140
TALKS FOR THE TIMES.
But that cruel war is over, that fratricidal war, that
war which consumed billions of your treasure, and
like a Minotaur, devoured untold numbers of your
brave sons. Fully eighteen years of peace span the
bloody gulf between then and now. That is a war
of the past. That war was to open the prison and
let the captives go free. But it necessitated another
war—a war to strike off the shackles of ignorance,
to liberate the mind, to put new light into it, new
ideas, to arouse the soul to high moral responsibili¬
ties, to inspire it with love for God and love for man.
Something has been done in this line, more than it
was thought could be done. The strongholds of ig¬
norance have been assailed with some success. For
nearly two decades a little army of teachers have
been toiling day and night to impart knowledge to
the ignorant, to instil virtuous principles, to teach
industry, thrift, and economy. They have labored
under discouragements. They have not always been
kindly treated. Sometimes they have been ostracised,
sometimes despised. Their work in the beginning
was ridiculed by many, North and South. It was
looked upon as a task more than Herculean to teach
those who could not learn, those whose heads were
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