|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 9
After a few months the mother-in-law made her daughter a visit as she
passed through Sacramento on her way back to her native land. What
passed between mother and daughter we do not know, but a few days after
her departure, Fong Bow returning to his home was shocked to find his
little wife suspended by the neck in an attempt at suicide. He rescued
her, and when she was restored asked for the reason. She acknowledged
that she had a good home and a kind and generous husband, but there was
no shrine in the house, no ancestral tablet, no Joss, and she was
convinced that some great evil must be impending from spirits thus
neglected and provoked. She preferred to sacrifice her present comfort
rather than incur the woes approaching,--all the more dreadful in her
apprehension because utterly unknown. Whereupon Fong Bow told her that
while he himself could not worship such things, and knew that an idol
was "nothing in the world," he did not and would not forbid her to do
what she thought right, and thus she provided herself with a shrine and
gods and was comforted.
Meanwhile, the husband lived a Christian life before her, and she
herself was willing to receive instruction from Mrs. Carrington and
others. It is not improbable that she saw the difference between a home
even half Christian, like her own, and those where heathen customs made
of a husband less a protector than a lord. Doubtless she thought much in
silence before coming to the decision which changed the current of her
life. It is singular that the crisis came in consequence of her
observing at a marriage of Chinese persons making no profession of
Christian faith, the absence of the rites which had been, in her view,
the only safeguards against evil. This brought her to decision. With her
own hands she removed the shrine she had erected, and then declared her
purpose to worship her husband's God. Those who know her--both Chinese
and Americans--see in her the tokens of a real and radical change; and
it was with great joy that I heard, some weeks ago, that she had been
baptized and welcomed to the Congregational Church in Sacramento, to
which her husband has belonged these many years.
WM. C. POND.
* * * * *
THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN OUR COUNTRY.
_Address at the Annual Meeting in Chicago_,
BY THE REV. C.H. RICHARDS, D.D.
Deeper than the question, what shall we do with the Negro, lies the more
fundamental question: What does God mean to do with the Negro in our
country? Many a so-called solution of the "race problem" has been a
foredoomed failure, because it ran counter to the Providential plan.
Some have hoped that time would settle the burning question; if people
would only stop talking about it, especially meddlesome people far away
from the real pinch of the trouble, they fancy that somehow the mere
flight of years would adjust differences and secure to all their rights.
Others think the short way to peace is by force, keeping the Negro down
with a strong hand, and keeping the Anglo Saxon on top by any vigorous
means that may be needed. Others, again, think there never can be any
solution of the problem so long as the two races occupy the same
territory, and they propose some mammoth scheme of colonization to take
the blacks away to some quarter of the world where they can be by
themselves. But these and other remedies are utterly futile, because
they are in collision with God's plan, as indicated by certain manifest
facts. Meantime, while men are so busy trying to get around the
difficulty instead of solving it in a straightforward way, the problem
gets a little bigger every year. The caste question agitates our great
religious assemblies. The spoliation of the civil rights of the Negro is
one of the most menacing features in our politics. Bitter race
prejudices keep Southern cities in a ferment, and even break out in
dreadful massacres. This race problem will continue to be one of the
most momentous and disturbing questions in American public life, until
somehow we learn how to get into line with Providence, and find some
solution that harmonizes with the great movements that have the hand of
God in them.
It is time to ask then, with searching inquiry, What is the divine plan
with regard to the Negro here, or, in other words, What is to be the
future of the Negro in America? In certain significant facts and
tendencies of his past and present, we may see the finger of Providence
pointing on to that future. Let us look at some of these facts and their
bearings.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|