The sermon was preached by an old
negro nearing ninety. At the head of the grave he stood and cast his
whitish eyes about, but nothing was there for him to see, for during
many years he had groped about in darkness. Once the property and
playmate of a favored child, he had been taught to read, and as the
years passed on, stubborn learning yielded to him, and along the
hill-sides he walked with the old prophets, with their poetic words
burning in his mind.
"Friends, close to me but somewhere off in the darkness," he said, "we
have come here to put this poor old piece of human clay in the cradle
that won't be rocked until the last day. In the years gone by, many a
time have we seen her, at the break of day, coming home from a bedside
where she had watched and nursed all night. When our spirits were low
for want of hope, she has sung us back into faith. When our blood leaped
to throw aside lowly ways and take up with the ways of sin, she told us
that she was going home to tell the Lord. No letter in the great Book
fastened itself on her poor mind, but in her soul the spirit of that
Book always had a home.
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