DREAM TELLING.
They fall to dreaming: Contending armies are seen in battle, and the one favorable to the liberty of the slave is seen to prevail. Old trees appear to wither and disappear before trees of new sort.
The war cloud bursts and the slave mingles his prayers with the roar of the booming cannon, tarrying on his knees while the American soldiery contend in mortal strife. It was understood to mean liberty. At last the deadly struggle ceased, and emancipation was declared. It was only the dawning, and therefore the light was dim.
THE BITTER BUD.
One of the saddest mistakes of the slave was, that he thought so much of the pleasures of freedom and so little of its weighty obligations. To him, freedom meant mansions, lands, teams, money, position, educated sons and refined daughters, with the liberty to go and to act as he pleased. If he might have burdened his mind with thoughts of his sore destitution of heart, of intellect, of purse; if he might have thought of his poverty as to skill in the arts, sciences and professions of life, as to social status, as to domestic relations, as to opportunities to succeed in a wrestle for life by the side of the victorious white man—if he might have seen that to make himself a strong manhood was his first and his most important duty—if his mind might have been full of these thoughts, it had been a thousand fold better for him. But, as his mind was on pleasures, he was disappointed when they proved only phantoms, and hence the bud of liberty was bitter.
Indeed, to those who had the ability to discern, the first view of liberty was frightful in proportion as it was seriously considered. Naturally, as the shackles suddenly fell off, there was such a forcible rebounding of life, as in many cases made liberty mean license to live idle and lewd.
I can never forget my first impressions at the full view of freedom. O, what helplessness appeared in our condition!
Every day, for weeks, shoeless and hatless men and women, with half naked, hungry children, passed through the little town where I lived, not knowing whither they went, what were their names, nor what they sought. A certain man, when I first met him, was introduced to me as Mr. M——. A little after this, I was surprised to find that he was not Mr. M——, but was Mr. R——. And my ability to be surprised was considerably lessened when I finally learned that Mr. R—— was now Mr. H——.
Long and anxiously I waited for the appearance of some great colored men to assume leadership in matters of religion and education, but I waited in vain. My heart ached as though it would break, and was at last only partially relieved of its weight when my brother (Rev. J. Gomez) and I had built an humble house in which to worship God and teach the children. Into this we, boys though we were, called the people to meet to hear the reading of the Scriptures and to pray.