Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/311

Rh children, nay, even of its being greater than in the children of the whites.

Why have I not before heard of these Christian labours? I would have made every possible effort to have witnessed them, to have seen them with my own eyes. Such plantations in the Slave States may be regarded as holy spots, to which pilgrimages would be made by those who seek for the soul's elevation, and for new power to hope and to believe. What indeed have I been so zealously seeking for, and inquiring after, in these southern states but for such places!

It is not natural to me to look out for subjects of blame. I do not recognise such excepting when they force themselves upon me. I do not avoid seeing darkness, but I seek for the light which can illumine the darkness, in all, and with all. In the darkness of slavery I have sought for the moment of freedom with faith and hope in the genius of America. It is no fault of mine that I have found the darkness so great, and the work of light as yet so feeble in the Slave States.

&emsp; Again here in the good home of my good Mrs. W. H., a home which is at the same time one of the most peaceful, and the most beautiful which I have found in the United States. It is an excellent thing to rest here a little while after the vagaries of the last three weeks, some of the fatigues of which were by no means small. But thus I have seen Florida, and have a better understanding of the nature and extent of that realm, that great home which is being prepared, in North America, for people of the whole world. From the home of eternal summer, I now journey up towards the home of winter, the White Mountains, in the most northern states of New England, and thence home, because I shall then have seen all that I desire to see on this side the ocean.