None can tell, but those who have gone through the trying experience,
how hard it is for a mother to part with her child when God calls it
away by death. But oh, how much harder it must be to have a babe
torn away from the maternal arms by the stern hand of oppression,
and flung out on the cruel tide of selfishness and passion!
Let us weep, dear children, for the poor slave mothers who have
to endure such wrongs.
I will not undertake to describe the distress of this poor
woman when the knowledge of her loss burst upon her.
It was as when the tall tree is shivered by the lightning's blast.
Her strong frame shook and trembled beneath the shock; her eye
rolled and burned in tearless anguish, and her voice failed her
in the intensity of her grief. For hours she was unable to move.
Alone, uncomforted, she lay upon the earth, crushed beneath the weight
of this unexpected calamity.
"Leave her alone," said the master, "and let her grieve it out.
The cat will mew when her kittens are taken away. She'll get
over it before long, and come up again all right."
"Ye mus' b'ar it, chile," said Annie's poor, old mother,
drawing from her own experience the only comfort which could be
of any avail. "De bressed Lord will help ye; nobody else can.
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