Minnie's Sacrifice

by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

"Well, Minnie, I would; you look troubled, and may be you'll feel better."

"Yes, Mother, I often feel strengthened after visiting some of these good old souls, and getting glimpses into their inner life. I sometimes ask them, after listening to the story of their past wrongs, what has sustained you? What has kept you up? And the almost invariable answer has been the power of God. Some of these poor old souls, who have been turned adrift to shift for themselves, don't live by bread alone; they live by bread and faith in God. I asked one of them a few days since, Are you not afraid of starving? and the answer was, Not while God lives."

After Minnie left, she visited a number of lowly cabins. The first one she entered was the home of an industrious couple who were just making a start in life. The room in which Minnie was, had no window-lights, only an aperture that supplied them with light, but also admitted the cold.

"Why don't you have window-lights?" said Minnie.

"Oh we must crawl before we walk;" and yet even in this humble home they had taken two orphan children of their race, and were giving them food and shelter. And this kindness to the orphans of their race Minnie found to be a very praiseworthy practice among some of those people who were not poorer than themselves.

The next cabin she entered was very neat, though it bore evidences of poverty. The woman, in referring to the past, told her how her child had been taken away when it was about two years old, and how she had lost all trace of him, and would not know him if he stood in her presence.

"How did you feel?" said Minnie.

"I felt as I was going to my grave, but I thought if I wouldn't get justice here, I would get it in another world."

"My husband," said another, "asked if God is a just God, how would sich as slavery be, and something answered and said, 'sich shan't always be,' and you couldn't beat it out of my husband's head that the Spirit didn't speak to him."

And thus the morning waned away, and Minnie returned calmer than when she had left. A holy peace stole over her mind. She felt that for high and low, rich and poor, there was a common refuge. That there was no corner so dark that the light of heaven could not shine through, and that these people in their ignorance and simplicity had learned to look upon God as a friend coming near to them in their sorrows, and taking cognizance of their wants and woes.