"Well, it is wonderful. Somehow these people have passed through the
darkness and laid their hands on God's robe of love and light, and have
been sustained. It seems to me that some things they see clearer through
their tears."
"Mother," said Minnie, "As it is Saturday I will visit some of my
scholars."
"Well, Minnie, I would; you look troubled, and may be you'll feel
better."
"Yes, Mother, I often feel strengthened after visiting some of these
good old souls, and getting glimpses into their inner life. I sometimes
ask them, after listening to the story of their past wrongs, what has
sustained you? What has kept you up? And the almost invariable answer
has been the power of God. Some of these poor old souls, who have been
turned adrift to shift for themselves, don't live by bread alone; they
live by bread and faith in God. I asked one of them a few days since,
Are you not afraid of starving? and the answer was, Not while God
lives."
After Minnie left, she visited a number of lowly cabins. The first one
she entered was the home of an industrious couple who were just making a
start in life. The room in which Minnie was, had no window-lights, only
an aperture that supplied them with light, but also admitted the cold.
"Why don't you have window-lights?" said Minnie.
"Oh we must crawl before we walk;" and yet even in this humble home they
had taken two orphan children of their race, and were giving them food
and shelter. And this kindness to the orphans of their race Minnie
found to be a very praiseworthy practice among some of those people who
were not poorer than themselves.
The next cabin she entered was very neat, though it bore evidences of
poverty. The woman, in referring to the past, told her how her child had
been taken away when it was about two years old, and how she had lost
all trace of him, and would not know him if he stood in her presence.
"How did you feel?" said Minnie.
"I felt as I was going to my grave, but I thought if I wouldn't get
justice here, I would get it in another world."
"My husband," said another, "asked if God is a just God, how would sich
as slavery be, and something answered and said, 'sich shan't always be,'
and you couldn't beat it out of my husband's head that the Spirit didn't
speak to him."
And thus the morning waned away, and Minnie returned calmer than when
she had left. A holy peace stole over her mind. She felt that for high
and low, rich and poor, there was a common refuge. That there was no
corner so dark that the light of heaven could not shine through, and
that these people in their ignorance and simplicity had learned to look
upon God as a friend coming near to them in their sorrows, and taking
cognizance of their wants and woes.
Minnie loved to listen to these beautiful stories of faith and trust. To
her they were grand inspirations to faith and duty. Sometimes Minnie
would think, when listening to some dear aged saint, I can't teach these
people religion, I must learn from them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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