to sing, or play at such games as cannot be carried on in-doors. Everything has a more cheerful aspect than usual. If melancholy and depression are infectious, so, happily, are mirth and gayety; and as the chorus of one of our favorite army songs rings out on the air, I find myself joining in it, as I spring up the stairs, two at a time, on an errand. Scarcely noticing where I am going, I suddenly stumble upon something on the stair.

“Why, Gavin, can that be you?”

Dashed upon the floor, his face buried in his hands, his whole attitude denoting utter despair, he does not even move or notice my question.

While I am standing, looking and wondering, let me give you a little knowledge of him, as he appears in the wards. Some time since I was much struck, on coming to the hospital, by the soldier acting as guard at the door. His erect and military bearing, well-made figure, and broad chest, with the certain “je ne sais quoi” of a gentleman, rather impressed me, as he lifted his cap and saluted as I approached.

“Who is our gentlemanly guard to-day?” said I to M., on entering our room.

“Just come; a fine-looking fellow, isn’t he? I have just been finding out his history. He is terribly reserved, but I have made out that he is a Northerner who went to the South to settle; was impressed, sorely against his will, at the time of the breaking out of the war; was taken ill, and allowed, as he was useless, to come here to see his mother, who was also ill; he, of course, never returned, although he had letters from his Colonel, which he showed, first offering him a Lieutenancy, and then a Captaincy; but he prefers, he says, to be a Private in our own army, to the highest position in theirs.”

“Well?” said I, as she paused.

“That’s all; he told me nothing more; but that as soon as he came North he enlisted, was taken sick in camp, and sent here.”

“His history, then, is still to hear,” I said; “he hasn’t accounted for his interesting melancholy, or the mournful expression of those large, dark eyes which strike you the moment you look at him, and yet there is something about him—a sort of dark look—which I don’t altogether fancy.”

“Oh! you want to make up a romantic story for him, do you? Well, find it out, if you can; I have told you all that he would tell me, and yet, I confess I was struck with his language; it was certainly much above that of most of our men here.”

Weeks passed by, and as Gavin was not sick enough to need care, we had little to do with him, and that little did not encourage us to go further. Often a word of greeting, in passing, will call forth something more, but his cold, forbidding manner, joined to a certain distant politeness, so repelled me, that I resolved to let him alone; and yet I felt sorry for him, for I could not fail to notice his unpopularity among the men. He walked alone, mentally and physically, and seemed to desire no intercourse with any one.

One morning I found him gloomily seated in a corner of the ward, apparently unconscious of everything around him.

“What a terribly long face,” said I, trying to rally him; “you will never get well till you learn to laugh.”

“To laugh!” said he, with intense bitterness; “then I am invalided for life. Little enough is there on earth to laugh about, I think;” and rising hastily, he brushed past me, and left the ward.

“I don’t like that Gavin,” I said to M., “there’s something so dark and hard about him; I can’t make him out.”

“Ah! no story yet? I thought he was to have a romantic story, with his interesting dark eyes.”

“Story! He never opens his lips to any one; and unless he shall need something, I have almost determined never to open mine to him again.”

Such was the man whom I have left all this time lying upon the staircase. Knowing as I did that whatever his faults might be, intemperance was not one of them, I once more address him; he evidently has not heard me before, for, starting up hastily, and forgetting his usual politeness, he exclaims, petulantly, “I thought I could be to myself here, at least.”

“So you can, as far as I am concerned; I merely came up stairs on an errand, without an idea that you were here; but another time when you wish to secure perfect privacy, I should scarcely advise you to choose a staircase.”

“It matters little,” said he, sitting down on the stairs, resting his elbows on his knees, and burying his face in his hands, “one part of the world or another; it’s all the same; dark enough to wish to be well out of it.”

“Gavin,” said I, sitting down on the stair beside him, “do you remember that you told me how terribly your back ached from carrying your knapsack and blanket on that long march?”

A dull, uninterested assent.

“What would have been most welcome, when the pain became intolerable?”

“To unload, of course;” his head still buried in his hands.

“At times, in the long march of life, I have borne a heavy, moral knapsack; and when the pain from its weight became intolerable, no words can tell the relief of unloading, and sharing the burden with some loving heart, with whom it was as safe and as sacred as with myself. Your heart, just now, is aching worse than ever did your back; might it not ease it to try the experiment?”

He raised his head quickly; fire enough in those eyes then.

“Ease it!” he said; “doesn’t it feel every day and every hour that it must burst, unless I tell what I am suffering? I walk among the men here, and they pass me as cold and stiff, when, God knows, I’m on fire inside; I’m burning up, burning up, here,” added he, pressing his hand on his brain.

This was enough. The buckles were unstrapped, the burden would follow.

The first thing that roused us was the tap of the drum for supper. The long hours of that sunny summer’s afternoon had slipped by, as I listened to a story, which, in Victor Hugo’s hands, would be worked into a romance quite as thrilling as anything he has ever penned; whilst in mine it must remain forever,—a deposit sacred as the grave. My object was accomplished. With a smile, he rose—the first I had ever seen on his face—saying, “You were right about that moral knapsack; my heart feels lighter than I ever thought it could again.”

“And you will do as I say?”

“I will try.”

“And you will try too, won’t you, to remember my first advice, some time since, and learn to laugh a little more?”

“Indeed I will; and it seems as if it might be possible now, but let me tell you——”

“Nothing more to-day,” said I, laughing; “I must refuse any further confidence;” and running down stairs to our room, I was complimented upon the promptitude with which I performed an errand. No matter, thought I;—if one sad soul has found comfort in pouring out the bitter sorrows of a life, the hours have not rolled by in vain. Are we not all responsible for each day, nay, for each hour, as it passes? Not alone for the right use of time in improving our own souls, but for the manner in which we act upon others. Influence! The language scarcely holds a more solemn word,—the mind scarcely receives a more fearful thought! How has this power been exerted? We all possess it in greater or less degree. We all shall have to render an account for the use or misuse of such a terrible talent.

Time was, when, to my mind, it seemed only humility to believe that such a speck in God’s creation—such an atom, great in no one thing, mentally, morally, or physically—must be without power for good or evil—without influence upon any single soul. It will not do. Humility is doubtless a great gift; Truth is a greater. No mortal being into whom God has breathed the breath of life, can live upon this earth and not act upon his fellow mortals in some manner. We cannot be merely negative; we are, we must be positive.

A word, a look, aye, even a tone may be the making or undoing of a soul. My brother! remember that to those amongst whom you are thrown, you must be, morally, either air or water. Air, to fan the smouldering spark of good, till its white flame mounts higher and higher, encircling your head with a halo of glory; or water, to quench that same spark, which, in dying, will envelop you in the blackness of darkness for ever and ever.