Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/582

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Sojourner Truth
531

of woman suffrage; that all their representative men and women, and all their journals advocate it, and have always done so; that expressions in its favor in public meetings meet with hearty approval, and that men and women have spoken on their platforms, and held official places as co-workers in their societies through all of these thirty-seven years. All this has taken place with very little argument or discussion, but from an intuitive sense of the justice and consequent benefits of such a course. A single testimony, of many that might be given from their writings, must suffice. In the Religio-Philosophical Journal, Chicago, Ill., November 22, 1884, its editor, J. C. Bundy, says: "Although not especially published in the interest of woman, this journal is a stalwart advocate of woman's rights, and has for years given weekly space to 'Woman and the Household,' a department under the care of Mrs. Hester M. Poole, who has done much to encourage women to renewed and persistent effort for their own advancement."

It has been the custom of some of our journals to ask for letters of greeting from distinguished people for New Year's day. We find the following in the Inter-Ocean: "Sojourner Truth, the Miriam of the later Exodus, sends us this remarkable letter. She is the most wonderful woman the colored race has ever produced, and thus conveys her New Year's greeting to our readers:

"Dear Friends: More than a hundred New Years have I seen before this one, and I send a New Year's greeting to one and all. We talk of a beginning, but there is no beginning but the beginning of a wrong. All else is from God, and is from everlasting to everlasting. All that has a beginning will have an ending. God is without end, and all that is good is without end. We shall never see God, only as we see him in one another. He is a great ocean of love, and we live and move in Him as the fishes in the sea, filled with His love and spirit, and His throne is in the hearts of His people. Jesus, the Son of God, will be as we are, if we are pure, and we will be like him. There will be no distinction. He will be like the sun and shine upon us, and we will be like the sun and shine upon him; all filled with glory. We are the children of one Father, and he is God; and Jesus will be one among us. God is no respecter of persons, and we will be as one. If it were not so, there would be jealousy. These ideas have come to me since I was a hundred years old, and if you, my friends, live to be a hundred years old, too, you may have greater ideas than these. This has become a new world. These thoughts I speak of because they come to me, and for you to consider and look at. We should grow in wisdom as we grow older, and new ideas will come to us about God and ourselves, and we will get more and more the wisdom of God. I am glad to be remembered by you, and to be able to send my thoughts; hoping they may multiply and bear fruit. If I should live to see another New Year's Day I hope to be able to send more new thoughts.

Sojourner Truth.
"Grand Rapids, Mich., Dec. 26, 1880."

This was accompanied by a note from her most faithful friend, Mrs. Frances W. Titus, relating matters of interest as to her present circumstances. She also said: "We have recently another proof that she is over one hundred years old. Mention of the 'dark day' May 19, 1780, was made in her presence, when she said, 'I remember the dark day'; and gave a description of that wonderful phenomenon. As the narrative of Sojourner's life has long been before the public, we prefer to anything this latest thought of hers, standing then on the verge of the life of the spirit."