She is taught by precept to be studious, industrious, and that Heaven smiles on contented labor, and industry and independence are honorable and to be desired, she hears her mother say solemnly, “Wealth is a snare.” And then she sees that mother bow low at the feet of the rich, stupid, idle wife of the millionaire, lose all her dignity and self-respect in the wild effort to become her friend, sees her refuse to recognize in public the honest, intelligent sewing girl.
She is taught that if she duz not learn the catechism and follow its teachings, she is lost indeed, and she learns from that that the chief end of man (and presumably wimmen) is to fear God and enjoy Him forever. And then taught by the louder teaching of maternal anxiety and counsel that the chief end of wimmen is to be married, to get an establishment and a rich husband to support her. How is the child to learn good from evil? God help the dear little souls! and if they keep one iota of the sweet, oncalculatin’ trust, the divine innocence of childhood, it is by the direct grace of God, and no thanks to the poor worldlings and sinners by whom they are surrounded.
Amongst the marvelous wonders of God’s universe to me one of the greatest mysteries is this, how a good God, a just, pitiful God, should send into such hands as He duz such little white souls.
Some frivolous young girl, whose highest thought and ambition has never soared above her hair ribbon, some brainless boy, whose deepest desire and highest aim has been to wear as small a boot as he could, and contract hopeless debts for hair oil and cheap cigars and whiskey. In some unhappy season, when circuses were not possible, and wishing for a kindred excitement, they rush into matrimony. And into these hands, joined by lowest links, these hands defiled by sin, and weak with the utter weakness of unreasonin’ selfishness and folly, is sent a little pure soul out of Paradise.
And this little child must grope in the dark shadows caused by the denseness of their ignorance. Suffer forever physically, morally, mentally from the evil, the total depravity of their hereditary and teachings. Suffer herself and grow up in the black shadow to transmit its hopeless darkness and guilt down to other generations. Strange, strange, most marvelous of mysteries, why this should be so. But I can’t bear to even look on this dretful picture even in hours of eppisodin’, it is bad enough and strange enough to look in Christian homes, amongst meetin’ house brothers and sisters, and see how the little ones are maltreated.
It looks dretful disagreeable to me, to see a young child whipped for what we do ourselves. Now, I wuz at one of our neighbors’ the other day (one of them that complains the most of our treatment of little Delight), and she has got a young child of her own, some four, or half-past four years of age. And when I went in she wuz whippin’ little Kate with a stick, her face all swelled up with what she called religious principle (I called it anger), but, howsumever, it hain’t no matter what the name on’t wuz, her face wuz all red and inflamed. And she, weighin’ from two to three hundred pounds, wuz standin’ over that little mite of humanity, that she herself brought into the world, for better or worse, stood over it, grippin’ with one hard, red hand the little tender arm, leavin’ great red marks with her voyalence, and layin’ on the stick with the other, for she said she had lied.
SHE WUZ WHIPPIN’ LITTLE KATE, HER FACE ALL SWELLED UP WITH WHAT SHE CALLED RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE.
Page [157].