“The meanest child of glory
     Outshines the radiant sun;
  But who can speak the splendor
     Of Jesus on his throne?

  “Is this the man of sorrows
    Who stood at Pilate’s bar,
  Condemned by haughty Herod
    And by his men of war?

  “He seems a mighty conqueror,
    Who spoiled the powers below,
  And ransomed many captives
    From everlasting woe.

  “The hosts of saints around him
    Proclaim his work of grace,
  The patriarchs and prophets,
    And all the godly race,

  “Who speak of fiery trials
    And tortures on their way;
  They came from tribulation
    To everlasting day.

  “And what shall be my journey,
    How long I’ll stay below,
  Or what shall be my trials,
    Are not for me to know.

  “In every day of trouble
    I’ll raise my thoughts on high,
  I’ll think of that bright temple
    And crowns above the sky.”

[Footnote A:  Starry regions.]

I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening.  She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,—­but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her own.

It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the “Marseillaise” in a manner that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and impersonation of the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose against aristocratic oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner, singing this hymn, seemed to impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia, wild, savage, hunted of all nations, but burning after God in her tropic heart, and stretching her scarred hands towards the glory to be revealed.

“Well, den ye see, after a while I thought I’d go back an’ see de folks on de ole place.  Well, you know, de law had passed dat de culled folks was all free; an’ my old missis, she had a daughter married about dis time who went to live in Alabama,—­an’ what did she do but give her my son, a boy about de age of dis yer, for her to take down to Alabama?  When I got back to de ole place, they told me about it, an’ I went right up to see ole missis, an’ says I,—­

“‘Missis, have you been an’ sent my son away down to Alabama?’

“‘Yes, I have,’ says she; ‘he’s gone to live with your young missis.’

“‘Oh, Missis,’ says I, ‘how could you do it?’

“‘Poh!’ says she, ’what a fuss you make about a little nigger!  Got more of ’em now than you know what to do with.’

“I tell you, I stretched up.  I felt as tall as the world!