Atlanta University, December 22, 1885, on the forty-eighth anniversary
of the birth of the dead president, Prof. Bumstead, who is now president
of Atlanta University, spoke the following words about Mr. Ware’s
boyhood and early life:
“It was a pleasant boyhood, and its joys were innocent and wholesome
ones. A white rabbit, a goat, and two hounds were the pets with which he
played at home. He threw the line for speckled trout in the meadow
brooks, and he rowed his boat upon the pond to gather the fragrant
waterlilies.
“It was an industrious boyhood. In summer he gathered blueberries,
huckleberries and blackberries for market. When twelve or thirteen years
old he spent his school vacations in service as a clerk in a village
store. When fourteen he cultivated and harvested thirty dollars’ worth
of vegetables.
“It was a conscientious boyhood. His mother has no recollection of his
ever being untruthful. His village teachers all commended him for his
unvarying conformity to the right in school. It is said that when he was
fifteen years old he had never been absent a day nor had a mark for
tardiness. When serving as clerk in the village store his employer
showed him a certain article which had some defect about it, not very
readily noticed, and bade him say nothing about it. He promptly told his
employer that he could obey no such instructions.
“It was an ambitious boyhood—ambitious, of course, in the best sense of
the word. He eagerly seized upon and improved every opportunity for
self-improvement. He read the best books and periodicals. He heard
lectures from such men as Beecher, Phillips, Curtis, Everett and Gough.
“In the autumn of 1859 he found himself a member of the largest Freshman
class which at that time had ever entered Yale College. Here for the
first time I grasped the hand and looked into the earnest eyes of my
friend. I remember him in those early college days for the unaffected
modesty of his bearing, the simplicity of his dress, his manifest hatred
of all pretense and shams, his keen sense of humor, and his dry wit. His
professedly religious life had been begun at the Norwich Academy but a
few months before he entered college. Both in the academy and college he
was active in religious work, and his face was set like a flint against
all forms of iniquity.”
Mr. Ware was married in 1869 to Miss Sarah Jane Twichell, of
Plantsville, Conn. His wife served with him long and faithfully at
Atlanta University, and continued to serve long after he had passed to
his rest. She was left a widow with three daughters and one son. She
herself died subsequently. The son has since been graduated from Yale
University and from Union Theological Seminary, New York City, and is
now chaplain of Atlanta University.
Mr. Ware was a good man who believed that God had made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and that Christ
had redeemed us to God out of every kindred, tongue and people and
nation; he believed in the common origin and common destiny of the whole
human family, in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and,
therefore, recognized no distinctions among men except those founded on
character or merit. Along with a host of pioneer New England
missionaries who came South to help us shortly after the war Mr. Ware’s
name deserves to be honored and revered by a grateful people to the end
of time.
LXXXII.
AN ANTE-BELLUM NEGRO PREACHER.
Once upon a time I heard Bishop Fitzgerald of the M. E. Church, South,
tell the following story.
I give it in his own words:
“The ante-bellum negro preachers were the product of the times, and
differed from the mass of their race only in the fact that they were
shrewder and more eloquent. Among them were many men of piety and good
sense and burning zeal. In others there was a combination of cunning,
superstition, excitability and volubility almost indescribable.
[Illustration: “SAINT PAUL WAS A MUCH BETTER MAN DAN I IS, AN’ DEY
WHUPPED HIM MOS’ EV’YWHAR HE WENT.”]
“To the former class belonged a noted negro preacher of Culpepper
County, Va., an old man of blameless life and venerable appearance, who
so entirely commanded the confidence of the white people, and whose
influence with the people of his own race was so wholesome, that no one
thought of enforcing against him a statute then existing which required
that in any gathering where six or more negroes were assembled a white
man should be present. Despite this statute Uncle Jack came and went as
he pleased, trusted by the whites and venerated by the blacks.
“At one of his meetings a party of mischievous young white men planned
to have a little fun at the old man’s expense. Waiting near the door of
the rustic chapel until the services were concluded the company
approached the old preacher and its spokesman said:
“‘Old man, we are officers of the law and are patrolling this beat. You
have violated the law, and we are going to whip you for it. Come along
with us.’
“They led the way to the thicket near at hand. Uncle Jack followed in
silence.
“‘Have you nothing to say, old man?’ asked the spokesman.
“‘Nothin’, Marstah,’ said Uncle Jack.
“‘Perhaps you don’t think that we really intend to whip you,’ said the
young man, ‘but we will. Have you nothing to say to that?’
“‘No, sah,’ said Uncle Jack; ‘I has nothin’ to say. De fac’ is, Marstah,
I has oftened wondar’d that I has nevah been whupped befo’. Saint Paul
was a much bettah man dan I is, an’ dey whupped him ’mos’ ev’ywhar he
went. I has preached much longah dan he did, an’ I has nevah got a
whuppin’ in my life. It seems to me dat I ought to have at leas’ a few
licks!’
“The young scapegraces looked at each other in confusion, and it is
needless to say that Uncle Jack was not whipped.”
LXXXIII.
PURITY OF CHARACTER.
Boys and girls, if you will take a plum or an apricot you will find that
over the outer coat of either one of them there glows a bloom more
beautiful than the fruit itself—a soft, delicate powder that overspreads
its rich colors. Now, if you strike your hand over that you will find
that the bloom will at once depart, and when it goes it is gone forever.
It only appears once. You go out into the flower garden early in the
morning. The flower that hangs there impearled with dew, like so many
jewels—you shake it once, so that the drops or beads will roll off. You
take that same flower, after the dew has been shaken off, and you may
sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made again
what it was when the dew fell on it so gently from heaven. Again, on a
frosty morning, you may see the panes of glass covered with landscapes,
mountains, lakes and trees, blended into a fantastic picture. Now, lay
your hand upon the glass and by the scratch of your finger or by the
warmth of the palm; all the delicate tracery will be obliterated—all the
beautiful picture will vanish, and you could not reproduce it, although
you tried for a hundred years. Once wiped out, the picture on the glass
is wiped out forever.
So there is in youth a purity of character which, when once touched and
defiled, can never be restored—a fringe more delicate than frostwork or
the dew on the flowers or the bloom on the plum or apricot. Character is
a thing which, when once stained, can never be again what it was. When a
young boy or girl leaves the home of his or her parents, with the
blessing of a mother’s tears upon the cheek or the blessing of a
father’s hand upon the head, if earthly purity of character be once lost
it is a loss that can never be made up again. Though by God’s mercy the
sin may be forgiven, yet its effects cannot but be in some way felt, and
the boy or girl will never be what he or she was before.
LXXXIV.
[Illustration: EACH ONE of US of IMPORTANCE]
Never think yourself, whoever you are, of small importance. Never think
that it is of little account whether you are good or bad, or what your
example is to others. Each mere particle of dust, every tiny grain of
sand, the minutest atom, is an active agent in the whole universe. So
each one of us is of importance in our sphere, however isolated and
insignificant that sphere may appear to be.
A few particles of dust in a watch will stop its motion; small barnacles
on a ship’s bottom will hinder its journey; and a little shifting sand
in the great river will change its current. So, little boys and girls
exercise their influence for weal or woe upon the world. Don’t you
believe for once that the world is moved only by the great forces, the
great men and the great enterprises. Little folks and little things
likewise help to move the world along. Great generals are necessary; but
what would they be without the soldiers behind them?
Every boy has his part to do in the great work of the world, and every
girl has her part to do. Every boy and girl is of importance; how
important nobody knows, and perhaps never shall know until eternity
reveals it. There ought to be in this truth great encouragement and
great comfort to all who think that they are insignificant and have no
work to do in this busy world. Perhaps in the distant future many a man
who estimated himself great shall be found to have been insignificant,
because of unfaithfulness to his trust; and many another man who perhaps
thought himself of little worth will find himself glorified because he
did what he could.
LXXXV.
[Illustration: THE POETRY OF LIFE]
Poetry is more than verse-making, more than the jingle of words, more
than the sing-song of meter.
Sunshine and flowers, brightness and joyousness, the harmonies of the
passions and the inspiration of love—these are the poetry of life.
Without poetry, life is a tread-mill; a veil of tears; a dreary waste.
Even religion is only a crucifixion—a death to sin—if we have not the
resurrection into the new life of joy.
Many of us make hard work of life by bending our backs too much. We get
dirt in our eyes by keeping them too near the dust, and we get
narrow-minded and selfish by our narrow radius of vision.
To become truly rich we must stand in the dignity of our manhood; walk
in the integrity of our calling; and run in the rhythm of a poetic
nature. Out of harmony is out of sphere. The dignity, integrity and
poetry of life are all lost by inharmony; only the ashes of
disappointment are left; but with these we can dance at our work, and
turn irksome duties into joyous privileges. Instead of moping in the
valley of the shadow of death, we may live in the sunshine, where
beautiful flowers and luscious fruits and delicious sweets grow.
Yes; yes; we might as well live in light as in darkness; make life a
joyful song as a funeral dirge; live amid glory as shame. With a radiant
countenance, a beaming eye, and a loving hand, we can do more work and
have more to do; we can get more out of life and have more life to
enjoy; we can scatter more sunshine and have more left for ourselves.
Christ came to bring to every toiler, heaven. Let us get into it
quickly. It is here—and here only—that we find the poetry of life.
LXXXVI
ON BEING IN EARNEST.
Of ten men who fail in life, nine men fail for want of zeal,
earnestness, courage, where one man fails for want of ability. This
half-heartedness, this lack of zeal, this timidity, this shrinking from
duty and hard tasks is seen on all sides and among all classes. But I
tell you, boys and girls, that the least enviable people in all the
world are those who think that nothing is particularly worth while, that
it does not matter much how a thing is done if it is only done with; who
dwaddle along in a shabby sort of a way, considering only their own
ease, with little sense of responsibility, and with no shame in being
shirks. Every boy should make up his mind to live a round, full,
earnest, intense life. Every girl should do the same. Don’t be
satisfied, boys and girls, to be jellyfishes, with only a capacity for
drawing in nourishment and lingering on until your time comes to die. Be
vertebrates, people of backbone, purpose, aim, enthusiasm, earnestness.
At a public dinner President Roosevelt asked Governor Odell of New York
if he knew anything worth doing that was not hard in the doing, and the
governor could think of nothing. As a rule perhaps there is nothing, and
yet things once hard in the doing become easy as skill is gained by
repetition. Be in earnest, be faithful and resolute, and it will act
like a tonic, giving light to the eyes, springiness to the step, and
buoyancy to the heart.
[Illustration: BEING IN EARNEST.]
Don’t be overcome by your circumstances. No matter how distracting a
man’s surroundings may be, he may yet be able to focus his powers
completely and to marshal them with certainty if he makes up his mind to
do it. If things go hard with the self-mastered man or boy, he will be
able to trample upon difficulties and to use his stumbling-blocks as
stepping-stones. If a great misfortune overtake him he will simply use
it as a starting point for a new departure, a turning point for more
determined effort. He may be weighed down with sorrow and suffering, but
he always starts anew with redoubled determination to do the thing he
has set his heart upon doing. He will not be discouraged; he will not
give up; he will fight it out to the end. Put him in prison, and he will
write the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Deprive him of his eyesight and he will
write the “Paradise Lost.”
It was the spirit of earnestness which fired the soul of Martin Luther
at the Diet of Worms, who, after being urged to recant, said: “Here I
stand; I can do no other; God help me!” It was this spirit which
characterized William Lloyd Garrison, the champion of the abolition of
slavery, who, when he was urged to stop fighting slavery, exclaimed: “I
will not equivocate, I will not retract, I will not be moved one inch,
and I will be heard.” So be in earnest, boys and girls, at home, at
school, at work and at play. It will help you a thousand-fold.
LXXXVII.
YOUNG PEOPLE AND LIFE INSURANCE.
Every little boy and girl, and, of course, every man and woman, of the
colored race in America should carry a life insurance policy of some
kind in some reliable company. In this matter the old people, as in some
other things, ought to set the example for the young, but there are some
reasons, growing chiefly out of their previous condition of slavery, why
our mothers and fathers have not, as a rule, taken very largely to the
business of having their lives insured. But because our parents have
been negligent in this matter there is no reason why the younger
generation should be. Life insurance is a good thing, boys and girls—one
of the best things in the world. American life insurance companies alone
pay to policy-holders or estates of policy-holders over one hundred
million dollars annually. Only a very small and almost insignificant
portion of this vast sum goes into the hands of colored people, and for
the reason that very few colored people carry life insurance policies.
[Illustration: TAKING OUT A POLICY.]
Now use a little common sense about this matter. Whatever is good in
life insurance for other races is good for our race; whatever in life
insurance benefits other races will benefit our race. In business as in
education, whatever is good for a white man is good for a black man. I
would, therefore, urge every boy and girl to join a life insurance
company, and where your mothers and fathers are not insured I would urge
you to do your utmost to persuade them to join at once.
For one reason, a life insurance policy is not expensive. You might as
well talk of the expense of buying bank stock, or the expense of putting
your money into a savings bank or any other safe place as to speak of
the expense of keeping up a life insurance policy. It is accumulation
and not expense. Every dollar put into life insurance is a dollar saved
to yourself or your estate.
For another reason life insurance is a good business investment.
Carefully collected statistics on file in Washington City prove that
investments in life insurance are much safer and yield much larger
returns than money placed in a savings bank. When you are older you will
perhaps be able to make these comparisons for yourself. For the present
you can take my word for it.
A third reason, life insurance is cheap. You can in an instant create a
capital of $1,000, though you may be ever so poor, by laying aside only
a few cents a week. Young people chew up and drink up and smoke up and
frolic up more money every week than would be sufficient to protect them
against the rainy days that must come to everybody.
And, then, life insurance has a character value. It makes a young man a
better man; it makes a young woman a better woman; that is to say, it
makes them more economical, more business-like, happier, and, I believe,
it will make them live longer.
It is high time that black boys and girls were learning these things and
acting upon them. When God commanded us not to serve money as a false
god He did not say that money could not serve us, and I beseech the boys
and girls, and the old people too, to exercise the same foresight and
the same good sense about life insurance that other races exercise.
LXXXVIII.
THE LITTLE SAILOR CAT.
In September, 1893, grouped on the Fall River Line pier at the foot of
Warren Street, New York, there stood a party of twenty-three sailors
waiting for the Puritan to take them on to Boston. The central figure in
the group—a short, thickset man, with bronzed and grizzled
moustache—stood erect with arms folded over his chest. Upon the solid
foundation thus made nestled a little white kitten. The man and the
kitten were the Boston contingent of the crew of the steamship City of
Savannah, which had been wrecked the week before on Hunting Island, off
the South Carolina coast.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE SAILOR CAT.]
The story of the beaching of the steamship and of the taking off of her
crew by the City of Birmingham had been told in all the newspapers, but
nothing had been said about the cat, so the Boston Herald said. Before
the shipwreck the cat was nothing more than an ordinary ship’s cat, and
the captain had named him Mascot; but that was the end of his
distinction. After the disaster, nevertheless, all the sailors swore
that the kitten was as good a sailor as any of them.
“He’s a wonder,” said the short, thickset man, surveying the cat
proudly; “nobody thought of him in the rush, but he got there just the
same. He climbed the rigging in that gale like an old tar and held on
for hours. He wasn’t a bit frightened either. Only he would ‘caterwaul’
when he got hungry. We were on board of the boat fifty hours after she
struck before the sea was such that we could be taken off in boats. At
night the captain ordered all the crew into the rigging and made us stay
there. We each took a piece of rope and lashed ourselves on, so as to
keep from falling off when asleep. That’s what the captain said the
string was for, but I never slept at all. I don’t think many others did.
The cat got along without any rope, and she was there in the morning all
right. When we got away at last, nearly crazy with thirst and so faint
that we could hardly climb down the ‘Jacob’s ladder’ into the
Birmingham’s boats, that little fellow climbed out of his nest in the
rigging and wanted to go too. We were glad to take him.”
LXXXIX.
[Illustration: ADVICE TO LITTLE CHRISTIANS]
1. Be punctual and regular at all the services of your church.
2. Give close attention to the pastor in the public service. Good
hearers make good preachers.
3. Whenever you are aided by a sermon tell the pastor about it. In this
way you will help him more than you think possible.
4. Do not neglect morning and evening prayer at home. Pray daily for
God’s blessing upon the preaching and other labors of the pastor.
5. In the world let your light so shine before others that they may be
led to glorify your Father which is in heaven. Let your light shine.
6. Invite your friends to attend divine services. A drawing congregation
is as good as a drawing preacher. Call for your friends often.
7. Remember day by day that you are not your own, but have been “bought
with a price,” and that you are Christ’s servant. Watch and pray.
8. If any service is required of you in the church or in the Sunday
school, do not shirk it; always say: “I will try for Jesus’ sake.”
9. In the prayer meeting speak briefly and to the point. If you pray,
ask only for what you want. Be short and direct. “Ask and ye shall
receive.”
10. Never subscribe more than you are able to pay, and be sure to pay
whatever you promise. Whether much or little, give it cheerfully. “God
loveth a cheerful giver.”
11. Having found eternal life, use all appropriate means to develop
Christian character. Prayer, reading the Bible, attending church and
Sunday school, reading good books and Christian newspapers, keeping the
best company—all these will help you.
XC.
A WORD TO PARENTS.
[Illustration: A WORD TO PARENTS.]
Children are a gift from God. Children are a heritage from the Lord. It
depends largely on parents whether they become a heritage of honor and
delight or of sorrow and shame. It is not simply incumbent upon parents
that their children be well cared for, fed and clothed, properly
educated and so forth; but more than this, they are to be brought up “in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This being true, then, the
highest aim of rearing children is not simply that they may win success
and command respect in the world. Respect and success are greatly to be
desired and sought, but beyond them and beyond everything else is the
highest and chiefest aim of parental love and care; that their children
may honor and command the righteousness of God in the life that now is
and magnify the glory of God in the life that is to be. This is the mark
and prize of their high calling.
Admitting this, then, the early conversion of children is all-important.
But if they are to be early converted, is it not wise—nay, absolutely
essential—that mothers and fathers prepare the way by restricting their
natural impulses by which they are led to desire indulgence in the gay
vanities of life? Is it not positively wrong for parents to indulge that
pernicious and destructive delusion, which some allow, of permitting
their children to have their own evil way in the hope that in due time
they will in some way see their error and turn to the right path of
their own accord? Father, you are a Christian. Mother, you are a
Christian. Now, in your home, in the management of your children, are
you doing the best you can to show what a Christian family should be?
How is it, my friends? I leave that question with you.
XCI.
A HELPFUL MESSAGE.
Life is too short to spend any time on a book that is not worth reading;
but when you read a good book you will be richly repaid if you stick a
sort of mental pin in sentences that especially impress you and return
to them again and again. If the book is your own, it is sometimes
helpful to mark it neatly here and there, and to copy some of the
nuggets of thoughts. In that way you help to fasten them in your brain,
and perhaps to engraft their meaning upon your lives. From a book of the
writings and speeches of a New York preacher, Dr. Maltbie D. Babcock,
who went a year or two ago to “the better land,” I have culled the
following sentences that hold, I think, a helpful message for boys and
girls as well as for old people.
“Look out for your choices. They run into conduct, character, destiny.
“To make the best of things is the right way to let things make the best
of you.
“Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. This is the only
world in which a Christian can suffer.
“Whenever you feel blue remember that God loves you and think up some
kindness, if no more than sending a flower to some one or writing a
note.
“If you can help anybody, even a little, be glad.
“Do not let the good things of life rob you of the best things.
“What have you done to-day that none but a Christian would do?”
XCII.
THE UNSEEN CHARMER.