1. By the enlistment of Negroes them-DURING the war the Navy tried selves in preventing crimes that provoke mob violence. 2. By prompt trial and speedy execution of persons who are guilty of heinous crimes. 3. By legislation that will make it unnecessary for a woman who has been assaulted to appear in court to testify publicly. 4. By legislation that will give the Governor authority to dismiss a sheriff for failure to protect a prisoner in his charge. Second, that the citizenship rights of the Negro should be safeguarded, particularly: 1. By securing proper traveling accommodations. 2. By providing better housing conditions and by preventing extortionate rents. 3. By providing adequate educational and recreation facilities. Third, that closer co-operation between white and colored citizens should be promoted (without encouraging any violation of race integrity): 1. By organizing local committees, both white and colored, in as many communities as possible for the consideration of interracial problems. 2. By the employment of Negro physicians, nurses, and policemen as far as practicable in work for sanitation, public health, and law enforcement among their own people. 3. By enlisting all agencies possible in fostering justice, good will, and kindliness in all individual dealings of members of one race with members of the other. 4. By the appointment of a standing commission by the Governor of each State for the purpose of making a careful study of the causes underlying race friction, with the view of recommending proper means for their removal. In addition to the standing commissions proposed in the foregoing programme there should be a National commission appointed by the President to serve as a unifying body to co-ordinate the work of the several State commissions here proposed. The work of the National Commission should in no way be permitted to conflict with the State commissions and local, committees proposed in the programme of the Southern Sociological Congress. The National Commission should work with and through the State commissions rather than as a supervising and superior body. 66 out a system of promotion by selection, and Admiral Sims has recently declared that the system is illogical, absurd, and is undermining the morale of the service. Admiral Sims's comments upon the present system (which we find published in the “ Army and Navy Journal") were brought out by a broad-minded appeal from Secretary Daniels to all naval officers above the grade of LieutenantCommander to present their candid opinions of the method of promotion by selection which has been in operation within the Navy. When a small board of high ranking officers is called upon to decide who shall be promoted and who shall not be promoted, Admiral Sims points out that the individual member of such a board is frequently called upon to vote when the circumstances are as follows: (a) He does not know the candidate. (b) He does not know his service reputation. (c) He never even heard his name before. (d) The candidate's report of fitness is practically the same as that of hundreds of other reports. As a substitution for promotion solely by a board of officers whose chief knowledge of the qualifications of candidates is derived from "efficiency reports" Admiral Sims suggests the following system. With his usual directness he says: All the Department need do is to send each officer a list of the officers eligible for selection from the grade next below, and require each officer to submit a list of those whom he believes to be best fitted for promotion. For example, if forty promotions of lieutenant-commanders were to be made, each commander's list would contain forty names, and all lists would be submitted for the guidance of the Board of Admirals. It can readily be determined from these lists which officer has the highest average standing, and which has the second highest, and so on up to the fortieth. It is a question of simple arithmetic. This final list of forty would therefore be based upon the combined opinions of the 414 commanders, and their opinions are based upon both their personal knowledge of these men and apon the reputations of the men for ability to perform the duties of the next higher grade-qualities that are continuously under discussion in the grade above. Admiral Sims frankly says: "The present system is thoroughly discredited throughout all grades. The present state of mind is very near to revolt." It might be added that one should not ask Admiral Sims for a candid opinion unless one expects to get it. Within the Army as well as within the Navy the question of promotion by selec tion or seniority is at present being eagerly discussed. During the war the Army as well as the Navy made promotions by selection, and the War Department hopes to make this policy permanent, as provided for in the War Department Bill recently outlined in The Outlook. Before a Congressional Committee, General March, Chief of Staff, defended this proposal at some length. The proposal of the War Department covers all officers above the grade of second lieutenant, and it is summarized by General March as follows : We propose in this legislation that there shall be appointed a board of five officers, to be appointed by the President, and to meet in Washington, or wherever he sees fit to have them meet. To this board will be submitted the recommendations to promotion by selection in the Army. If a vacancy occurs and there is nobody in the Army service of the next lower grade who has been recommended for promotion by selection by his own people, then promotion by seniority goes into effect, and the seniority man gets it anyway. recoin If, however, there has developed in that grade a man so well qualified that the commanding officer has mended that that man be promoted by selection, then his name goes in. In other words, the Army, by that process, will get promotions with its own approval. It will be noted that the Army plan differs from that suggested by Admiral Sims in that promotion is made to depend upon the recommendations of an officer's immediate superior, advised, it should be added, by a personnel board chosen from among the unit under his command. Many Army officers feel that such a system leaves too large an opening for the introduction of morale-killing favoritism and pull. They point out that in time of peace such a system would give too great an advantage to men fortuitously placed in close personal contact with their superiors; and this criticism seems to us well founded. The problem of developing an equitable system of promotion within the Army is harder than in the Navy, for the Navy is of necessity very much more on a war footing in time of peace than is the Army. If a naval officer is inefficient, his vessel goes on the rocks or his engines break down when put to the test of a storm. A corresponding inefficiency in an Army officer might result only in a depreciated morale in the troops under his command. Though the destruction of morale through inefficiency is no less dangerous than the destruction of a vessel, it is less tangible. The whole question of promotion by selection or seniority resolves itself into the following propositions: 1. Promotion by selection encourages favoritism and injures morale. 2. Promotion by a rigid system of seniority discourages initiative, coddles the slacker, and puts a premium upon respectable mediocrity. Of the two horns of this dilemma, it seems to us that (if coupled with a system of rigid examination for promotion, by which the majority of the unfit are elimi nated) the seniority plan offers fewer difficulties in the way of successful application. Certainly this is true in time of peace; and we believe that the great body of Army opinion is back of us in making this statement. The plan for promotion by selection put forward by Admiral Sims appears to us to be the most promising proposal of this kind which has yet been offered, but it should also be said that it is a plan much better adapted to the Navy than to the Army. POPULAR FALLACIES V-THAT WE CANNOT CHANGE HUMAN NATURE THERE are certain fundamental ele ments in human nature which cannot be changed. Man is a vertebrate animal and in the class of mammalia. He has the bones and blood, the eyes and ears and brains, the appetites and the passions, of the animal nature. Nothing can change that nature. No fastings, scourging, or prayings can rid him of his animal nature. An animal he was made and an animal he must remain till death dissolves his body and sets him free. And he is more than animal; he has reason, conscience, reverence, imagination, ideals, and affections. Germs of these powers may be discerned in other animals, but they remain but germs. Man's reason deduces from observed phenomena general laws; his conscience enforces them upon himself and others; his imagination makes him an artist; his ideals and his reverence make him a worshiper; he organizes states, builds churches, creates language and literature. These powers cannot be denied to him nor destroyed by him. No materialistic philosophy can persuade him that he does not possess them. No vices can entirely extinguish them. "Though much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same God did choose To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." But this is not the meaning of the Popular Fallacy. Its meaning is well in terpreted by Felix Holt the Radical, in George Eliot's novel so entitled, and by Felix Holt the reply is furnished : They tell me I can't alter the worldthat there must be a certain number of sneaks and robbers in it, and if I don't lie and filch somebody else will. Well, then, somebody else shall, for I won't. That's the upshot of my conversion, Mr. Lyon, if you want to know it. We cannot destroy the elemental powers of human nature and substitute others in their place. But we can develop these powers or we can dwarf them; we can direct them to noble or to ignoble uses; we can make our spiritual powers the master or the servants of our bodies; we can make our reverence contribute to degrading superstitions or to inspirational worship; we can make our imagination inspire to a higher life or incite to sensuality; we can make our conscience a cruel despot of others or a wise guide for ourselves. The New England Primer of olden time told the child that Moses was the meekest man of history; but when he saw an Egyptian maltreating an Israelite and with one blow felled him to the earth and left him dead, he was not the meekest of men. His passion, developed by discipline, made him patient, for patience is passion tamed. Augustine the roué was a very different man from Augustine the great theologian; Luther the monk climbing Pilate's Staircase on his knees to win pardon was a very different man from Luther the Protestant nailing upon the doors of the Wittenberg church his defiance to the Pope; Wesley the High Churchman was a very ent man from the Wesley who leaped over all ecclesiastical fences and discarded all ecclesiastical rules and rituals in his enthusiastic resolve to carry the glad tidings to the common people; Gough the drunken bookbinder was a very different man from Gough the pioneer apostle of temperance. differ Nor are these changes in character exceptional. They are the very fabric of history. "Huge white bodies, coolblooded, with fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen hair; ravenous stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated by strong drinks; of a cold temperament, slow to love, home-stayers, prone to brutal drunkenness "-these are the features which Taine attributes to the early Saxons, and some remnants of them remain to this present day, but they are not the distinctive features of the AngloSaxon of the twentieth century. America to-day may retain in a different form some of the vices of ancient Rome, but the American civilization of to-day is radically different from the Roman civilization of the first century. The Negroes of to-day, landowners, farmers, mechanics, merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, teachers, are very different from the Negro slaves of seventy-five years ago. Careful scientific measurements have demonstrated that the heads of infant children born of foreign parents in this country are appreciably different from the heads of infant children born of the same parents in the Old World. The notion that human nature cannot be changed is based upon a false philosophy. It assumes that man is a marble statue which can be mutilated but not made over. But he is not a marble statue; he is potter's clay, and life is still at work molding him. Man is not made; he is in the making. As has been well said, "creation is not a product but a process." The first chapter of Genesis we must read in the present tense: God is creating the heaven and the earth, he is dividing the day from the night, he is calling up the waters from the seas and making them into clouds, he is speaking to the earth and it brings forth grass and herb yielding seed and trees yielding fruit; he is forming man out of the dust of the earth and breathing into him the breath of life, and man is becoming a living soul. There is in the Sistine Chapel at Rome a great mural painting by Michael Angelo, representing the Last Judgment. Men and women are emerging from their graves in various postures, and some who are entirely freed are helping others to escape from their graves. It is a true picture of life. Man is emerging from the animal. Life is a process of resurrection. Some of us are trying to help our neighbors up, some of us are trying to push them back into the grave. What the finished man will be no one can guess. We can be sure only of this, that he will be beyond our most extravagant hopes. Who could anticipate a Browning or a Gladstone in the babe in the cradle? who could anticipate an American Republic extending from the Gulf to the Lakes and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in the infant colonies whose only equipment was love of liberty and a courage that dared fight for it? who could have guessed from the six members of the drinking club forming in Chase's Tavern in Baltimore the first Total Abstinence Society in this country that in less than a century the whole country would become a Total Abstinence society? Says Henry Ward Beecher, "Men walk from the fleshly up to the spiritual." He does but repeat the declaration of Jesus that the kingdom of God is like a seed cast into the earth and "the earth brings forth fruit of herself." The spiritual forces are in man himself, and every one who is trying to make this world a better world has God's time and unrecognized spiritual forces in man himself working with him. LYMAN ABBOTT. THE RACE PROBLEM AS SEEN FROM THE TWO STORIES AND AN ESSAY The race problem-the problem as to how the black and white races in the South shall live together politically and industrially while preserving their racial integrity-is distinctively a Southern problem. It must in the last analysis be solved by Southerners with such sympathetic and understanding co-operation as Northerners may be called upon to give. This was the view of Booker Washington, and is, we think, the view of the best leaders, both white and colored, in the South. It is significant that the following three contributions were received by The Outlook independently of one another and within the same week. With them should be read the programme, printed on another page of this issue, which is proposed by the Southern Sociological Congress. Miss Start, the author of the tragic story "The Land of the Free," writes us that she was born in the mountains of Virginia, and that her entire life has been spent in that State and farther South. Her father was a Methodist clergyman and her grandfather was a slaveholder, although his slaves were freed while he was still young. Her grandmother, while a young girl in attendance at the Augusta Seminary, Staunton, Virginia, became deeply impressed with the somber and bitter side of slavery, to which circumstances Miss Start ascribes her own desire to see more just relations established between the whites and the blacks. Julian Bagley, the author of "The Unlettered Day," is a young colored man, a graduate of Hampton. His story has been sent to us by a Hampton teacher, with the statement that "the lesson in the story is one that The Outlook, I believe, will heartily support." Mr. Miller, who discusses the problem in a paper entitled "The War and Race Feeling," is the editor of the "Southern Agriculturist," published at Nashville, Tennessee. In response to our inquiry he writes: "Yes, I am purely Southern; was born in Tennessee, and have spent most of my life here; the rest in North Carolina and Alabama." If this complicated and in some respects terrible problem can be dealt with in the spirit here displayed by these three Southerners, two of them white and one of them colored, there is great hope for a just and reasonable solution.-THE EDITORS. I-THE LAND OF THE FREE LEC JOHNSON, colored, came down the mountain-side with the flexile grace of a young panther. He was twenty-five years old and weighed one hundred and forty pounds. One hundred and forty pounds of welltrained and disciplined manhood. He was not whistling as usual, but was caught in the perfumed silence of the June morning. Rhododendrons glowed about his knees, wild grape shook fragrance to his brows; a pheasant with her speckled brood squatted close to a lichen-spotted rock, not a feather stirring. It was a day to incite gladness, and Alec rejoiced with every breath that swelled his slender chest, experiencing a great sense of freedom at having exchanged a worn and soiled army suit for the arrow-pattern flannel dear to the mountaineer. He was a self-respecting, capable man who had borne his part in the task of forcing civilization upon the world. The path, curving abruptly, passed beneath a sweeping oak where nestled a clear spring from the bottom of which white sand bubbled in feathery sprays. A gourd dipper lay on a granite slab above it. Alec filled it and drank a long, refreshing draught. "That's some water!" he affirmed. "What would them fellows have giveHe choked into silence at the remembrance of his comrades piled on the battlefield. Their black faces had proved "How come they were sure targets. black?" he thought in the vernacular he had nearly lost during his three years' training. No matter, their souls were white, and, gee, how they had fought! The general in command had said it was the black troops that saved the day. Throwing himself beneath the oak, he gazed at the narrow mountain range sloping gracefully down to the valley, as if paying courtesy to the town lying at its foot. The square court-house in the BY EMMA WILMOT START He laughed, stretching himself lazily. "Get out!" he cried, tossing a stone at the wavering head, and another as the brownish-gray length glided away. "Struck me in your lucky time. I don't believe man is made fer to kill, nohow; he gits sick of it so soon." He must have fallen asleep, for he was aroused suddenly by a booming sound not far away. "At it again!" he muttered. As he jerked himself obediently to his feet the buzz of a steam saw rent the mountain stillness. The sound angered him. Why could not the mountains be left untouched? They were his mountains; he had roamed in them since childhood, and their beauty was sacred. As he stood watching the village a flag was run swiftly to the top of the courthouse. Its heavy folds, catching the breeze, rippled gayly. "Hurrah!" he cried, waving his hat. "There she floats! Go it, old girl!" He began whistling softly "The StarSpangled Banner," the notes gaining in volume as he sped downward. Full expression of the patriotism stirring within His voice rang him demanded song. O' the lan' o' the free an' the home o' Another turning in the path brought him within sight of a small whitewashed cabin flanked by an apple orchard, the whitened trunks of the trees running in orderly lines. A group of beehives, sheltering at the orchard edge, faced and out of which darted downy broods, to squat, stone-weighted chicken hovels, in the dismay of the clucking mothers imprisoned within. Near the hovels stood a young girl clad in a short, close-fitting dress of homespun. She was tall and willowy, and bent from which she fed a flock of larger gracefully to support on her hip a tin pan, chickens that fought and scrambled about her feet. At the sound of Alec's approach she turned toward him a face much lighter than his and a sudden rush of color own, beautified her cheeks. As he stood silently regarding her a Negro woman, followed by a wiry middleaged white man, emerged from the forest to the right of the cabin. The woman was old and bent and her snowy hair wooled out in disarray from beneath a knitted cap. "Alec," she cried, outstretching her arms in appeal, "I'm shoahly glad yo-all done come. Dis heah man-folk gwine cut my timbah! Twel him dese heah is weallses woods." She pointed toward a group of men that were swinging axes, sending great chips from the neighboring trees. 66 Let up about your timber," commanded the man, evidently the foreman of the cutting party. "We aren't going to touch your house.' "But I want my tree," she pleaded. 47 "Prove it," said the foreman ; but you will have to be quick. I 'low to clar all this side of the mountain in the nex' few days." "It is hers," said Alec. She holds the deed. You can't touch her prop'ty, you know." 66 I know all about what I can touch," the foreman's voice rose angrily," an' I don't want no nigger impudence.' "Laws, man, said the old woman, with a hysterical half laugh, half sob, "he ain' no imperdencer, an' he ain' no niggah; he done fit an' die fer his cawntry. De devil's a niggah, an' he's a white man." "You oughtn't to touch her prop'ty," persisted Alec, laughing. "I know how it runs. I was playin' aroun' heah when it was surveyed. It is just as she says." The foreman looked Alec over from head to feet, and a covetous light shone in his eyes. "Look here," he said, "you keep out of this. Don't you want a job? We're short-handed, and you look like a good worker." "No," replied Alec, "I have my regu lar job with Squire Waters down at the cote-house. I ain' workin' this week. I'm mindin' to git married," with a glance at the girl. 66 Well, if you are getting married you will be to lots of expense. I pay good wages." 66 I ain' workin'," asserted Alec ; "an' you better not touch Aunt Martha's prop'ty. Ain' there no Fores' Rangers 'bout heah?" It was the foreman's turn to laugh. "Forest Rangers! Where did you hear of them? What do you think we are down here, anyhow? That's a Yankee institution. We can take care of our own forests." 66 Well, you'd better not touch her prop'ty," repeated Alec, as the foreman moved off to join his men. "Don't worry, Aunt Martha; I'll speak to Squire Waters about it." The girl, having fed the chickens, lowered the pan and came forward. "Alec," she said in a low tone, "don' you-all fool with that sawmill man; he's bad, he'll ha'm you." He done got he eye on Becky," whispered the old woman with an ominous shake of her head. "Nevah min', gran'mam," said the girl, laying her arm protectingly about the bent shoulders; "we'll go into the house," and, with a loving glance backward, she moved slowly off, leaving Alec to pursue his way. But the glory of the day had faded, and though he kept his eyes on the floating flag, the song no longer rose to his lips. As he neared the town he noticed a canvas strip stretched across the main street bearing the words WELCOME TO OUR BRAVE BOYS" They were white, the boys that were coming back, but he too belonged to a white regiment. He had been transferred after the great slaughter. He was one of the brave boys, and the consciousness made him glow with pride. He had been back a month, having made a straight march for home and Rebecca. A platform had been erected on the court-house green and groups of men and women were decorating it with flags and bunting, while a brass band was laboriously practicing under an excited leader. Seating himself on the steps of the platform, Alec waited, eager for companionship. Some one he knew would surely come that way. Half an hour later, as he arose, stretching himself contentedly, a burly man approached him. What are you doing here?" he demanded. Alec turned toward the speaker, cupped his hand to a lighted match, and puffed at a cigarette before answering: "Nothin'." Later, as he halted at an office door, the same man approached him and repeated the question. "You-all seem mighty curious about what I's doin'," replied Alec. "I ain' doin' nothin'. I's kinder wantin' ter see Squire Waters, but he ain' come yet." "We don't allow loafers in this town." "I ain' loafin', I's jes' waitin' 'roun'." "Well, you'd better move on and stop waiting round. We're cleaning up the town, and I'm sheriff." Throwing back his coat, he revealed a large star. Ålec nodded indifferently, reseating himself on the platform from which the band and the decorators had departed. As he drowsily waited he saw the foreman of the sawmill ride into the street and dismount. After hitching his horse to a rack in front of a store he engaged the sheriff in conversation. They both glanced toward the platform. The sheriff shook his head, then nodded, and the two parted, the foreman joining a man on the store porch, while the sheriff went on down the street and turned the corner. The striking of the court-house clock aroused Alec to a consciousness that his midday meal was due and that he was hungry. Crossing the street, he entered an eating-house patronized by the colored residents of the community. As he ate he thought of Rebecca, her lithe young form, her glossy hair and sparkling eyes, and the becoming glow his presence al ways awakened in her cheeks. There was something other than these, something of something other than these, something of which he caught a glimpse in the depth of her eyes and the reserve of her caresses. Rebecca was soulful. Three years ago he had not realized it; only her physical beauty had appealed to him. But now-one learns much in the hour of deadly conflict. In a tentative way he realized that it is soul that counts. The men that bear agony and death with fortitude are the soulful men. He too would be soulful in the conflict of life, and when children came, up there away from the world's discord and glitter, they should be soulful. It was of this he thought as, his meal finished, he stepped back into the street facing Old Glory. He straightened himself to salute. He was proud that his children and Rebecca's should be born in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder and the sheriff's nasal tone broke his revery. 66 Come with me." “Where to?" "Ask no questions-just come. Alec's hand moved toward his pistol pocket, but was quickly withdrawn as he faced the sheriff head up. "I ain' got no reason ter come with you. "You have been loafing about the streets all day. You refused honest work. I know your class. We are going to rid this town of loafers. You are going up the mountain to work with the lumber gang." "That's a lie!" cried Alec, and received a stinging blow across his mouth. He did not return the blow, but thought of Rebecca and turned to escape, only to confront the grinning face of the foreman of the sawmill, who stopped him with a backward jerk. With the jerk Rebecca's warning and the old woman's assertion lent force to his wrath. 66 Keep off!" he cried. “I warn you, I's dangerous." The foreman's mocking laugh rang through the street as he advanced. 66 Keep off, I warn you!" cried Alec again, but cried in vain. The foreman continued to advance, a triumphant leer upon his face. 66 Say," asked Alec, “don' you-all know the law of the United States? This here is the land o' the free." "Ther' ain't no law fer a nigger," cried the foreman, and grappled with Alec. Then the natural thing happened. There was a muffled report, and Alee -Alec who had spared the snake because he hated to kill-stood with a smoking revolver in hand, and, as one in a dream, watched the foreman start backward, lunge forward, and fall upon his face. He made no resistance when a few men joined the sheriff who led him toward the jail. It was eight o'clock on the following evening when the wearied troop of returning soldiers marched up the main street amid strains of music and shouts of wel come. It was eight o'clock when a band of masked men, riding horses with muffled feet, halted at the jail door, received the key from the unresisting sheriff, and led Alec forth, forcing him from the lighted town to a dark gorge of the mountain. There was a strange swaying of oak branches, five sharp reports, and only the silent stars to witness the possibility of American brutality and injustice. As the masked party dispersed, making their way unnoticed to the town, the populace, led by the band on the platform, broke exultantly into singing: "And the star-spangled banner, O long O'er the land of the free and the home Up in the mountain forest a doe lay beneath a rhododendron bush, mourning over the still form of her dappled fawn that man had ruthlessly destroyed. A mother pheasant fluttered with broken. "G wings, painfully calling the downy brood that could never return. But the snake stretched its loathsome length, unharmed, along the ledge above the spring. On the charred stump in the clearing near the cabin sat a Negro maiden with her chin cupped in her hands as she stared with horrified eyes at the stars. Hers was a sorrow too great for tears. In a shack far up the height a worn coat of olive-gray swayed in the night breeze that swept through the uncur tained window. The top of one pocket was finished with a bar of rainbow colors three gilt service stripes adorned the cuff of one sleeve, while above a red stripe, near the shoulder of the other, was the faded insignia of a regiment that had gone bravely over the top in No Man's Land. In Washington a band of selected men held extra session to discuss the advisability of signing a paper that would insure the freedom of all the peoples of the earth. II-THE UNLETTERED DAY REENBOW! Greenbow! All off for Greenbow!" shouted the conductor. At this warning a battle-scarred soldier got up, gathered his war trophies together, and five minutes later Rufus Jones, the man who had braved ten months in France and endured a dingy smoking car from Washington City, was standing on the platform of a little Southern station-home. No brass band met this hero at the train; no reception awaited him in the town hall; no, not even a star represented him in the service flag which waved so gloriously over the entrance of the village court-house. But, after all, it was home, sweet home, and Rufus said the whole-hearted welcome given him by his dear old mammy was good enough. "I jes' pin' dat Croix de Guerre on huh breast," he said, "and den we start' foh ter celebrate de vict'ry." Rufus called their meeting a celebration, but to describe accurately the spir ited reception given this chocolate soldier by his mother and the small group of admirers who met him at the station one would certainly have to use another term -perhaps to call it a remarkable demonstration would suffice. When the spontaneous part of the greeting was over, Rufus with his jubilant followers got into the rickety old wagon which Aunt Miranda had especially provided to carry her victorious son home. "Is you-all in?" she demanded, anxiously, as the last lad scampered over the tail gate. "Yes'm," was the happy reply. "Den I'se ready foh ter go," she returned quickly, as she grasped the two rope reins in her hands. A few sharp lashes and "Come up yere, suh," interpreted her meaning to the old mule, Pete, and so without further ceremony the happy party moved off like an overloaded excursion train. They were homeward bound! The trip home was without incident except for the wild tales of battle which Rufus told and an occasional stop on the wayside to allow the returned hero to greet an old friend. But, oh, what a jubilee awaited this soldier when he reached Aunt Miranda's little cabin! Neighbors came from all directions to see him-the man who had actually seen and fought a Hun! What a welcome it was! Crude in its way, BY JULIAN BAGLEY of course, but nevertheless a sincere expression of their gratitude for the part that Black Greenbow had been permitted to play in the world's battle for human rights. A sumptuous old-fashioned dinner be gan the celebration. Then there were quaint songs of rejoicing, a service of thanks, and finally all knelt down to be led in prayer by Deacon Lloyd Johnson, a stanch member of the Greenbow Baptist Church. "O Lord," he began, fervently, "we's t'ankful foh de care whut you done took uv dis yere boy Rufus. We t'anks you, heb'nly Father, foh keepin' up Sis' Miranda so strong an' brave all de time he been so long gone. An', O heb'nly Father, we t'anks thee foh gibin' dis same boy chance ter he'p snatch de debil's staff outen de Kaiser's hand. We would t'ank thee foh de chance you'se done gib him ter show de w'ite folks dat we cullud folks is allus loyal an' wid ouah country. An' now, O Lord, won' you he'p dese w'ite folks ter see we wants a fair deal? Have mussy on us, Lord, an' won' you stop dese mean folk f'om knockin' an' cuffin' us roun'? You promise, O Lord, ter be a rock in de weary land; ter go wid us in de time uv battle; an' you'se sho' done done dat. But dere's a mighty big rumblin' gwine on yit, an' right yere in Greenbow. He'p de w'ite folks, dear Father, ter see dat we cullud folks is tryin' ter do right. Send down a angel, O Lord, ter change de hearts of dese folks. He'p yo' humble servants, heb'nly Father, ter git some land an' eddication; go wid us in evah thing we does. An' w'en we's done done all we kin do, an' caynt do no mo', we ax you, mussyful Father, ter receive us in yo' kingdom, foh Jesus' sake. Amen." The souls of these black folks were moved by this passionate prayer, and, even though Deacon Johnson had concluded, all remained silent. Finally one member began in a clear soprano this weird plantation melody: "I'm gwine ter trus' in de Lord, I'm gwine ter trus' in de Lord, And when "I'm gwine ter trus' in de Lord" was finished, Aunt Miranda took up this one. It seems to have been improvised on the spot: Dis war's gwine he'p evahbody, The last stanza- "Dis war's gwine he'p evahbody"-seemed to give the group new courage, and so, in spite of the fact that most of the older members had wept during the course of Deacon Johnson's prayer, they now got up full of hope. The horizon seemed to clear. Out of the dark days of war had come faith, hope, and a renewed spirit to push on to the brighter day. Once more they waited and trusted in the Lord; once more they believed that the war was going to help everybody-the rich, the poor, the black. the white-all. Before the group knelt down for prayer Rufus had not done much talking, but now he spoke out. "Dat sho' is one true song dat you jes' sung, ma. Dis war cert'nly is gwine he'p evaĥbody. It's gwine he'p you, Brer Johnson; it's gwine he'p you, Uncle Washall uv us gwine be he'p by it, an' I'se come back home foh ter do it too. Dis Army sho' done l'arn me sumpum dat I jes' caynt furgit. I useter be a pow'ful weakid man, but de war's done showed me ter God, an' I b'lieve if Ister die right now I'd be saved!” "Amen! Thang God!" shouted Aunt Miranda as she clasped her arms around her son's neck. "My chile's done got religun-done found de way at last. An' he come back home foh ter he'pus. Whut you gwine do, son?" she inquired in an excitable voice. "Whut you gwine do ter he'p us? Tell us; make 'as'e an' tell us whut you gwine do." No'm, I caynt tell you yit," replied Rufus. "Caynt tell you nothin' tall twell I'se done seen Jedge Pratt." "Lord hab mussy, chile," exclaimed Aunt Miranda, “doan you know Jedge |