 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
| 778 THE UyDEROROUND RAIL ROAD, another—what shall I call it?—meeting-place. It is a brush arbor. And what pray is that? Shall I call it an edifice or an improvised meeting-botue? Well, it is called a brash arbor. It is a kind of brash house with seats, and a kind of covering made partly, I rather think, of branches of trees, and an humble place for pulpit. I lectured in a place •where they seemed to have no other church; but I spoke at a house. In Glenville, a little out-of-the-way place, I spent part of a week. There they have two unfinished churches. • One has not a single pane of glass, and the same aperture that admits the light also gives ingress to the air; and the other one, I rather think,.is less finished (ban that. I spoke in one, end then the white people gave me a hall, and quite a number attended. * * * I am now at Union Springs, where I shall probably room with three women. But amid all this roughing it in the bush, I find a field of work where kindness and hospitality have thrown their sunshine around my way. And Oh what a field of work is here! How much one needs the Spirit of our dear Master to make one's life a living, loving force to help men to.bighar planes of thought and action. I am giving all my lectures with free admission; but Btill I get along, and the way has been opening for me almost ever since I have been South. Oh, if some more of our young women would only consecrate their lives to the work of upbuilding the race ! Oh, if I could only Bee our young men and -women aiming to build up a future for themselves which would grandly contrast with the past —with its pain, ignorance and low social condition." It may be well to add that Mrs. Harper's letters from which we have copied were simply private, never intended for publication; and while they bear obvious marks of truthfulness, discrimination and impartiality, it becomes us to say that a more strictly conscientious woman we have never known. Returning to Philadelphia after many months of hard labor in the South, Mrs. Harper, instead of seeking needed rest and recreation, scarcely allows a day to pass without seeking to aid in the reformation of the outcast and degraded. The earnest advice which she gives on the subject of temperance and moral reforms generally causes some to reflect, even among adults, and induces a number of poor children to attend day and Sabbath-schools. The condition of this class, she feels, appeals loudly for a remedy to respectable and intelligent colored citizens; and whilst not discouraged, she is often quite saddened at the supineness of the better class. During the past summer when it was too warm to labor in the South she spent several months in this field without a farthing's reward. She assisted in organizing a Sabbath-school, and accepted the office of Assistant Superintendent uuder the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. Mrs. Harper reads the best magazines and ablest weeklies, as well as more elaborate works, not excepting such authors as DC Tocqueville, Mill, Buskin, Buckle, Guizot, Ac. In espousing the cause of the oppressed as a poet and lecturer, had she neglected to fortify her mind in the manner she did, she would have been weighed and found wanting long since. Before friends and foes, the learned and the unlearned, North and South, Mrs. Harper has pleaded the cause of her race in a manner that bas commanded the greatest respect; indeed, it is hardly too much to say, that during |