And oh, the pity of the waste and abuse of these gifts! Oh, the sorrow of Jesus at these opportunities despised and flung away! Are roses reddened for the swine to lift its tusk upon? Are the pearls made to be flung in the mire, in which they are trampled and lost? Is a hospital fitted up as a room in which physicians and nurses riot, drinking up the precious wines, consuming the jellies, wasting the soft linens, while wounded soldiers lie in the darkness without, moaning and dying as their own life-blood ebbs away in the black night? When Philadelphia, in the morning after Gettysburg, rushed a relief train to the battle-field, how would the whole land have quivered with indignation at the news that the officers in charge had forgotten sobriety and honor, and looted the train of its gifts, counting the treasure to be personal to themselves, in utter contempt of heroes wounded and dying?
Dr. N. D. Hillis, speaking of the perversion of men's talents to low and bad uses says:
