ARTICLE VI.-ADJUTANT STEARNS.

Adjutant Stearns. Boston: Massachusetts. Sabbath School Society, Depository No. 13, Cornhill.

THIS is the title-page of a volume of 160 pages, written by President Stearns of Amherst College. It is a memorial of his son, a young officer who fell in the battle of Newbern, "inscribed by his father to the gallant and noble commander, Col. William S. Clark: to the resolute and patriotic officers and privates of the 21st Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers: to the brave citizens and regular soldiers of the great army of the United States; and to all young men of lofty aims and endeavors everywhere." It is a beautiful tribute to a beautiful character; and although prepared by a father's hand, while his heart was freshly bleeding, and amid the restrictions which a conscious love and grief imposed, it loses nothing from this, but rather gains; for there is felt to be a reserved power through the whole; back of every fact there is another; there is a restrained grieving throughout, provocative of tears in the reader; and when the story is told, and the abrupt conclusion is reached,―abrupt as the rifle shot which opened an exit from the body for the young hero's spirit,--the facts alone are sufficient to make the desired impression, and all that the parental compiler might have said, but could not, is said by comrades and commanders.

We accept this book thankfully in the name of the young men of our country; it is a reminder to us how much we have lost, and also how much we are gaining of hallowed and restorative influences,-redemption earned by sacrifice. It is a bloody flower plucked from the field of battle. Nature scatters some of her rarest products over her dreariest scenes. Delicate and graceful hare-bells, "flowers of loveliest blue," bend over the glaciers; the most beautiful life in nature, "skirt_ ing the eternal frost." So the loftiest virtues of humanity

have flourished amid its deepest crimes. Who can despair of this land of ours, or doubt the future God will unroll before us, whatever be the portents of the hour, and we are writing in the darkest moments of our civil war,—when, through rank and file of our citizen soldiery, God has sown broadcast seeds. of heroism and martyr-like sacrifice? True, we are a wicked people, more so than we have been wont to think, more so, perhaps, than any of us have been disposed to admit; profanity has flamed over the land, regiments and camps have spoken the vernacular of hell, as if they were cohorts of Satan's rebellion, instead of loyal bulwarks of a legitimate government. Fearful as is the admission, and sadly as we make it, yet it is to be thankfully remembered, that God does not count. off the evil against the good, and decide the destiny of a country, by the character of the majority. Had but ten righteous persons been found in Sodom, the whole city had been saved for the ten's sake. God values a single child of his, abovewho is authorized to say how many of his enemies?—and the prayer of one righteous man shall countervail the cries for vengeance of generations of the wicked. As in the mystery of redemption, "by one man, Jesus Christ, the grace of God and the gift by grace hath abounded unto many;" so it often is; God has more favor to one, than disfavor to multitudes; "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." We cannot tell how precious, nor how dear to God is the blood of one such servant of His, as young Stearns, and many like him, who for the love of God have given their life for their country. It is the glory of Christian sacrifice, that Christ associates it with his own, not to atone but to accomplish the purposes of his atonement, "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ."

Adjutant Stearns was a son of New England, in the strongest and best sense; he was descended from its founders and first planters; he numbered among his ancestors Gov. Thomas Dudley and Capt. Edward Johnson; and of the blood of the now classic John Alden, "three currents flowed in his veins." If there be anything in hereditary piety, "which dwelt first " not

"in his grandmother," but in his earlier progenitors in this country; if there be anything in liberal culture from generation to generation; all this refinement and capacity was the endowment of his birth; for in these respects he was singularly happy, having sprung from a line of ministers, educated in Harvard College, and families whose names were never absent from the lists of members in full communion with our churches. It is pleasant to observe in such a scion of New England so early and strong a development of its great historic traits, the love of knowledge, of freedom, and of God. Of his desire for an education we need not speak; he shared it in common with most boys of his native state, so richly blest by its public schools; and nothing less could have been expected of him, born in Cambridge, under the shadow of old Harvard, and passing from boyhood into manhood at Amherst, in the heart of the college, under the roof of its president, his father. The noble enthusiasm of his nature is singularily witnessed by his boyish notes to his father, just before he went to Andover to fit for college. "In regard to my studying, I feel as I never have before; something within me says, Act; and, as Sheridan said, 'It is in me and must come out.' I feel more and more, every day, the truth of the saying, 'Knowledge is power.' I am determined yet to make 'something or nothing;' that is my motto; and, father, you shall yet hear from me in other ways than as your son." Speaking of some obstacles, and of his plans to overcome them, he writes, "Havn't other folks done so ? and can't I do the same? I will do the same, can't or no can't. It will be done, and shall be done. Where there's a will there's a way. I have the will; the way will follow." In his college course he became enamored of the mathematics and the natural sciences, particularly of chemistry. In this, as in everything, the passionate energy of his nature came out. To an intimate friend he wrote, "I cannot explain to you how passionately fond of chemistry I am; not as a person is fond of music, or as many say they are fond of languages, history, mathematics; but as a part almost of my very existence. I feel as if I could do anything, bear anything, for its sake." But beneath this ardent love of

science, there slumbered another passion, and stronger; it was the love of country; it was loyalty to the Union and Constitution, an intelligent devotion to the great principles involved in our institutions. After the fall of Fort Sumter, in the majestic uprising of our people, the young men of our colleges were among the first to feel the impulse; they crested the wave of excitement which rolled over the land; Amherst particularly was distinguished, and that terrible Sabbath, which rose gloomily upon the telegraphic spreading of the news, the young men of the college enrolled a company to be employed, if needed, for the defense of Washington, and "at the head of this list of patriotic warriors, was written in his own hand, the name of Frazar A. Stearns." He did not, however, immediately leave his studies, but when the tidings of the Bull Run defeat and shame arrived, he could no longer be restrained. He felt the stigma as a personal disgrace; he wished to wipe it off, if need be, by the sacrifice of his own life. A family in the neighborhood recall a visit he made them just then. "Mrs. D." he said, "we are beaten, we RUN, r, u, n, that spells RUN, don't it? Yes, we RUN. I wish I had been there; I would not have run; I would have stood and died alone. I wish I had." To his father he said, "We have been beaten, and now there is a call for Frazar A. Stearns." After counsels against precipitation, and in view of accumulating evidences of a call from God, his father said, "If such are your motives and convictions, go, and God be with you."

The preparations made by the young volunteer were intelligent and earnest. He gave himself to assiduous training in Amherst and Boston in the use of the bayonet and revolver, and in the sword exercise. With a thoughtfulness, also, rare indeed in one of his age, to make himself useful in all ways to the men under his care, he went to his physician, and spent hours in talking with him about the wounds and diseases of the soldier, his fatigues on the march and his dangers in the camp, as well as the various forms of death or wounds in battle. That this was no sudden impulse, but, as his father judged, "a call from God," was sufficiently evidenced by this sober discipline, and the more than consistent, the glorious fulfilling of the

promise! He was not yet twenty-one, but it is wonderful with what sobriety, forecast, and sacred enthusiasm he entered into the war. When asked how he felt in view of the possibility of what afterwards became a fact, he answered, "I hope, of course, to escape and return; but I have thought of all this, and if it should be God's will, I think I am ready." When young Ellsworth was killed, he said, "It is a glorious death. I should have been willing to have stood in his place if I could save the country." It is the testimony of his father, that no opposing argument could be advanced, which he had not considered, that he believed himself adapted to a military life; that he had courage, self-control, the power to influence and command men, and he thought to inspire them, at least some of them, with patriotic sentiments, and a sacred enthusiasm; he believed, moreover, that the country needed educated men, who were moral and religious, officers who would act from principle, who would feel for the privates and take care of them, and work hard to make them soldiers, and Christian soldiers. Was he not clearly right in this? and how have subsequent events emphasized the wisdom and justice of the sentiments entertained by this young soldier? He early gave proof how lofty and how firmly fixed his views of duty were. Accepting a commission as first lieutenant of Company I, in the 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, he was offered the position of aid-de-camp, by General Reno,-alas! this gallant and distinguished officer is now, too, lamented by his admiring and grateful country. But honorable and attractive as the offer was, young Stearns declined it, resolved to stick by his regiment, for his company actually needed him in it, and he was determined, by fighting for his country, to deserve promotion, before he received it. He wrote: "I have left everything to fight for my country. If, in the course of events, I should prove a good soldier, fit to command men, and an able officer; and if God in his great mercy should spare my life, my successes would then, of course, be measured, at least, in some degree, by my advancement. A good officer is always known; and if you will excuse me for saying so, the qualifications of a good officer are, besides courage,-intelligence, energy, good