Iola Leroy - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (suggested reading txt) 📗

we have never had a country with tender, precious memories to fill our eyes with tears, or glad reminiscences to thrill our hearts with pride and joy. We have been aliens and outcasts in the land of our birth. But I want my pupils to do all in their power to make this country worthy of their deepest devotion and loftiest patriotism. I want them to feel that its glory is their glory, its dishonor their shame.”

“Our esteemed friend, Mrs. Watson,” said Iola, “sends regrets that she cannot come, but has kindly favored us with a poem, called the ‘Rallying Cry.’ In her letter she says that, although she is no longer young, she feels that in the conflict for the right there’s room for young as well as old. She hopes that we will here unite the enthusiasm of youth with the experience of age, and that we will have a pleasant and profitable conference. Is it your pleasure that the poem be read at this stage of our proceedings, or later on?”

“Let us have it now,” answered Harry, “and I move that Miss Delany be chosen to lend to the poem the charm of her voice.”

“I second the motion,” said Iola, smiling, and handing the poem to Miss Delany.

Miss Delany took the poem and read it with fine effect. The spirit of the poem had entered her soul.

A Rallying Cry

Oh, children of the tropics,
Amid our pain and wrong
Have you no other mission
Than music, dance, and song?

When through the weary ages
Our dripping tears still fall,
Is this a time to dally
With pleasure’s silken thrall?

Go, muffle all your viols;
As heroes learn to stand,
With faith in God’s great justice
Nerve every heart and hand.

Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
Till from the dust you’ve lifted
Our long-dishonored name;

And crowned that name with glory
By deeds of holy worth,
To shine with light emblazoned,
The noblest name on earth.

Count life a dismal failure,
Unblessing and unblest,
That seeks ’mid ease inglorious
For pleasure or for rest.

With courage, strength, and valor
Your lives and actions brace;
Shrink not from toil or hardship,
And dangers bravely face.

Engrave upon your banners,
In words of golden light,
That honor, truth, and justice
Are more than godless might.

Above earth’s pain and sorrow
Christ’s dying face I see;
I hear the cry of anguish:⁠—
“Why hast thou forsaken me?”

In the pallor of that anguish
I see the only light,
To flood with peace and gladness
Earth’s sorrow, pain, and night.

Arrayed in Christly armor
’Gainst error, crime, and sin,
The victory can’t be doubtful,
For God is sure to win.

The next paper was by Miss Iola Leroy, on the “Education of Mothers.”

“I agree,” said Rev. Eustace, of St. Mary’s parish, “with the paper. The great need of the race is enlightened mothers.”

“And enlightened fathers, too,” added Miss Delany, quickly. “If there is anything I chafe to see it is a strong, hearty man shirking his burdens, putting them on the shoulders of his wife, and taking life easy for himself.”

“I always pity such mothers,” interposed Iola, tenderly.

“I think,” said Miss Delany, with a flash in her eye and a ring of decision in her voice, “that such men ought to be drummed out of town!” As she spoke, there was an expression which seemed to say, “And I would like to help do it!”

Harry smiled, and gave her a quick glance of admiration.

“I do not think,” said Mrs. Stillman, “that we can begin too early to teach our boys to be manly and self-respecting, and our girls to be useful and self-reliant.”

“You know,” said Mrs. Leroy, “that after the war we were thrown upon the nation a homeless race to be gathered into homes, and a legally unmarried race to be taught the sacredness of the marriage relation. We must instill into our young people that the true strength of a race means purity in women and uprightness in men; who can say, with Sir Galahad:⁠—

‘My strength is the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.’

And where this is wanting neither wealth nor culture can make up the deficiency.”

“There is a field of Christian endeavor which lies between the schoolhouse and the pulpit, which needs the hand of a woman more in private than in public,” said Miss Delany.

“Yes, I have often felt the need of such work in my own parish. We need a union of women with the warmest hearts and clearest brains to help in the moral education of the race,” said Rev. Eustace.

“Yes,” said Iola, “if we would have the prisons empty we must make the homes more attractive.”

“In civilized society,” replied Dr. Latimer, “there must be restraint either within or without. If parents fail to teach restraint within, society has her checkreins without in the form of chain-gangs, prisons, and the gallows.”

The closing paper was on the “Moral Progress of the Race,” by Hon. Dugdale. He said: “The moral progress of the race was not all he could desire, yet he could not help feeling that, compared with other races, the outlook was not hopeless. I am so sorry to see, however, that in some States there is an undue proportion of colored people in prisons.”

“I think,” answered Professor Langhorne, of Georgia, “that this is owing to a partial administration of law in meting out punishment to colored offenders. I know red-handed murderers who walk in this Republic unwhipped of justice, and I have seen a colored woman sentenced to prison for weeks for stealing twenty-five cents. I knew a colored girl who was executed for murder when only a child in years. And it was through the intervention of a friend of mine, one of the bravest young men of the South, that a boy of fifteen was saved from the gallows.”

“When I look,” said Mr. Forest, “at the slow growth of modern civilization⁠—the ages which have been consumed in reaching our present altitude, and see how we have outgrown slavery, feudalism, and religious persecutions, I cannot despair of the future of the race.”

“Just now,” said