But, sez I solemnly, if the Lord is the Leader, if He stands in front of the army, and it is His hand that beckons us forward, and He who passes over in front of the army, we shall pass through in safety, and the nation will be saved. The supremacy will remain in the hands of the educated men and women of the South till the illiterates become safe leaders to themselves and others by education and the civilizing influences of the Bible and good teachers. The supremacy would be taken out of the whiskey bathed hands of the loafer rabble in Northern cities, and remain in the safer hands of educated men and women, till the lower classes rise up by the same safe means of education and enlightenment, when they too will become safe leaders and teachers of the best. And I sez, How will this Nation find any safer means, any fairer way? It offers safety to the imperilled present, it offers a hope, an incentive for the strugglin’ future. The poorest boy and the poorest girl would have this hope, this incentive to learn—for the royal road is free for all, beggar or child of wealth. The path opens right up from the alley to the President’s chair, from the tenement to the Capitol, jest as sure as from the mansion house or the university. It is safe another way, so it seems to me, because it is right and just. Justice may seem to lead through strange ways sometimes—thorny roads, steep and rugged mounts, and deep, dark wildernesses, while the path of expedience and pleasant selfishness may seem to open up a flowery way. But every time, every single time, Justice is the safe one to foller. And it is she who will lead you out into a safe place, while the rosy clouds that hang over the path of selfish expedience will anon, or even sooner, turn black, and lower down, and close up the way in darkness and despair. This seems to me a safe way for the imperilled South while it is passin’ through this crisis, and the light shines jest as fair and fresh in the newer day that gleams in the distance. It is shinin’ in the eyes of them that see fur off, fair and beautiful, the New Republic, where there are equal rights, educated suffrage, co-operative labor. Oh! blessed land beyend the swellin’ waves of the unquiet Present! Genieve sees it plain, and so duz Victor. And thousands and thousands of the educated and morally riz up of the colored race see it to-day, and are a strivin’ towards it. [Illustration: “HE WUZ GLAD TO SET DOWN.”] CHAPTER VII. ONE mornin’ I sot off for a walk bein’ set so much of the time, and used as I wuz to bein’ on my feet. I told Josiah I believed I’d lose the use of my lims if I didn’t walk round some. “Wall,” he said, “for his part, he wuz glad to set down, and set there.” That man has always sot more or less. He hain’t never worked the hours that I have, but I wouldn’t want him told that I said it. Good land! it would only agrevate him; he wouldn’t give in that it wuz so.