The temporary impulse which induced many Southern young men to think of emigrating to Brazil, Mexico, and other foreign countries, has, in great measure, subsided. It is impossible, even if there were great inducements, that a whole people should emigrate. If its prospects in the future are dark, then it is unmanly and ungenerous in those who have shared their prosperity to refuse to share their adversity. Then the sentiment of General Beauregard should be the universal sentiment: "I prefer to live here poor and forgotten than to be endowed with honor and riches in a foreign country." On the other hand, if there is a reasonable probability that we shall, in the end, weather the adverse storm, and be once more a happy and prosperous people, it is unwise to fly from transitory evils to others that we know not of. There is no place, after all, like home, and no home like our own sunny land. Home is where the heart is, where the dear ones are gathered together; and whether it be a hovel or a palace, the chief attraction and joy of it are the fond affections which cluster and put forth their flowers and fragrance beneath its roof. The South, though desolated by the hand of war, is still the spot where we were born; whose beautiful landscapes are mirrored in our hearts; whose men and women are the companions of our childhood and of our maturer years, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone; dearer to us from the sufferings which have been the common lot. If we have been tried in the fiery furnace of adversity, we have come out purified and solidified by the process; if we have lost much, we have not lost all. The overarching heavens and the mother earth are still the same; the stars which we watched in our infancy still shine serenely over our heads; the grand old mountains, the lovely valleys, the beautiful rivers, still offer their charms to our eyes; the moral dignity, the elevation of soul, the generosity of spirit, which have always characterized our people, and have formed the peculiar glory and embellishment of our social state, are still unimpaired. Brave, genial men, and graceful, high-toned women are still found in all our habitations. There are no ruins which the vines of domestic virtues will not render less unsightly, and no storm so dark that religious faith and hope will not discover some rent in the clouds, and rejoice that behind the transient vapours shine the everlasting stars. Here is our home, and on the soil where we were born there let us abide, and there return to the earth from which we came.
Viewing the future even in its gloomiest aspect, let us perish, if perish we must, beneath the shadows of the household tree. The true Virginian would sooner die upon the breast of his old mother than live in a foreign State. But we are not disposed to look perpetually on the dark side of affairs. When the Divine founder of the Christian faith was about to visit a scene of great peril, the despondent, yet courageous, apostle, St. Thomas, exclaimed, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." A commentator on the passage remarks: "Why not go and live with him?" Why take it for granted that nothing but impoverishment and ruin await us in the future? To our eyes there is a very different prospect. The thunders which still growl angrily may be the thunders of a receding, not an approaching storm. Long after a fierce tempest has lashed the ocean, the waters continue to roll in perilous waves and dash furiously upon the shore. Let us wait in patience for the storm to subside. Those "generous sentiments expressed by President Johnson towards the Southern States," to which General Beauregard so touchingly alludes, and which he tells us have persuaded him and a great many other Confederate officers and soldiers to remain at their homes, give promise of a brighter and happier day, and we hope will yet impress themselves upon the great conservative mind of the whole country. When that grand consummation is reached, we shall again sit in safety and joy beneath our own vines and fig trees, possessing all the happiness of our former condition, with none to molest or make us afraid.
