NEW EXPERIENCES

Courtship and Marriage -- Ten Years of Happy Married Life -- The Unexpected -- Dealing With the Color Line.

Where no counsel is the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. Prov. 11:14.

     Marriage is of such a momentous nature that of all things it should not be taken in hand unadvisedly. Many a life has been blasted because of haste in this matter! Then many more there are who, though they have not been a complete failure, yet have not accomplished what they should, had God been permitted to wholly order their steps. They are mismated and this accounts for the vacillation and lack of poise in themselves and their children. Their children should be pitied rather than blamed, for the poor little things have the unhappy combination of two contrary dispositions. Thank God, grace fixes up a lot of things, and yet grace cannot wholly correct a wrong choice. Better go slow than be sorry.

     When God originally chose a helpmeet for man He did not take the material from his upper extremities lest she should rule over him, nor from his lower extremities lest he should trample her under foot. But He took a "rib" from near Adam's heart that she should be loved and protected by him, that she should run by his side, and be equal with him, and that his rights should be her rights. Now, to get the proper companion, a man who is not clearly led of the Spirit runs twenty-three chances out of twenty-four of getting the wrong rib.

     I have much to be thankful for that God mercifully prevented my doing as many young people do, in foolishly falling in love, getting married and then settling down to struggle for a mere existence.

     Some time after my conversion God permitted a love affair to be broken up. For the time being it almost broke my silly heart, but it was the best thing that could have happened. God saw that though she was beautiful and had religion, yet she was not the forceful character I needed to help master difficulties, and be a good balance wheel. Her after life proved that she was not the one for me. God had a better plan, but it required years of waiting. It frequently pays to wait.

     While in prayer at a camp meeting in Illinois, the Lord first revealed to me my counterpart in the person of a powerful little preacher. Though we had not said a word the same thing was revealed to others. We did not see each other for one year, during which time only three letters were written by each of us. We resolved to keep our eyes upon the throne more than upon the post office. At the next yearly meeting we were happily united, and lived together for ten beautiful years, after which the most unexpected thing of my life took place -- God kissed her pure spirit away. Much could be said here, but more will appear in another chapter.

     Later we held a meeting in old Virginia, not far from Richmond. This was my first experience laboring in a section where the color-line existed, and I was full of zeal to obliterate it. I felt it was so unjust and unscriptural that the colored people were excluded from the religious services that I began to invite them. They came and filled the back seats that were unoccupied. It was not long before they felt at home, and became very free in assenting to the truth. The whites took exceptions, but we thought it was simply prejudice, and they needed to be taught that the colored man has the same right to salvation as others.

     But we found it impossible to turn in a few weeks a sentiment that had held sway for generations. The result was that the white people stopped altogether, and finally used violent methods to intimidate the colored people from coming. When the colored people ceased to attend we thought to have good attendance from the whites again; but no, by some secret understanding, they agreed to stay away. It would never do to sit on the same seats, live in the same house, or on the same street, that was formerly occupied by "niggers." I found that though God had enabled me to be more than a match for mobs, arrests and dynamite, this kind of prejudice was too much for me. The people smiled and were apparently friendly, but that old sectional feeling was deeply seated within. I confess I did not know how to take them, for I had been accustomed to meeting hostility open and above board.

     There is that distinguishing feature about the North and the South. In the North each town or community stands upon its own merit, so if you are opposed in one place you can go a few miles distant and be heartily received. In the South they are more clannish and if one man, or community, is set against you, the others will be likewise. This clinging to each other may date back to the "reconstruction period" at the close of the (un-civil) war, when great poverty and suffering cemented these people together.

     Each section is to blame for its attitude toward the Negro. The Northern papers and people excuse and look upon him as a martyr; then the Southern papers go to the other extreme and picture him as unworthy of respect, or of an opportunity to rise.

     If a man knows that merit and good behavior will entitle him to a place among men (irrespective of birth) it will go a great way toward his elevation. The Negro of the South knows that he is under and that everybody intends to keep him there. This has a tendency either to embitter and make him more vicious, or to stultify all possibility of development and, in the last analysis, leave him a mere stoical machine.

     I have found from experience that the best plan in dealing with this difficult question is to go ahead and mind your own business, letting the colored people draw their own line. If they drop in to a service, pay no attention, else you offend one or the other class. Nearly every zealous Northerner has to learn the lesson for himself and, at first, cripple his influence before he will be convinced that he cannot come South, single-handed and convert everything to his way of thinking in a moment of time. Preach repentance, restitution and surrender to God, and as fast as the people get under conviction they will forget their old prejudice. After all, God alone can save the Southerner from his hot-headedness, and the Yankee from his cold-bloodedness. Let us give Him a chance.

     Thorns

     Thorns are put for great difficulties and impediments. The Lord told the Israelites, "If ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides." That is, they would be very hurtful and pernicious to them.

     Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was not carnality, but perhaps a racking pain in his body, or an impediment of speech, or disfigurement of his face as a result of his stoning. We know it was not sin, for he declared he gloried in this infirmity, that the "power of Christ" might rest upon him.