A WORD FROM NEW ENGLAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THY "SPECTATOR."' SIR,—The guns of our forts no longer seem to say, " It is sunrise" or "It is sunset." They sound in our ears like echoes from overseas, and the faces of all upon our streets are grave. Nothing could wring from us consent to let hostile troops march through Maine upon Canada, so we understand Belgium. I am one of many Americans as English in blood as if born in England. Though of the ninth generation in New England, I feel toward London as the Psalmist felt when he cried : " If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem I" This does not separate me from my countrymen, for being an American, like being a Christian, is not a matter of birth or race, but of heart's desire, and, as Christians share the blessings of Abraham's seed, all Americans share the heritage of England. We wait for news with eagerness before unknown. I thank you for brightening the strain of this by publishing the sympathy of a soldier who saw in France " a beautiful new settee chucked out in the road and spoilt." Last year it was my privilege to help in giving new settees for the use of working women near Lille—and I have feared nobody could be expected to share the concern which I have felt about [We wish our correspondent could have seen the wounded Coldstream Guardsman who was so moved by the sight of the desecrated settee. It meant for him all that goes with the thought of home and the kindly charities of a man's hearth. Like the gallant if homely knight he was, his heart burnt within him for the " poor chap " whose house and home had been ruined and profaned. " Cowardly brutes to throw a beautiful settee like that into the street "—that was the chorus of his thought.—En. Spectator.]
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