"The life led by a comfortable English or American farmer would represent wicked waste and shameful indulgence to a much richer French peasant. I, myself, know a laborer on wages of less than twenty shillings a week, who by thrift has bought ten acres of the magnificent garden land between Fontainebleau and the Seine, worth many thousand pounds, on which grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and the famous dessert grapes; yet who, with all his wealth and abundance, denies himself and his two children meat on Sundays, and even a drink of the wine which he grows and makes for the market."
"The French peasant has great virtues, but he has the defects of his virtues, and his home life is far from idyllic. He is laborious, shrewd, enduring, frugal, self-reliant, sober, honest and capable of intense self-control for a distant reward; but that reward is property in land, in pursuit of which he may become as pitiless as a bloodhound."
"Take him for all in all, he is a strong and noteworthy force in modern civilization. Though his country has not the vast mineral wealth of England, nor her gigantic development in manufactures and in commerce, he has made France one of the richest, most solid, most progressive countries on earth. He is quite as frugal and patient as the German, and is far more ingenious and skillful. He has not the energy of the Englishman, or the elastic spring of the American, but he is far more saving and much more provident. He 'wastes nothing, and spends little,' and thus, since his country comes next to England and America in natural resources and national energy, [a] he has built up one of the strongest, most self-contained and most durable of modern peoples."
A very significant parallel is presented in these two pictures to one that may be drawn between the Negro of 1861 and the Negro of 1961. The Civil War corresponded to the Revolution in France. It broke the fetters of the slave, and made his future a possibility. If, now, the Negro will fill out the beautiful picture in imitation of the French peasant, he must imitate him in rigid economy and in the ambition to own his own land and his own home. We do not of course advise the penuriousness of the miser, but the Negro is in little danger on that score. The grandest impulse, even in economy and in obtaining property, is found in a genuine Christian character. This is the work that our ministers and teachers are endeavoring to accomplish, but we are sure It will aid them to urge this practical saving of money, curtailing of needless expense, and the making of most determined efforts to become owners of their own homes.
The Stereopticon In New England.
Rev. Stanley E. Lathrop, Sherwood, Tenn.
Secretary Roy of Chicago started an excellent thing when he arranged the Stereopticon pictures to illustrate the great work of our Association. After two months spent in traveling with these pictures and giving explanatory lectures concerning them, the writer desires to testify to their usefulness, and to express his thanks to the good people of New England for the interest they have shown, and the cordial reception they have given him in his travels. Evidently the work of the Association is "on a boom" in New England. Everywhere a great many questions were asked, and great many expressions of hearty interest manifested. During eight weeks, the audiences averaged over four hundred in number, in spite of "la grippe" and the rainy, sloppy weather that prevailed. In this time we traveled over five thousand miles, giving the Stereopticon lecture in forty-three different places, and making twenty-three other addresses upon the work, to audiences numbering in several cases nearly a thousand, and a total aggregate of over twenty-five thousand people. The descendants of the Pilgrims are thoroughly interested in our missionary work. The pictures of the people, buildings, etc., among the ten millions of people among whom our work is going on, in the West and South, were greatly enjoyed, with an evident increase of interest and of contribution. In view of all my past experiences, of four years of military service in the South, and my twelve years of missionary work in that region, this two months of travel and intercourse with so many intelligent friends and helpers of our Association has been a privilege and an enjoyment. God bless the good people of New England, and the grand work of our American Missionary Association!