Story 1--Chapter VII.

Mou-Setsé Waits and Watches.

Years went by, bringing changes, bringing to Mou-Setsé grey hairs, taking from him his fresh youth, and adding to his face some anxious lines. But the years brought greater changes than the light hands they lay upon head and brow, to his black brothers and sisters in America. The brave souls who had fought through thick and thin for the freedom of the slaves, who had gone through danger and hardship almost at the peril of their lives in this great cause, had won a noble victory. America, by setting free her black brethren, had also removed from herself a most grievous curse.

The black men were free, and Mou-Setsé had removed from the little town where he had first settled to the larger and more flourishing one of St. Louis. He had succeeded as a merchant, and was now a rich man. His love for his brethren had also increased with years. He did much to help them. He was reverenced and loved by all who knew him, and that was saying no little, for there was scarcely a black man in the States who did not know Mou-Setsé. But the dearly-longed-for and unfulfilled purpose was still discernible on his face, and oftener than ever would he repair to the church to pray.

“I specs de dere Lord will be good to me,” he would say; “de dere Lord hab patience wid me. I told de Lord dat I would have great patience wid Him. I will wait His good leisure. I believe as I will see my people again.”

Mou-Setsé had for long years now added work to his prayers, leaving no stone unturned to find or obtain some tidings of the father and mother and brothers and sister from whom he had been so cruelly torn. But all his efforts had been as yet in vain, no description even resembling them had ever reached his ears.

His black friends told him that his father and mother had either never reached America or had long been dead. But Mou-Setsé would never believe these evil reports, his strong faith that at least some of his own would be restored to him, that the work and labour of his life would not be in vain, never deserted him.

“I tole de Lord dat I would have great patience,” he would reply to those who begged of him to give up so hopeless a search, and doubtless patience was doing its perfect work, for the end for which he so longed was at hand.

Story 1--Chapter VIII.

Fruit of Faith and Patience.

One very bitter day in March there was great commotion among the black people of St. Louis. The snow was falling thickly, the wind was blowing. Inclement as the whole winter had been, this day seemed the worst of all; but it did not deter the freed blacks from braving its hardships, from hurrying in crowds from place to place, and above all from repairing in vast crowds to their own churches. Every coloured church in St. Louis was full of anxious blacks, but they had not assembled for any purposes of worship. Unless, indeed, we except that heart worship which takes in the ever-present Christ, even when he comes hungry, naked, and in the guise of a stranger. The black people of St. Louis made beds in the church pews and kindled fires in the basements.

Having made all preparations, they went, headed by their preachers, to the quays; there to meet some six hundred famished and shivering emigrants, who had come up the river all the way from the States of the Mississippi Valley and Louisiana.

In extreme poverty and in wretched plight whole families had come, leaving the plantations where they were born, and severing all those local ties for which the negro has so strong an attachment. All of these poor people, including the very young and the very aged, were bound for Kansas.

This was the beginning of a great exodus of the negroes from the Southern to the Northern States.

The cause did not seem at first very manifest; but it must be something unusual, something more than mere fancy, which would induce women and children, old and young, with common consent to leave their old homes and natural climate, and face storms and unknown dangers in Northern Kansas.

Mou-Setsé, with his eyes, ears, and heart ever open, had heard something of the dissatisfaction of the negroes in the South.

They were suffering, not, indeed, now from actual slavery, but from wicked rulers who would give the coloured man no justice. Outrages, murders, and wrongs of all descriptions were driving these fugitives from their homes. They said little of hope in the future; it was all of fear in the past. They were not drawn by the attractions of Kansas; they were driven by the terrors of Louisiana. Happen what would, they all resolved to fly, never to return. Death rather than return was their invariable resolution.

Mou-Setsé, as I have said, had heard of this exodus. Profound secret as the negroes had kept it, yet it had reached his ears. He consulted his black brothers and sisters in St. Louis, and it was resolved that the strangers should be well received—hence the preparations in the churches, and hence the assemblage on the quays.

Mou-Setsé was one of the last to leave the church where he had been most busy. Just as he was about to turn away to help to fetch into warmth and shelter the famished emigrants he turned round. Some voice seemed to sound in his ears; some very strong impelling influence caused him to pause. He entered one of the pews, sat down