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| FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER. 763 man ? * * * Spare no expense to make the last hours of his (Stephens') life as bright as possible with sympathy. * * * Now, my friend, fulfil this to the letter. Oh, is it not a privilege, if you are sistorless and lonely, to be a sister to the human race, and to place your heart where it maj throb close to down-trodden humanity ?" On another occasion in writing from the lecturing field hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia, the sympathy she felt for the fugitives found expression in the following language: " How fared the girl who came robed in male attire? Do write me every time you write how many come to your house; and, my dear friend, if you have that mach in hand of mine from my books, will you please pay the Vigilance Committee two or three dollars for me to help carry on the glorious enterprise. Now, please do not write back that yon are not going to do any such thing. Let me explain a few matters to you. In the first place, I am able to give something. In the second place, I am willing to do so. * * * Oh, life is fading away, and we have but an hour of timel Should we not, therefore, endeavor to let Us history gladden the earth ? The nearer we ally ourselves to the wants and woes of humanity in the spirit of Christ, the closer we get to the great heart of God; the nearer we stand by the beating of the pulse of universal love." Doubtless it has not often been found necessary for persons desirous of contributing to benevolent causes to first have to remove anticipated objections. Nevertheless in some cases it would seem necessary to admonish her not to be quite so liberal; to husband with a little more care her hard-earned income for a " rainy day," as her health was not strong. " My health," she wrote at that time, " is not very strong, and I may have to give up before long. I may have to yield on account of my voice, which I think, has become somewhat affected. I might be so glad if it was only so that I could go home among iny own kindred and people, but slavery comes up like a dark shadow between me and the home of my childhood. Well, perhaps it is my lot to die from home and be buried among strangers ; and yet I do not regret that I have espoused this cause; perhaps 1 have been of some service to the cause of human rights, and I hope the consciousness that I have not lived in vain, will be a halo of peace around my dying bed; a heavenly sunshine light-'ing up the dark valley and shadow of death." Notwithstanding this yearning for home, she was far from desiring at her death, a burial in a Slave State, as the following clearly expressed views show: " I have lived in the midst of oppression and wrong, and I am saddened by every captured fugitive in the North ; a blow has been struck at my freedom, in every hunted and down-trodden slave in the South; North and South have both been guilty, and they that am must suffer." Also, in harmony with the above sentiments, came a number of verses appropriate to her desires in this respect, one of which we here give as a sample: " Make me a grave where'er yon will, In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill, Make it among earth's humblest graves, But not in a land where men are alaree." |