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122 FOLK SONG OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. |
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CHAPTER X. |
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A Painted Picture of a Soul. |
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"To.seek the truth, wherever it leads, To live the life of Love, whatever it costs; This is to Tje the friend and helper of God" I
T is with a full sense of responsibility and of accountability, and, I hope, it is with due reverence that I shall now lead you, dear reader, into the presence of a soul,�this "sanctum sanctorum of life/' stripped of every covering which civilization has thrown about it, the naked Ego of our race. It must seem the climax of presump�tion and the essence of blasphemy to make even the slightest pretense of laying open the well-springs of our life, and presenting to view the very essence of that which gives us class, name, and distinc�tion from other men. My apology? In these days of misunderstand�ing, injustice, and readjustments, when the best in man is fighting for the right, when the spirit of brotherhood is waging so heroic a struggle for supremacy, whose victory means the efficaciousness of Christ's death; in the presence of these portentous facts, any thought which can shed so much as one ray of light upon the darkness of the struggle ought to be expressed. There should not be so many unanswered questions about the Negro. Since he is so momentous a problem, he ought to be studied scientifically and the truth about him sought, found, and proclaimed. Of all the problems that face the human race, the problem of the Negro is the least scientifically studied. It is far and away the most important problem which is before our country for solution, and it is the most unwisely treated. The black man is a great obstruction to the white man's Chris�tianity. Except for the Negro the principle of brotherhood would doubtless be in forceful operation to-day; now it is a mountainous difficulty for the white man to accept the black man as brother, but it is an eternal verity that Christianity can never reach its ultimate saving power, it can never put forth its full flower of perfection until every man accepts every other man as his brother. Brother- |
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