The Reward of Work for the Lowly.—I remember to have read of a traveler who was shipwrecked. He seemed to have been a dissolute, young Englishman, though of culture enough to read and write. He was held captive on one of the South Sea islands for several years, the natives keeping him out of sight whenever a vessel was near-by. They saw that he was of a superior culture to themselves, and they had built him a hut and given him everything to make him happy. They waited on his instructions and he taught them many things, and for years he had blessed them as much as a dissolute, immoral man could. Finally, however, he managed to escape. One day he saw a ship approaching the island, and he got behind some rocks and put off in a canoe. The natives saw him and made after him. It was a race for life. He finally succeeded in getting so near the vessel that they threw him a rope and pulled him on board—a strange looking creature, all his clothes in tatters and his hair unshorn. He was in great agitation, but as soon as he could speak he told them his story, and there was this fleet of canoes crowding around the vessel to corroborate his account. And the natives took up a wail, that he was going away from them, he, their only link to the civilized world, was going to leave them, and their hearts were full of sorrow. They wanted him to come back and give them one farewell embrace; but he would not trust himself in their midst. But they did this: the sailors tied a rope around him and lowered him over the side of the ship, and then the natives rowed by in their canoes and kissed the poor scoundrel’s feet in token of gratitude.
Oh, what a blessing it is to be permitted to lift others! How thankful those colored people at the South are for their teachers and helpers! It is a success, thank God! See the gratitude that swells up in their hearts; see their eagerness to follow their instructions; see the endeavors they make to copy the examples that are set before them.
* * * We are enabled to be personal sharers in this work; and we can, by prayer and alms, thus express to Him who is over all, God, blessed forever, our thanksgiving.—Rev. A. H. Plumb.
Hope for the Future.—[This veteran friend of the Freedman, after enlarging upon the evils to which the country is exposed by prevailing ignorance and vice, continued as follows:]
Is there any light? When Judge Tourgee wrote his first book, “The Fool’s Errand,” there appeared to be a sort of hopelessness in all the air; but the next book, “Bricks without Straw,” let the light through the crevices. He discovered and unfolded the remedy. It is educate! Educate the masses by educating the children! It is the fear of God and the love of man in active operation which make the individual his brother’s keeper, his brother’s helper. It is by expanding the individual conscience to take in fully and largely his individual responsibility, and re-awakening it among those who are more or less enlightened already.
The American Missionary Association is the mother of a big household. She is pure, sweet-tempered, patient and persevering. She entered the field of contest early and is proud of her scars. She has stood at the doors of church pews which would not open, and endured the contempt and derision of the unthinking in her school-house receptions; her sons have lost arms and legs and lives in her service; but she looks ever forward for her final reward, when vast multitudes shall rise up to call her blessed. My friends, give help to this Association, and you help in the most direct way the cause of Universal Education.
But let me say a word for Howard University. It has received pronounced commendation from both the friends and the enemies of colored men. A representative friend says of it: “It recognizes the complete manhood of a man and the complete womanhood of a woman.” An enemy says: “It makes gentlemen and ladies of niggers!”
It duly claims for itself equality of rights for all men, and limits knowledge not to color but to capacity. May the Lord bless and prosper it till its students and graduates shall be honored in all the world!
The Fisk University will ever be memorable for the wonderful struggle, perseverance and final success of the Jubilee Singers. Theirs is the history, in a brief compass, of their race. It is a prophecy to which we of this generation should take heed. Here were slavery, emancipation, want; then journeyings almost without hope—none except in God; then the dawn, broadening and widening till the full day came! Turned out of hotels in hate; pushed from railways in disgust and blasphemy; then received with delight and honor by kings and princes, queens and princesses everywhere; men, women and children crying with joy at the plaint of their song, and clapping their hands by the thousands in their praise!