Trial and Triumph

t to his counting-room and asked for a private interview, which was readily granted. They had kindred intellectual an

said Mr. Thomas, "can you

Mr. Hasting replied, "

petent to fill the place of clerk or cashier in your store. He has been

id he

lored like your own, but because a report was brought

what

rily dism

a sh

perception so that it prepares them to do a number of contemptibl

, and I am sor

as fair, even by ruffians of the ring, for, I believe, it is their code of honor not to strike a man when he is down; but with respect to the colored man, it seems to be

rade has not opened yet and I am not busy. I see and deplore thes

te voters in the South without a reflex influence being felt in the North? Is not the depression of labor in the South a matter of interest to the North? You may protect yourself from what you call the pauper of Europe, but you will not be equally able to defend yourself from the depressed laborer of the new South, and as an American citizen, I dread any turn of the screw which will low

g about the Negro problem would only come in contact with the though

ou know of our best and most thoughtful men and women? When we write how many of you ever read our books and papers or give yourselves any tr

feel pained at the condition of affairs in

example. But I am hinder

ee things from the same

said for ages, 'No valor redeems our race, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to us'; that our place is on the lowest round of the soci

he South are now freely opened to him, and I do not think that there ever was a people who freed their slaves who have given as much for their education as we have, and my only hope is that the moral life of the race will keep pace with its intellectual growth. You tell me to put myself in your place. I think if I were a colored young man that I would develop every faculty and use every power which God had given me for the improvement and developme

your remarks, but bear with me just a few momen

ject you bring before me is of too vit

does mission work in your city, some time since, found a young woman in the slums and applied at the door of a midnight mission for fallen women, and asked if colored girls could be received, and was curtly answered, 'no.' For her in that mission there was no room. The love of Christ constrained no hand to strive to rescue her from the depths of degradation. The poor thing went from bad to worse till at last, wrecked and blighted, she went down to an early grave the victim of strong drink. That same lady found on her mission a white girl; seeing a human soul adrift, regardless of color, she went, in company with some others, to that same mission with the poor castaway; to her the door was opened without d

ned to look at any hatred on his part as an element of danger, and yet I should be sorry to know that by our Southern supineness we were thoughtlessly helping create a black Ireland

my errand. Have you any opening i

cy, and that is the pl

duties of th

looking after the mails, scattering advertisements. A

l accept the situation and

there is anything in him I may be able to

Young men with cigars in their mouths and the perfume of liquor on their breaths, shrugged their shoulders and called him a milksop because he preferred the church and Sunday school to the liquor saloon and gambling dens. The society of P. was cut up and divided into little sets and coteries; there was an amount of intelligence among them, but it ran in narrow grooves and scarcely one[10] intellect seemed to tower above the other, and if it did, no people knew better how to ignore a rising mind than the society people of A.P. If the literary aspirant did not happen to be of their set. As to talent, many of them were pleasant and brilliant conversationali