the word—were always ready to contribute
to educational and missionary funds, while denying,
under the severest penalties, all education to those
most needing it, and all true missionary effort—the
spiritual enlightenment for which they were famishing.
Then our masters lacked that fervent charity, the love
of Christ in the heart, which if they had possessed
they could not have treated us as they did. They
would have remembered the golden rule: “Do
unto others as ye would that men should do to you.”
Possessing absolute power over the bodies and souls
of their slaves, and grown rich from their unrequited
toil, they became possessed by the demon of avarice
and pride, and lost sight of the most vital of the
Christly qualities.
Freedom after slavery.
* * * *
*
Coming north.
As before stated, we arrived in Memphis on the Fourth
of July, 1865. My first effort as a freeman was
to get something to do to sustain myself and wife
and a babe of a few months, that was born at the salt
works. I succeeded in getting a room for us,
and went to work the second day driving a public carriage.
I made enough to keep us and pay our room rent.
By our economy we managed to get on very well.
I worked on, hoping to go further north, feeling somehow
that it would be better for us there; when, one day
I ran across a man who knew my wife’s mother.
He said to me: “Why, your wife’s
mother went back up the river to Cincinnati.
I knew her well and the people to whom she belonged.”
This information made us eager to take steps to find
her. My wife was naturally anxious to follow
the clue thus obtained, in hopes of finding her mother,
whom she had not seen since the separation at Memphis
years before. We, therefore, concluded to go
as far as Cincinnati, at any rate, and endeavor to
get some further information of mother. My wife
seemed to gather new strength in learning this news
of her mother, meager though it was. After a
stay in Memphis of six weeks we went on to Cincinnati,
hopeful of meeting some, at least, of the family that,
though free, in defiance of justice, had been consigned
to cruel and hopeless bondage—bondage in
violation of civil as well as moral law. We felt
it was almost impossible that we should see any one
that we ever knew; but the man had spoken so earnestly
and positively regarding my mother-in-law that we
were not without hope. On arriving at Cincinnati,
our first inquiry was about her, my wife giving her
name and description; and, fortunately, we came upon
a colored man who said he knew of a woman answering
to the name and description which my wife gave of
her mother, and he directed us to the house where she
was stopping. When we reached the place to which
we had been directed, my wife not only found her mother
but one of her sisters. The meeting was a joyful
one to us all. No mortal who has not experienced
it can imagine the feeling of those who meet again
after long years of enforced separation and hardship
and utter ignorance of one another’s condition
and place of habitation. I questioned them as
to when and where they had met, and how it happened
that they were now together. My mother-in-law
then began the following narrative:
