Who were those two men, splendid examples of physical manhood, men of darker complexions? They had been engaged in distributing corsage bouquets and boutonnières among the bridal party, and they now stood side by side as the bride passed by. They saluted her, in a polite manner and with a style quite their own, and the bride recognized with sincere satisfaction their presence. Who were they? Verily of the race she knew best, next her own. Originally from Nubia in Africa, where their near ancestors had worshiped in the forests, they were now, already, by the will of the Creator, full citizens of her own beloved land. Adele had found them in the bazaar, where they had drifted in from God-knows-where in “God’s Own Country;” but to Adele they represented the colored people of her own United States. They were men who had shed their life-blood for the cause of Truth in Freedom, and the Truth had made them free. They were true men as God had made them such, in His own way, but young in the experience of civilization. They were now educating themselves by knowledge of the world for greater things to come; educating themselves with an energy and rapidity never before excelled by any race. Adele had determined to help them along; for woe betide anyone who dares ignore or impede the way of the Almighty in nature, where the progress of the race is in unity with the progress of religion itself. She said afterwards, that there was no feature more home-like among the incidents connected with her wedding, than to have these Freedmen from “God’s Own Country,” from home, to distribute the cultivated flowers of civilization which they themselves, that very morning, had helped to collect, to arrange, and to give to others.
Thus to some few of the native witnesses to this wedding, to some few whom Adele had met personally, she became known as “The Lady of Loving-Kindness;” and no doubt they would in time, some of them, have erected a shrine to her memory, for they well remembered her beauty and the Flaming Cross Light which sparkled upon her forehead. And still later their descendants would have bowed down to an image of her, saying they did not worship the image, but the Loving-Kindness which she represented.
As a matter of fact, to the majority of the Orientals actually present, but to whom she was not known personally, strangers to her, the effect was very different. To them the bride was now as one separated from them more than before: this because she had become subject to the will of her husband, and must hereafter walk behind him, not beside him, when she went abroad; and in time must present him with a son, or else perhaps it was better she herself had never been born. Such were the actual facts with regard to some of the witnesses. Yet, how natural, yet unnatural, are such conceptions; natural to man in the primitive or childhood period of his spiritual life, yet truly unnatural when taught otherwise by more matured civilizations, when mankind has become enlightened further by the brighter spiritual Light of the World.
To Paul and Adele, now as one, it was just the reverse. They stood side by side, with their religious consciousness turned to One whose bride was the Church Spiritual, of whom all nations of the earth are blessed.
As the bridal party returned homewards through this throng of sympathetic spectators, it was as if all had been invited to this Marriage Feast.
The Spirit and the Bride had said, “Come.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Phillips Brooks.
[2] [See frontispiece]. A view from near Sundookphoo.
Transcriber’s Note