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Page 6
The new book which comes from the pen of G.W. Cable, under the title
of "The Negro Question," puts old truth in a new dress, and renders it
more attractive and presentable. If any man has the right to write
upon this "Negro Question," it is Mr. Cable. If I had to prepare a
liturgy for the Congregational churches, I would put in it the
following petition: "From the superficial views and misleading
statements of tourists through the South, or those who reside in a
single locality, good Lord, deliver us!" Mr. Cable is not of either of
these classes. He speaks from an intimate acquaintance with, and a
long residence in, the South; better than this, he is familiar with
the whole territory, and not with a single locality simply. This
little book ought to be in the hands of every conscientious student of
this Southern problem. Take a single quotation:
"To be governed merely by instincts is pure savagery. All civilization
is the result of subordinating instinct to reason, and to the
necessities of peace, amity and righteousness. To surrender to
instinct, would destroy all civilization in three days. If, then, the
color-line is the result of natural instincts, the commonest daily
needs of the merest civilization require that we should ask ourselves,
is it better or worse to repress or cherish this instinct, and this
color-line?" There are forces at work, regenerative and ennobling, that
will lead the Southern white people to be ashamed of their attitude
toward the Negroes, and not the least of these are the life and works
of Mr. Cable.
A letter came into my hand, when I was in the South, which is not only
a commentary, but also throws a ray of sunlight where there is much
darkness. It was a letter from an old mistress to her former slave. He
is now a successful business man in Chattanooga. This earnest,
Christian woman, rising above her prejudices, wrote her former slave a
cordial invitation to visit her in her home. Her husband, his old
master, had died in the Confederate service. She had seen her servants
taken away from her through the success of the Union armies. Her
property had been depleted, and her fertile plantation overrun by the
loyal troops. It must have been with great sadness and a bitter heart,
that she looked out upon this ruin, wrought as she believed, throughout
the invading of the sacred soil of Virginia. But in these years that
have passed, this bitterness has largely gone, and this sweet,
Christian letter comes to her former slave. The ex-slave told me with
tears in his eyes that he paid her this visit, and that she welcomed
him, not to the Negro quarters, nor to the kitchen-chamber, but to her
best guest-chamber, and said: "I want you to feel that you are welcome
to the best hospitality of my home." "And she treated me almost as
tenderly as she would one of her own sons," said the colored man. And
so light is coming, little by little.
Dr. Haygood expresses a regret that the white women of the South are so
slow to appreciate the importance of the moral elevation of the
Negroes, and so slow to join hands with their Northern sisters in his
education. But such facts as this kind, Christian letter furnishes,
lead us to hope and to believe that better times are coming, and that
the Southern Christians, interested as they are in the Negro in Africa,
will, little by little, appreciate and minister more and more to the
terrible need of the Negro in South Carolina and Alabama.
* * * * *
MUSIC'S MISSION.
BY REV. E.N. ANDREWS, HARTFORD, WIS.
Suggested by the following words by Rev. B.A. Imes in the May
MISSIONARY:
"The Mozart Society at Fisk treated us to an excellent
rendering of Haydn's great oratorio, 'The Creation.' Many came
over from the city (Nashville),--whites from the "best
families," all crowding in, listening, wondering, enjoying!
How the music of those well-tuned instruments and voices
caught us up and carried us away! Color-line melted and faded
out. How we wished the politicians all might have been brought
under that magic spell of solos and choruses!"
O Music, with thy wand celestial, touch
The hearts of men, and by thy alchemy
Divine, resolve, remelt, aye, e'en recast
The thought and very being! Selfish man,
So filled with prejudice and hate hath need,
O heavenly messenger, of all thy aid.
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