nce and poverty.
Men talk about missionary work among the heathen, but if any
lover of Christ wants a field for civilizing work, here is a
field. Part of the time I am preaching against men ill-treating
their wives. I have heard though, that often during the war men
hired out their wives and drew their pay."

* * * * *

"And then there is another trouble, some of our Northern men
have been down this way and by some means they have not made the
best impression on every mind here. One woman here has been
expressing her mind very freely to me about some of our
Northerners, and we are not all considered here as saints and
angels, and of course in their minds I get associated with some
or all the humbugs that have been before me. But I am not
discouraged, my race needs me, if I will only be faithful, and
in spite of suspicion and distrust, I will work on; the deeper
our degradation, the louder our call for redemption. If they
have little or no faith in goodness and earnestness, that is
only one reason why we should be more faithful and earnest, and
so I shall probably stay here in the South all winter. I am not
making much money, and perhaps will hardly clear expenses this
winter; but after all what matters it when I am in my grave
whether I have been rich or poor, loved or hated, despised or
respected, if Christ will only own me to His Father, and I be
permitted a place in one of the mansions of rest."

Col. J.W. Forney, editor of "The Press," published July 12, 1871, with
the brief editorial heading by his own hand, the document appended:

The following letter, written by Mrs. F.E.W. Harper, the
well-known colored orator, to a friend, Mr. Wm. Still, of
Philadelphia, will be read with surprise and pleasure by all
classes; especially supplemented as it is by an article from the
Mobile (Alabama) _Register,_ referring to one of her addresses
in that city. The _Register_ is the organ of the fire-eaters of
the South, conducted by John Forsyth, heretofore one of the most
intolerant of that school. Mrs. Harper describes the manner in
which the old plantation of Jefferson Davis in Mississippi was
cultivated by his brother's former slave, having been a guest in
the Davis mansion, now occupied by Mr. Montgomery, the aforesaid
slave. She also draws a