DIVERGING PATHS.
On the eve of his departure from the city of P----, Dr. Gresham called
on Iola, and found her alone. They talked awhile of reminiscences of the
war and hospital life, when Dr. Gresham, approaching Iola, said:--
"Miss Leroy, I am glad the great object of your life is accomplished,
and that you have found all your relatives. Years have passed since we
parted, years in which I have vainly tried to get a trace of you and
have been baffled, but I have found you at last!" Clasping her hand in
his, he continued, "I would it were so that I should never lose you
again! Iola, will you not grant me the privilege of holding this hand as
mine all through the future of our lives? Your search for your mother is
ended. She is well cared for. Are you not free at last to share with me
my Northern home, free to be mine as nothing else on earth is mine." Dr.
Gresham looked eagerly on Iola's face, and tried to read its varying
expression. "Iola, I learned to love you in the hospital. I have tried
to forget you, but it has been all in vain. Your image is just as deeply
engraven on my heart as it was the day we parted."
"Doctor," she replied, sadly, but firmly, as she withdrew her hand from
his, "I feel now as I felt then, that there is an insurmountable barrier
between us."
"What is it, Iola?" asked Dr. Gresham, anxiously.
"It is the public opinion which assigns me a place with the colored
people."
"But what right has public opinion to interfere with our marriage
relations? Why should we yield to its behests?"
"Because it is stronger than we are, and we cannot run counter to it
without suffering its penalties."
"And what are they, Iola? Shadows that you merely dread?"
"No! no! the penalties of social ostracism North and South, except here
and there some grand and noble exceptions. I do not think that you fully
realize how much prejudice against colored people permeates society,
lowers the tone of our religion, and reacts upon the life of the nation.
After freedom came, mamma was living in the city of A----, and wanted to
unite with a Christian church there. She made application for
membership. She passed her examination as a candidate, and was received
as a church member. When she was about to make her first communion, she
unintentionally took her seat at the head of the column. The elder who
was administering the communion gave her the bread in the order in which
she sat, but before he gave her the wine some one touched him on the
shoulder and whispered a word in his ear. He then passed mamma by, gave
the cup to others, and then returned to her. From that rite connected
with the holiest memories of earth, my poor mother returned humiliated
and depressed."
"What a shame!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, indignantly.
"I have seen," continued Iola, "the same spirit manifested in the North.
Mamma once attempted to do missionary work in this city. One day she
found an outcast colored girl, whom she wished to rescue. She took her
to an asylum for fallen women and made an application for her, but was
refused. Colored girls were not received there. Soon after mamma found
among the colored people an outcast white girl. Mamma's sympathies,
unfettered by class distinction, were aroused in her behalf, and, in
company with two white ladies, she went with the girl to that same
refuge. For her the door was freely opened and admittance readily
granted. It was as if two women were sinking in the quicksands, and on
the solid land stood other women with life-lines in their hands, seeing
the deadly sands slowly creeping up around the hapless victims. To one
they readily threw the lines of deliverance, but for the other there was
not one strand of salvation. Sometime since, to the same asylum, came a
poor fallen girl who had escaped from the clutches of a wicked woman.
For her the door would have been opened, had not the vile woman from
whom she was escaping followed her to that place of refuge and revealed
the fact that she belonged to the colored race. That fact was enough to
close the door upon her, and to send her back to sin and to suffer, and
perhaps to die as a wretched outcast. And yet in this city where a
number of charities are advertised, I do not think there is one of them
which, in appealing to the public, talks more religion than the managers
of this asylum. This prejudice against the colored race environs our
lives and mocks our aspirations."
"Iola, I see no use in your persisting that you are colored when your
eyes are as blue and complexion as white as mine."
"Doctor, were I your wife, are there not people who would caress me as
a white woman who would shrink from me in scorn if they knew I had one
drop of negro blood in my veins? When mistaken for a white woman, I
should hear things alleged against the race at which my blood would
boil. No, Doctor, I am not willing to live under a shadow of concealment
which I thoroughly hate as if the blood in my veins were an undetected
crime of my soul."
"Iola, dear, surely you paint the picture too darkly."
"Doctor, I have painted it with my heart's blood. It is easier to
outgrow the dishonor of crime than the disabilities of color. You have
created in this country an aristocracy of color wide enough to include
the South with its treason and Utah with its abominations, but too
narrow to include the best and bravest colored man who bared his breast
to the bullets of the enemy during your fratricidal strife. Is not the
most arrant Rebel to-day more acceptable to you than the most faithful
colored man?"
"No! no!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, vehemently. "You are wrong. I belong to
the Grand Army of the Republic. We have no separate State Posts for the
colored people, and, were such a thing proposed, the majority of our
members, I believe, would be against it. In Congress colored men have
the same seats as white men, and the color line is slowly fading out in
our public institutions."
"But how is it in the Church?" asked Iola.
"The Church is naturally conservative. It preserves old truths, even if
it is somewhat slow in embracing new ideas. It has its social as well as
its spiritual side. Society is woman's realm. The majority of church
members are women, who are said to be the aristocratic element of our
country. I fear that one of the last strongholds of this racial
prejudice will be found beneath the shadow of some of our churches. I
think, on account of this social question, that large bodies of
Christian temperance women and other reformers, in trying to reach the
colored people even for their own good, will be quicker to form
separate associations than our National Grand Army, whose ranks are open
to black and white, liberals and conservatives, saints and agnostics.
But, Iola, we have drifted far away from the question. No one has a
right to interfere with our marriage if we do not infringe on the rights
of others."
"Doctor," she replied, gently, "I feel that our paths must diverge. My
life-work is planned. I intend spending my future among the colored
people of the South."
"My dear friend," he replied, anxiously, "I am afraid that you are
destined to sad disappointment. When the novelty wears off you will be
disillusioned, and, I fear, when the time comes that you can no longer
serve them they will forget your services and remember only your
failings."
"But, Doctor, they need me; and I am sure when I taught among them they
were very grateful for my services."
"I think," he replied, "these people are more thankful than grateful."
"I do not think so; and if I did it would not hinder me from doing all
in my power to help them. I do not expect all the finest traits of
character to spring from the hot-beds of slavery and caste. What matters
it if they do forget the singer, so they don't forget the song? No,
Doctor, I don't think that I could best serve my race by forsaking them
and marrying you."
"Iola," he exclaimed, passionately, "if you love your race, as you call
it, work for it, live for it, suffer for it, and, if need be, die for
it; but don't marry for it. Your education has unfitted you for social
life among them."
"It was," replied Iola, "through their unrequited toil that I was
educated, while they were compelled to live in ignorance. I am indebted
to them for the power I have to serve them. I wish other Southern women
felt as I do. I think they could do so much to help the colored people
at their doors if they would look at their opportunities in the light of
the face of Jesus Christ. Nor am I wholly unselfish in allying myself
with the colored people. All the rest of my family have done so. My dear
grandmother is one of the excellent of the earth, and we all love her
too much to ignore our relationship with her. I did not choose my lot in
life, and the simplest thing I can do is to accept the situation and do
the best I can."
"And is this your settled purpose?" he asked, sadly.
"It is, Doctor," she replied, tenderly but firmly. "I see no other. I
must serve the race which needs me most."
"Perhaps you are right," he replied; "but I cannot help feeling sad that
our paths, which met so pleasantly, should diverge so painfully. And
yet, not only the freedmen, but the whole country, need such helpful,
self-sacrificing teachers as you will prove; and if earnest prayers and
holy wishes can brighten your path, your lines will fall in the
pleasantest places."
As he rose to go, sympathy, love, and admiration were blended in the
parting look he gave her; but he felt it was useless to attempt to
divert her from her purpose. He knew that for the true reconstruction of
the country something more was needed than bayonets and bullets, or the
schemes of selfish politicians or plotting demagogues. He knew that the
South needed the surrender of the best brain and heart of the country to
build, above the wastes of war, more stately temples of thought and
action.