Читать книгу The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy - Robert Elliott Flickinger - Страница 57

The history of the negro in America has been one of providential leading and apparently to enable him to work out his own destiny. From the time the Dutch slave ship in 1619 landed the first importation, consisting of 20 slaves, at Jamestown, Virginia, to the present time, every important event or change in his condition has come to him from others, who without aid or suggestion from him have been moved to act for him.

The experience of Joseph, in passing through the pit and the prison, on the way to his real mission, the experience of Israel in Egypt from the death of Joseph until the time of their deliverance at the Red Sea, and the experience of Nehemiah and Daniel, captives at Babylon, who were there providentially led and prepared for the most signal services of their lives, seem like historic parallels flashing from inspired Bible story, their comforting and prophetic light on the servile and dark experiences of the negro in America.

In all of these instances the persons were subject to the control of others, the way seemed dark, trying and utterly disappointing, and the opportunities, that prepared the way for important transitions, came unsought and in ways wholly unexpected. The things that proved of greatest importance in every instance were the intelligence, integrity, patience and piety of the individual.

The God-fearing integrity of Joseph was expressed when he resisted a great temptation by saying, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"

Israel in Egypt submissively and obediently undertook to make the full tale of brick when unsympathetic taskmasters withheld the usual and necessary amount of straw.

Nehemiah, a captive cup-bearer of a heathen prince, won his confidence and when honorably permitted to return and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, nobly answered his idle opposers, "I am doing a great work I cannot come down to you."

Daniel, when a captive youth, "purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the King's meat or the wine which he drank," or be swerved from his fidelity to the living and true God by threats of the lion's den. When the lives of the wise men of Babylon were in danger of being suddenly taken by royal command, he is introduced to King Nebuchadnezzar with the significant words, "I have found a MAN of the captives of Judah that will make known to the King the interpretation." He was a man whose power of vision enabled him to forecast the future correctly and possessed the courage to act prudently. Though a captive and denied many privileges, he proved himself an intelligent and trustworthy man and, serving as a special counsellor of five successive heathen kings, achieved for himself the worthy reputation of being the greatest statesman of his age.

All of these men discovered, that their imprisonment or captivity was a part of the divine plan, that providentially led and prepared them for their real mission, which in each instance proved to be one of prominent usefulness.

All of them were true patriots, but none of them were "office seekers" or "corrupt politicians." They loved more than any other their own native land, because of its sacred literature and religious institutions, but they were loyal and true to those who ruled over them in a foreign land. If any of them had manifested a political ambition, the divine plan, in regard to their promotion and usefulness, would have been immediately frustrated, and the memory of their names would have perished with their generation.