Hither my little world wended its crooked
way on Sunday to meet other worlds, and gossip, and won-
der, and make the weekly sacrifice with frenzied priest at the
altar of the "old-time religion." Then the soft melody and
mighty cadences of Negro song fluttered and thundered.
I have called my tiny community a world, and so its
isolation made it; and yet there was among us but a half-
awakened common consciousness, sprung from common joy
and grief, at burial, birth, or wedding; from a common
hardship in poverty, poor land, and low wages; and, above
all, from the sight of the Veil that hung between us and
Opportunity. All this caused us to think some thoughts to-
gether; but these, when ripe for speech, were spoken in
various languages. Those whose eyes twenty-five and more
years before had seen "the glory of the coming of the Lord,"
saw in every present hindrance or help a dark fatalism bound
to bring all things right in His own good time. The mass of
those to whom slavery was a dim recollection of childhood
found the world a puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and
they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering.
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