She entered the halls of song, free for all, rich or poor, and heard
melodious sounds such as she had never dreamed of hearin’ this side
of heaven. And the musicians wuz all of her own music-lovin’ race,
and the melody almost seemed to have the secret of Paradise in it, so
heavenly sweet it wuz.
All through this favored land out in the rich country wuz immense
co-operative farms stocked with sleek herds, and worked with new and
wonderful machinery invented by her own people.
And in the Capitol, in the chair of the ruler, sot one of her own race,
wise and beneficent. And all the offices and chairs of State wuz filled
by the colored people.
Over all the land wuz prosperity, over all the land wuz peace, for
there wuz no conflictin’ elements of diverse and alien races and
interests mixed up in it; and purified by past sufferings, grown wise
by the direct teachings of God, the rulers ruled wisely, the people
listened gladly, and the teachings of the Christ who more than two
thousand years before come upon earth wuz fulfilled to His chosen
people, whom He had brought up out of the depths to show His glory to
the heathens.
She saw—for her vision wuz ontrammelled by time or space—she saw the
wise and kind influences of the Republic stretching out like the rays
from a star into the darkest corners and deepest jungles of this great
Eastern Hemisphere—she saw the light slowly dawning in these depths.
She saw missionaries ever goin’ into these places from this New
Republic with the Bible in their hands and its sweet wisdom in their
lives, and then ever goin’ back with some new recruits gathered from
the lowest places, to be in time educated in all good things, and then
sent back as missionaries to their own tribes.
And the sunlight lay lovingly on this land like the love of God long
hidden under the cloud of His judgments, but now seeming the sweeter
from what had gone before.
And from all these cozy homes in city and in country she heard the
steady tread, tread of the children walkin’ along to the music of the
future, the future of accomplishment, of education, of promise. She saw
them forever learnin’ new things, the newer things that wuz forever
displacin’ the old—newer, grander, broader views and aims. For heaven
and earth wuz drawin’ nearer to each other, and the era of peace on
earth, good-will to man had come.
Long did Genieve set there wrapped in the glory of what she
saw—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know. God knoweth.
At last the voice of little Snow aroused her, and she took her up in
her arms.
But the light remained in her face.
Little Snow come into our room in a few minutes, and she sez, “Genny
took me up in her lap, and her face shined.”
And I sez, “Like enough, darlin’. She is one of the Lord’s anointed,
anyway.”
And Josiah sez—he had come back, and wuz a layin’ on the
lounge—“Probable the sun wuz a shinin’ into her face.”
And Snow sez, “The sun had gone down; it wasn’t shinin’ into her room.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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