Trial and Triumph | Page 4

restless child was an enigma she did not know how to solve. If the child

were hungry or cold she could understand physical wants, but for the
hunger of the heart she had neither sympathy nor comprehension.
Fortunately Annette had found a friend who understood her better than
her grandmother, and who, looking beneath the perverseness of the
child, saw in her rich possibilities, and would often speak
encouragingly to her. Annette early developed a love for literature and
poetry and would sometimes try to make rhymes and string verses
together and really Mrs. Lasette thought that she had talent or even
poetic genius and ardently wished that it might be cultivated and rightly
directed; but it never entered the minds of her grandmother and aunts
that in their humble home was a rarely gifted soul destined to make
music which would set young hearts to thrilling with higher hopes and
loftier aspirations.
Mrs. Lasette had been her teacher before she married. After she became
a wife and mother, instead of becoming entirely absorbed in a round of
household cares and duties, the moment the crown of motherhood fell
upon her, as she often said, she had poured a new interest into the
welfare of her race.[1] With these feelings she soon became known as a
friend and helper in the community in which she lived. Young girls
learned to look to her for council and encouragement amid the different
passages of their [lives?] sometimes with blushing cheeks they
whispered in to her ears tender secrets they did not always bring to their
near relatives, and young men about to choose their life work, often
came to consult her and to all her heart was responsive. With this
feeling of confidence in her judgment, Mr. Thomas had entered her
home after leaving Mrs. Harcourt's, educating himself for a teacher. He
had spent several years in the acquisition of knowledge and was
proving himself an acceptable and conscientious teacher, when the
change came which deprived him of his school, by blending his pupils
in the different ward schools of the city. Public opinion which moves
slowly, had advanced far enough to admit the colored children into the
different schools, irrespective of color, but it was not prepared, except
in a few places to admit the colored teachers as instructors in the
schools. "What are you going to do next?" inquired Mrs. Lasette of Mr.
Thomas as he seated himself somewhat wearily by the fire. "I hardly
know, I am all at sea, but I am going to be like the runaway slave who,

when asked, 'Where is your pass?' raised his fist and said 'Dem is my
passes,' and if 'I don't see an opening I will make one.'"
"Why don't you go into the ministry? When Mr. Pugh failed in his
examination he turned his attention to the ministry, and it is said that he
is succeeding admirably."
"Mrs. Lasette, I was brought up to respect the institutions of religion,
and not to lay rash hands on sacred things, and while I believe that
every man should preach Christ by an upright life, and chaste
conversation, yet I think one of the surest ways to injure a Church, and
to make the pulpit lose its power over the rising generation, is for men
without a true calling, or requisite qualifications to enter the ministry
because they have failed in some other avocation and find in preaching
an open door to success."
"But they often succeed."
"How?"
"Why by getting into good churches, increasing their congregations and
paying off large church debts." "And is that necessarily success? We
need in the Church men who can be more than financiers and who can
attract large congregations. We need earnest thoughtful Christly men,
who will be more anxious to create and develop moral earnestness than
to excite transient emotions. Now there is Rev. Mr. Lamson who was
educated in R. College. I have heard him preach to, as I thought, an
honest, well meaning, but an ignorant congregation, and instead of
lifting them to more rational forms of worship, he tried to imitate them
and made a complete failure. He even tried to moan as they do in
worship but it didn't come out natural."
"Of course it did not. These dear old people whose moaning during
service, seems even now so pitiful and weird, I think learned to mourn
out in prayers, thoughts and feelings wrung from their agonizing hearts,
which they did not dare express when they were forced to have their
meetings under the surveillance of a white man."

"It is because I consider the ministry the highest and most sacred
calling, that I cannot, nay I dare not, rush into it unless I feel impelled
by the strongest and holiest motives."
"You