TWO CONVENTIONS.
During the sitting of the Virginia Republican Convention at Staunton, the members were as free from molestation as they would have been at Worcester, Mass., and the hotels were open for their entertainment, white and black alike. For three days, colored men took their meals in common with white men and women in the public dining-rooms of houses kept by life-long democrats. One day, at the principal hotel, a black man was seen dining with representatives of some of the oldest families of the State; other colored men sat at different tables around the room; while a large number of staunch democrats, men and women, went on with their meals as if the scene was not an unusual one. Whether this is due to a change of sentiment, or to policy induced by fear of the re-adjusters, may be open to doubt, but the fact is significant. No less so is the fact that not a single colored man had a seat in the Convention at Cincinnati. If the unusual treatment of the negro voter in Virginia is due to a change of sentiment, this change is not so observably great in the Union at large. If due to fear, this fear is not so great in other States as in this where the colored line has been broken. This would seem to indicate that a solid front will be maintained longer on national than on State issues. We have discharged our duty in regard to these facts when we have simply stated them. Their cause and significance we leave to others; while we take the opportunity for saying, that not until the negro voter, by his intelligence and virtue, commands the respect of his fellow-citizens, can he be other than an object of contempt and abuse when weak, and of fear when strong; and a source of danger, whether weak or strong.
HARD CASES.
“The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” This is illustrated not alone in the history of families, but of missionary enterprises. Poverty, long continued and excessive, breeds a thousand evils more destructive and more difficult to overcome than poverty itself. The very features of a given case which constitute its strongest appeal for help, are the ones which render it almost impossible to afford relief, however much help is given. This, the experience of all philanthropists, is many times repeated in the history of our work, and the wisest discrimination is necessary to ensure that our efforts shall be made where the greatest good can be done; not necessarily where misery and ignorance utter their loudest wail.
One of our missionaries writes from a field where the people are living very near the line of absolute starvation. They are as ignorant as could be inferred by the most logical mind from their whole past history; they are as bigoted and superstitious as their training can legitimately make them; they are as much in need of what the missionary offers them as a people can be. If he partially educates the children, the Stygian darkness of their homes seems to blot out what they have learned; if he enrolls them in the temperance army, they lose step when they pass the boundary of childhood; if a hopeful revival comes to cheer his heart, causing him to forget his past toils and despair, the converts over whom he rejoiced are swallowed up by the old churches about him, which teach salvation through loud shouting or semi-occasional feet-washing; and his hopes would die, only that there are a few bright ones among the children who have twined themselves about his heart.
Amid the almost universal chorus of rejoicing from all parts of the field over abundant and cheering results, there comes, once in a while, a note like this from one who labors, not less abundantly or acceptably than others, but with more doubtful success.
From another field, the missionary tells of a revival commencing among his own people, which was the signal for desperate rival as well as revival efforts in the other colored churches, directed largely to the end of drawing away from him the results of his labors. He notes a fact which seems to him strange, but one which, we apprehend, is destined to repeat itself with great frequency as the work of education goes on. The colored people seemed less responsive to the efforts which the church, unusually active, puts forth. As the negro becomes more intelligent, we hope and believe that he will prove less highly inflammable; and he should comfort himself with the assurance that the results of all genuine religious revivals belong to the Lord, and we will rejoice in it all, under whatever banner the new recruit marches. The bigotry of sectarianism, which is of ofttimes so trying, should be classed with other sins which the Gospel, rightly preached and broadly illustrated, will in time remove; and, if under educational influence, the negro kindles more slowly to religious zeal, he will doubtless burn more steadily, and in the end yield more light and heat.