If this world were all, and no
Glorious thought of a Divine
Hereafter did comfort me, then
Life with too much pain were
Fraught and misery.
I should not care to live another
Day, with burdened heart and naught
To cheer my soul upon its lonely way,
From year to year.
So many cares beset me on my way;
So many griefs confront me in the
Road, how wretched I, no hope,
No faith to-day, in Heaven
and God.
The friends I love, for whom my life
Is spent, do oft misjudge and rob
Me of their love. Ah, if I had
No hope in Jesus, sent down from above!
Why should I care to stay in such
A race? far rather give the
Bitter struggle o’er and die,
Caring not to face what the
Future hath in store.
But just beyond is Heaven’s
Eternal shore, a mansion
Waiteth for each sincere soul,
A blessed rest forever more
Is at the goal.
Of the history of these sweet singers we know but little. Of Miss
Jackson, Miss Johnson, and Miss Chapman, naught but their song. Mrs.
Frances A. Parker, we learn, purposes bringing out a pamphlet of her
collected writings, bearing the title, “Woman’s Noble Work.”
Mrs. Lucy Hughes Brown, the author of the two sweet poems, “Thoughts on
Retiring” and “A Retrospect,” is a graduate from Scotia Seminary, N.
C.; later as the wife of Rev. David Brown, of the Presbyterian church,
Wilmington, N. C., she was enabled to do much philanthropical work for
her race. Mrs. Brown received the degree of M. D. from the Women’s
Medical College, Philadelphia, March, ’94.
Miss Alice Ruth Moore, through a complimentary editorial in the
_Woman’s Era_, we learn, is a Southerner by birth, and we feel that the
_Era_ has voiced our own sentiments in so cordially thanking the editor
of the _Monthly Review_ for introducing to us this charming writer.
During the year 1859, there was published in New York City, that Mecca
of authors and editors, _The Anglo-African_, a magazine of merit. Its
editor was Thomas Hamilton. An able corps assisted him in the work;
among them was Charles Ray, George B. Vashon, James McCune Smith, and
other well-known literary men. From this magazine we have culled the
two closing poems of this paper. They rank well with the writers of
this present generation. Mrs. Harper was then in her youth. Grace Mapps
belonged to a family noted for its acquirements in music, literature
and art. Her aunt, Mrs. Grace Douglass, wrote a most beautiful tract
that was published in the history of the First African Presbyterian
Church, of Philadelphia. Her cousin, Sarah M. Douglass, taught for
over fifty years most successfully the preparatory department of the
Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth. Miss Mapps, also, for several
years, taught as a member of the faculty of the same institution, now
presided over so ably by Mrs. Fanny J. Coppin, wife of Dr. Levi Coppin,
of the A. M. E. Church.