Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863», страница 10

There is no group more prominent in the earliest creations than this one of the Trilobites, and so exclusively do they belong to them, that, as we shall see, in proportion as the later representatives of the class come in, these old-world Crustaceans drop out of the ranks, fall behind, as it were, in the long procession of animals, and are left in the ancient deposits. Even in the Carboniferous period but few are to be found: they had their day in the Silurian and Devonian ages. In consequence of their solid exterior, the preservation of these animals is very complete; and their attitudes are often so natural, and the condition of all their parts so perfect, that one would say they had died yesterday rather than countless centuries ago.

Their geological history has been very thoroughly studied; not only are we familiar with all their adult characters, but even their embryology is well known to naturalists. It is, indeed, wonderful that the mode of growth of animals which died out in the Carboniferous period should be better known to us than that of many living types. But it is nevertheless true that their embryonic forms have been found perfectly preserved in the rocks, and Barrande, in his "Système Silurien de la Bohème," gives us all the stages of their development, from the time when the animal is merely sketched out as a simple furrow in the embryo to its mature condition. So complete is the sequence, that the plate on which their embryonic changes are illustrated contains more than thirty figures, all representing different phases of their growth. There is not a living Crab represented so fully in any of our scientific works as is that one species of Trilobite whose whole story Barrande has traced from the egg to its adult size. Such facts should make those who rest their fanciful theories of the origin and development of life on the imperfection of the geological record, filling up the supposed lapses to suit themselves, more cautious as to their results.

We have found, then, Radiates, Mollusks, and Articulates in plenty; and now what is to be said of Vertebrates in these old times,—of the highest and most important division of the Animal Kingdom, that to which we ourselves belong? They were represented by Fishes alone; and the Fish chapter in the history of the early organic world is a curious, and, as it seems to me, a very significant one. We shall find no perfect specimens; and he would be a daring, not to say a presumptuous thinker, who would venture to reconstruct a fish of the Silurian age from any remains that are left to us. But still we find enough to indicate clearly the style of those old fishes, and to show, by comparison with the living types, to what group of modern times they belong. We should naturally expect to find the Vertebrates introduced in their simplest form; but this is by no means the case: the common fishes, as Cod, Herring, Mackerel, and the like, were unknown in those days.

But there are two groups of so-called fishes, differing from these by some marked features, among which we may find the modern representatives of these earliest Vertebrates. Of these two groups one consists chiefly now of the Gar-Pikes of our Western waters, though the Sturgeons share also in some of their features. In these fishes there is a singular union of reptilian with fish-like characters. The systems of circulation and of respiration in them are more complicated than in the common fishes; the structure of the skull resembles that of the skull in reptiles, and they have other reptilian characters, such as their ability to move the head upon the neck independently of the body, and the connection of the vertebrae by ball-and-socket joint, instead of by inverted cones, as in the ordinary fishes. Their scales are also peculiar, being covered by enamel so hard, that, if struck with steel, they will emit sparks like flint. It is on account of this peculiarity that the whole group has been called Ganoid. Now, though we have not found as yet any complete specimens of Silurian fishes, their disconnected remains are scattered profusely in the early deposits. The scales, parts of the backbone, parts of the skull, the teeth, are found in a tolerable state of preservation; and these indications, fragmentary as they are, give us the clue to the character of the most ancient fishes. A large proportion of them were no doubt Ganoids; for they had the same peculiar articulation of the vertebrae, the flexibility of the neck, and the hard scales so characteristic of our Gar-Pikes.

There is another type of these ancient Vertebrates, which has also its representatives among our modern fishes. These are the Sharks and Skates, or, as the Greeks used to call them, the Selachians,—making a very appropriate distinction between them and common fishes, on account of the difference in the structure of the skeleton. In Selachians the quality of the bones is granular, instead of fibrous, as in fishes; the arches above and below the backbone are formed by flat plates, instead of the spines so characteristic of all the fish proper; and the skull consists of a solid box, instead of being built of overlapping pieces like the true fish-skull. They differ also in their teeth, which, instead of being implanted in the bone by a root, as in fishes, are loosely set in the gum without any connection with the bone, and are movable, being arranged in several rows one behind another, the back rows moving forward to take the place of the front ones when the latter are worn off. They are unlike the common fishes also in having the backbone continued to the very end of the tail, which is cut in uneven lobes, the upper lobe being the longer of the two, while the terminal fin, so constant a feature in fishes, is wanting. The Selachians resemble higher Vertebrate types not only in the small number of their eggs, and in the closer connection of the young with the mother, but also in their embryological development, which has many features in common with that of birds and turtles. Of this group, also, we find numerous remains in the ancient geological deposits; and though we have not the means of distinguishing the species, we have ample evidence for determining the type.

This combination of higher with lower features in the earlier organic forms is very striking, and becomes still more significant when we find that many of the later types recall the more ancient ones. I have called these more comprehensive groups of former times, combining characters of different classes, synthetic or prophetic types; and we might as fitly give the name of retrospective types to many of the later groups, for they recall the past, as the former anticipate the future. And it is not only among the Fishes and the Reptiles that we find these combinations. The most numerous of the ancient Radiates are the Acalephlan Corals, combining, in the Hydroid form, the Polyp-like mode of life, habits, and general appearance with the structure of Acalephs. The Crinoids, with the closed cups in some, and the open, star-like crowns in others, unite features of the present Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and, by their stem attaching them to the ground, include also a Polyp-like character; while the Trilobites, with their uniform rings and their prominent anterior shield, unite characters of Worms and Crustacea.

These early types seem to sketch in broad, general characters the Creative purpose, and to include in the first average expression of the plan all its structural possibilities. The Crinoid forms include the thought of the modern Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins; the simple chambered shells of the Silurian anticipate the more complicated structure of the later ones; the Trilobites give the most comprehensive expression of the Articulate type; while the early Fishes not only prophesy the Reptiles which are to come, but also hint at Birds and even at Mammalia by their embryonic development and their mode of reproduction.

Looked at from this point of view, the animal world is an intellectual Creation, complete in all its parts, and coherent throughout; and when we find, that, although these ancient types have become obsolete and been replaced by modern ones, yet there are always a few old-fashioned individuals, left behind, as it were, to give the key to the history of their race, as the Gar-Pike, for instance, to explain the ancient Fishes, the Millepore to explain the old Acalephian Corals, the Nautilus to be the modern exponent of the Ammonites and Orthoceratites of past times, we cannot avoid the impression that this Creative work has been intended also to be educational for Man, and to teach him his own relation to the organic world. The embryology of the modern types confirms this idea, for here we find an epitome of their geological history. The embryo of the present Star-Fishes recalls the Crinoids; the embryo of the Crab recalls the Trilobites; the embryo of the Vertebrates, including even that of the higher Mammalia, recalls the ancient Fishes. Does not this fact, that the individual animal in its growth recalls the history of its type, prove that the Creative Thought in its immediate present action embraces all that has gone before, as its first organic expression included all that was to come? The study of Nature in its highest meaning shows us the present doubly rich with all the past, and the past linked and interwoven with the present, not lying divorced and dead behind it.

I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there were but one, not only because I wished to limit my sketch, and to attempt at least to give it the vividness of a special locality, but also because a single such shore will give us as good an idea of the characteristic fauna of the time as if we drew our material from a wider range. There are, however, a great number of parallel ridges belonging to the Silurian and Devonian periods, running from east to west, not only through the State of New York, but far beyond, through the States of Michigan and Wisconsin into Minnesota; one may follow nine or ten such successive shores in unbroken lines, from the neighborhood of Lake Champlain to the Far West. They have all the irregularities of modern sea-shores, running up to form little bays here, and jutting out in promontories there; and upon each one are found animals of the same kind, but differing in species from those of the preceding.

Although the early geological periods are more legible in North America, because they are exposed over such extensive tracts of land, yet they have been studied in many other parts of the globe. In Norway, in Germany, in France, in Russia, in Siberia, in Kamtchatka, in parts of South America, in short, wherever the civilization of the white race has extended, Silurian deposits have been observed, and everywhere they bear the same testimony to a profuse and varied creation. The earth was teeming then with life as now, and in whatever corner of its surface the geologist finds the old strata, they hold a dead fauna as numerous as that which lives and moves above it. Nor do we find that there was any gradual increase or decrease of any organic forms at the beginning and close of the successive periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes of every chapter in the world's history have been crowded with life, and its last leaves as full and varied as its first.

I think the impression that the faunae of the early geological periods were more scanty than those of later times arises partly from the fact that the present creation is made a standard of comparison for all preceding creations. Of course, the collections of living types in any museum must be more numerous than those of fossil forms, for the simple reason that almost the whole of the present surface of the earth, with the animals and plants inhabiting it, is known to us, whereas the deposits of the Silurian and Devonian periods are exposed to view only over comparatively limited tracts and in disconnected regions. But let us compare a given extent of Silurian or Devonian sea-shore with an equal extent of sea-shore belonging to our own time, and we shall soon be convinced that the one is as populous as the other. On the New-England coast there are about one hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes, in the Gulf of Mexico two hundred and fifty, in the Red Sea about the same. We may allow in present times an average of two hundred or two hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes to an extent of ocean covering about four hundred miles. Now I have made a special study of the Devonian rocks of Northern Europe, in the Baltic and along the shore of the German Ocean. I have found in those deposits alone one hundred and ten kinds of fossil fishes. To judge of the total number of species belonging to those early ages by the number known to exist now is about as reasonable as to infer that because Aristotle, familiar only with the waters of Greece, recorded less than three hundred kinds of fishes in his limited fishing-ground, therefore these were all the fishes then living. The fishing-ground of the geologist in the Silurian and Devonian periods is even more circumscribed than his, and belongs, besides, not to a living, but to a dead world, far more difficult to decipher.

But the sciences of Geology and Palaeontology are making such rapid progress, now that they go hand in hand, that our familiarity with past creations is daily increasing. We know already that extinct animals exist all over the world: heaped together under the snows of Siberia,—lying thick beneath the Indian soil,—found wherever English settlers till the ground or work the mines of Australia,—figured in the old Encyclopaedias of China, where the Chinese philosophers have drawn them with the accuracy of their nation,—built into the most beautiful temples of classic lands, for even the stones of the Parthenon are full of the fragments of these old fossils, and if any chance had directed the attention of Aristotle towards them, the science of Palaeontology would not have waited for its founder till Cuvier was born,—in short, in every corner of the earth where the investigations of civilized men have penetrated, from the Arctic to Patagonia and the Cape of Good Hope, these relics tell us of successive populations lying far behind our own, and belonging to distinct periods of the world's history.

* * * * *

In my next article I shall give some account of the marshes and forests of the Carboniferous age, with their characteristic vegetation and inhabitants.

CORALIE

 
    Pale water-flowers,
  That quiver in the quick turn of the brook,
    And thou, dim nook,—
  Dimmer in twilight,—call again to me
  Visions of life and glory that were ours,
  When first she led me here, young Coralie!
 
 
    No longer blest,
  Yet standing here in silence, may not we
    Fancy or feign
  That little flowers do fall about thy rest
  In silver mist and tender-dropping rain,
  And that thy world is peace, loved Coralie?
 
 
    Our friendships flee,
  And, darkening all things with her mighty shade,
    Comes Misery.
  No longer look the faces that we see,
  With the old eyes; and Woe itself shall fade,
  Nor even this be left us, Coralie!
 
 
    Feelings and fears
  That once were ours have perished in the mould,
    And grief is cold:
  Hearts may be dead to grief; and if our tears
  Are failing or forgetful, there will be
  Mourners about thy bed, lost Coralie!
 
 
    The brook-flowers shine,
  And a faint song the falling water has,—
    But not for thee!
  The dull night weepeth, and the sorrowing pine
  Drops his dead hair upon thy young grave-grass,
    My Coralie! my Coralie!
 

* * * * *

 
    I took from its glass a flower,
  To lay on her grave with dull accusing tears;
  But the heart of the flower fell out as I handled the rose,
  And my heart is shattered, and soon will wither away.
 
 
    I watch the changing shadows,
  And the patch of windy sunshine upon the hill,
  And the long blue woods; and a grief no tongue can tell
  Breaks at my eyes in drops of bitter rain.
 
 
    I hear her baby-wagon,
  And the little wheels go over my heart;
  Oh, when will the light of the darkened house return?
  Oh, when will she come who made the hills so fair?
 
 
    I sit by the parlor-window,
  When twilight deepens, and winds get cold without;
  But the blessed feet no more come up the walk,
  And my little girl and I cry softly together.
 

* * * * *

SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL

Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many other engagements demanded.

When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art.

I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,—in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery which impressed one strangely.

"So, this is you," she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added.

"Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?"

"Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round a-testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their sins agin my people."

So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her arms on her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a sort of reverie.

Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke out,—

"O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!"

I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten years,—the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his relative was falling.

She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me.

"Laws, Ma'am, he don't know nothin' about it,—he don't. Why, I've seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all torn,—ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a-bitin' of 'em!"

This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he seemed perfectly convulsed.

She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.

"Well, you may bless the Lord you can laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't no laughin' matter."

By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,—it mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any one.

I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at last said,—

"Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher."

"Is he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself."

"You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?"

"No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,—can't read a letter."

"Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?"

Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room.

"When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. My text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'"

"Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers.

She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own thoughts, and then began this narration:—

"Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her,—

"'Mammy, what makes you groan so?'

"An' she'd say,—

"'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be.

"'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye.'

"An' says I to her,—

"'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?'

"An' says she,—

"'Why, chile, you jes' look up dar! It's Him that made all dem!'

"Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round, an' do 'most anything.

"At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell you, they was hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An' then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no good; an' so says I, one day,—

"'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an' what can be the reason? Why, maybe you can't. Well, I shouldn't wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.'

"Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight, an' start off.'

"An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.'

"So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an' travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear away from our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I,—

"'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to go.'

"Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I was to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to the house till late at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was Quakers, an' real kind they was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes' camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the mornin', when they came in, they asked me of I hadn't been asleep; an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' sech a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' bed, did you? I never heerd o' sech a thing in my life.'

"Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got a-goin' easy, I forgot all about God.

"Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free, an' ole massa came to our house to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I didn't want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, I met God! an' says I, 'O God, I didn't know as you was so great!' An' I turned right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God an' me! for it burns me!' Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were somethin' like an amberill [umbrella] that came between me an' the light, an' I felt it was somebody,—somebody that stood between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, 'Who is this?' An' then, honey, for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me; an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know you!'—an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't know you!' An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the light came; an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes' like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me an' said, 'This is Jesus !' An' I spoke out with all my might, an' says I, 'This is Jesus! Glory be to God!' An' then the whole world grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an' said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel sech a love in my soul as I never felt before,—love to all creatures. An' then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks, that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,—think o' them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I cried out loud,—'Lord, Lord, I can love even de white folks!'

"Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it,—I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get Him away,—so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I won't let any one know.'"

"But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?"

"No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',—been to no meetin'. Nobody hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started, 'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an' I said, 'He's found him, too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An' then they sung this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad English as from good):—

 
  "There is a holy city,
     A world of light above.
  Above the stairs and regions,⁹
     Built by the God of love.
  "An everlasting temple,
     And saints arrayed in white
  There serve their great Redeemer
     And dwell with him in light.
  "The meanest child of glory
     Outshines the radiant sun;
  But who can speak the splendor
     Of Jesus on his throne?
  "Is this the man of sorrows
    Who stood at Pilate's bar,
  Condemned by haughty Herod
    And by his men of war?
  "He seems a mighty conqueror,
    Who spoiled the powers below,
  And ransomed many captives
    From everlasting woe.
  "The hosts of saints around him
    Proclaim his work of grace,
  The patriarchs and prophets,
    And all the godly race,
  "Who speak of fiery trials
    And tortures on their way;
  They came from tribulation
    To everlasting day.
  "And what shall be my journey,
    How long I'll stay below,
  Or what shall be my trials,
    Are not for me to know.
  "In every day of trouble
    I'll raise my thoughts on high,
  I'll think of that bright temple
    And crowns above the sky."
 

I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,—but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her own.