FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER. "TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE.” VOL. XL. PHILADELPHIA, SECOND MONTH 17, 1883. No. 1. EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY AN ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS. COMMUNICATIONS MUST BE ADDRESSED AND PAYMENTS MADE TO JOHN COMLY, AGENT, AT PUBLICATION OFFICE, No. 1020 ARCH STREET. TERMS:-TO BE PAID IN ADVANCE. The Paper is issued every week. The FORTIETH Volume commenced on the 17th of Second month, 1883, at Two Dollars and Fifty Cents to subscribers receiving it through mail, postage prepaid. SINGLE NUMBERS SIX CENTS. It is desirable that all subscriptions should commence at the beginning of the volume. REMITTANCES by mail should be in CHECKS, DRAFTS, or P. O. MONEY-ORDERS; the latter preferred. MONEY sent by mail will be at the risk of the person so sending. AGENTS:-Edwin Blackburn, Baltimore, Md. Benj Strattan, Richmond, Ind. Entered at the Post-Office at Philadelphia, Penna. as second-class matter A NOBLE AMERICAN WOMAN. The following interesting sketch by "M. W.," of Glasgow, is from the (London) "Friend." The writer informs us that it was written 11 months ago for a Friends' Essay Association, and that the subject of it, Delphina E. Mendenhall, passed away from earth about the close of 1881.-EDITORS. It was about nine o'clock on a moonlight frosty evening, near the close of 1880, that we left the cars at a little depot in North Carolina, near the home of Delphina E. Mendenhall. But here was a dilemma. The letter announcing our visit had not arrived, and there was no one to meet us We consulted the depot master, a benevolent-looking elderly man, who was kindly lighting us on to the platform. "Could he get us a conveyance, or anyone to carry our bags ?" " Well, ladies, I don't think I can; people are all gone to bed; but if you'll come home with me, my wife will be glad to put you up for the night." "Oh, thanks! that is very kind, but we should prefer to walk on, it is only a mile, and we have not much to carry. Well, I'll walk up the hill with you, and show you the right road, but you'll find it two long miles, and the roads are very rough | to-night!" Hand-bags, cloaks, and umbrellas became unusually heavy as we followed our guide; courage failed before the two miles walk, and we were glad to retract our refusal the good man led us to a "frame and accept his kindness. Lantern in hand, "" house among the trees, and stirred up the wood embers on the hearth to a blaze. He then went into an inner room to awake his wife from her first sleep, and after piling fresh wood on the fire, returned to his night duties at the depot. We marvelled at the good temper of our hostess under the circumstances. She soon "fixed up" the guest-chamber upstairs, and chatting awhile by the glowing wood pile, told us she was a member with Friends, though her husband was not. The room in which we slept was like many in North Carolina-floor, walls, ceiling, of beautiful planed wood, looking not unlike the inside of a large box! We had "calculated" to walk to D. E. Mendenhall's to breakfast, but heard our hostess up long before daylight, and when we came down a beautiful meal was spread, hot_biscuits, ham and eggs, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, and coffee. We found her to be a very executive person, whilst her husband, many years older, attended to the depot, she, with the help of two hired men who breakfasted with us, cultivated the farm. One of the men, by his mistress's order, drove us in the wagon to D. E. Mendenhall's. The dear old lady (she is over seventy) gave us a most hearty welcome, though looking almost | meal, inclined the heart of a miller, who had as surprised as though we had dropped from the clouds! She had heard nothing of us since she gave us a loving invitation to visit her three months before, when we met in Indiana. To our younger members the name of Delphina Mendenhall is, I expect, unknown, but those who are older connect it with tidings which came to us long ago, of a husband and wife who dared to do right, and gave to all their slaves liberty and settlement in a free State. Then, too, it was Delphina E. Mendenhall who, some twenty years ago, signed the Epistles, as Clerk of North Carolina Women's Yearly Meeting. Her husband, not a Friend, was a lawyer, and by inheritance became possessed of about fifty slaves. Many of these he found had near relatives who were in danger of being sold away to other States, and to prevent this separation of families he purchased these relatives, so that he became the possessor of about eighty slaves. He was one of those enlightened men who believed it wrong to hold his fellow-men in bondage, and in the face of the pro-slavery sentiment and laws of North Carolina, which made it illegal to set slaves free in that State, he set himself to work to liberate them by taking them in detachments to Ohio. As this was a work extending over many years, as he could provide means for the long and expensive journeys, he endeavored to prepare his people for freedom by apprenticing the young men to trades, and with the assistance of his wife, by holding school in his own house. As it was illegal to teach any slave to read or write, this was at constant risk of fine or imprisonment. Twice he sent parties by trustworthy agents to Ohio, and twice his wife and he took them in person. The journey, which was performed by wagon and on foot, took about a month. To the light-hearted children of the party it must have seemed a long, happy holiday excursion, gathering nuts and berries by the wayside, till, wearied, they would get a ride by turns in the wagons. At night they encamped under the starry canopy of heaven, while the mothers baked the corncakes for the next day's food. The journey was not, however, all holiday to the older travellers. There were the forest wild beasts to be guarded against, rivers to ford, and once, while passing through the mountains of Western Virginia,the little party came near being hungered. They were as simply provisioned as Prince Charlie's army a hundred years before, only with Indian corn instead of oatmeal. But the corn ran down, and as it was a time of great scarcity, nobody would sell them more. But the Lord heard the simple prayers of His children, and when they were at the last refused all other applicants, to sell them part of the little store he had reserved for his own use. At last they arrived at the great Ohio river, and ferrying over it, sprang on the blessed land of freedom, where they were placed under the care of a Friends' Freedmen's Aid Committee, who attended to their settlement. In this way fifty were set free. Then the noble husband was called away, being drowned while fording the flooded Deep river close to his own home, and the noble wife was left to complete the work of liberation. To add to her distress and difficulties, war between the South and North was just beginning, and it was a fearful thing for a desolate widow to lead forth a party of slaves to seek freedom in the hated North. Yet, strong in faith and courage, she made the attempt, only to be turned back by an armed mob not far from her own house. Then her husband's will was disputed, which, with the host she had to feed in those disastrous war times, caused her great trouble and expense. At last and surely through the direct interposition of a Higher Power, the Confederate Government granted her a pass for all except some young men she dared not ask for, as they would have put them to army work at once. He So, with a friend as helper, she set forth by wagon, and reached the Northern lines in safety. Here the officer in charge had to stop them, as it was against orders to pass, unless to remain in the North. He could allow her people to pass, but not herself or her friend. She told him her difficultyhow her people had a long journey still before them, and how they were little better than children in managing for themselves. was touched and interested by the story, and offered, if she intrusted him with the specie which she had provided for the expenses of the journey, to get it changed into Northern paper money, thus doubling it in amount, and to take charge of them by train to the Ohio, and see them shipped on that river. She had only an hour to make up her mind before the train came up; but there was something about the young officer that made her trust him, so she committed to him the gold and the human beings more precious than gold. Soon they were whirled out of sight in the train, and she had to turn with heavy heart to her desolate Southern home. Her neighbors said, "She would never hear anything more of her people or her gold; the Yankee would keep the money, and let the niggers shift for themselves." Yet, though no tidings came, her trust remained unshaken, and long afterwards a letter from one of her people arrived. The Northern officer had been true to his trust, and all had reached Ohio in safety. D. E. Mendenhall succeeded in keeping the young men out of the army, and one or two still live in North Carolina, members of the Society of Friends. Those who settled in Ohio, so far as she had been able to trace them, had done very well. One a grandson of "Uncle Isham," is a physician in good practice, and his wife also is a physi cian. Having said so much of Delphina's noble lifework, let me try to describe her home, which stands on a steep hillside above Deep River. First seen from the bridge which now takes the place of the dangerous ford, the back of the house is a massive pile of masonry, three stories above ground, with projecting balcony looking into a grove of noble oak trees-the river flowing swiftly below. In front the house is a long one-story building, irregular in shape, a spacious entrance portico being projected from the building. On one side of the hall are the dining and living rooms, and on the other the library and summer sleeping apartment, all having doors to the piazza, which runs along the house. In front, the garden is laid out in terraces, whose dwarf trimmed box trees stand in stately array, and beyond is a carriage drive through a cedar grove, reached by rustic steps in the terrace walls. Lichen-covered rock, with ferns and trailing myrtle, are in front of the portico steps, and at the end of the house farthest from the road is a terrace walk under the tall oaks above the Deep River. On the higher ground in front of the house is a brick cottage, where, on my cousin's former visit in 1877, D. E. M. was morning and afternoon teaching young colored people, who at that time had no other means of instruction. During our visit this cottage was occupied by a sick Friend with his wife and children from Indiana, come South seeking health. Their funds were exhausted in the long journey, and the warm generous heart, ever open to the sick and sorrowful, offered them this shelter. Behind this cottage, and out of sight from the house, are the farm outhouses-in old times the huts where the slaves lived. You get a very good idea by the aspect of the house and its surroundings of the state of things in the old slavery times, the free-and-easy sort of life, without much method, and one can well believe the service then, as now, was one of love. Though greatly impoverished by the long journeys and settlement of their slaves in Ohio, D. E. M. is still the "Lady Bountiful." | little adopted colored boy, Tommy, who was her personal attendant, driving his mistress out in her little carriage; and an Indian girl who acted as servant, with a good deal of help from "Robert's wife." Robert is the factotum of the place, who farms the land for his mistress on shares, and is a very good specimen of what a colored man can be under Christian care and just dealing-faithful, industrious, and, his mistress said, working himself almost to death to provide a good education for his daughter, there being no public colored school near Deep River. He had also bought five acres of forest land, and was putting up a frame house very different from the almost windowless abodes both of the poor blacks and the poor whites of the South. Robert's three little boys-"Hugh Miller," "Calvin,” and "Bobby"-are pupils in the little evening school which Dalphina Mendenhall still teaches in her own house, her adopted boy Tommy and the Indian girl being also scholars. I helped her the first evening of our visit, and the next evening taught the amusing little school myself; some of them were as black as soot, and all of them in different stages of advancement. Just a word before closing about the dear mistress of the house, with her silvery hair, broad intellectual forehead, and beautiful face, noble even amid the infirmities of advancing age. Those who knew her before the troubles following her husband's death say she was a very bright woman, with much poetical talent. During our little three days' visit she allowed us to read much of her poetry, most of it still in manuscript. I know of nothing more touchingly beautiful than a poem describing one of the journeys to Ohio-indeed, we could not read it without tears; or more exquisitively imaginative and fresh than "Dove-notes," reminiscences of her childish wanderings among the woods, and the thoughts and fancies which flitted over her most poetical little mind. Her best known poem is "Uncle Isham," a loving tribute to the memory of a "Christian slave." Soon after our visit these poems were submitted to a leading New York publisher, but, while acknowledging their beauty, he did not encourage publication on account of the pecuniary risk. Delphina Mendenhall told me that some of her ancestors came from Scotland, and she had quite an enthusiastic interest in the romantic incidents of our national history. At her special request, on my return home I sent her a bit of real heather, that she might Her household, when we were there, con- be able to fancy the purple autumn mantle of sisted of an infirm cousin, an invalid dress- Scotland's mountains. One of the pictures maker, a white youth whom she was main-photographed on memory is the little library taining while he attended school; a funny at Deep River, with blazing logs on the hearth, and the bright moonlight shining For Friends' Intelligencer. SWARTHMORE. Reference has been made in Friends' Intelligencer to the proceedings at the meeting of 18th ult. at Swarthmore, with the expression of a wish "that more of a religious tone should have characterized such an important occasion," and with the query " was there no one whose mind was impressed to call attention to our dependence upon an Almighty Power, without whose aid no good work can be accomplished?" It might, perhaps, properly be said, that the gratitude felt by the entire assemblage was in itself the best acknowledgment of the dependence recommended. More grave considerations, however, are involved in the query, and it may be well to consider why, whilst this grateful feeling was felt to prevail so strongly, no Friend was present, concerned to take advantage of the occasion to call attention, by a few remarks, to our obligation of thankfulness to that Overruling Power who had so signally aided the friends of the Institution in their efforts for its restoration. It is suggested, "there was no time;" true, it was a business meeting, in which workers, not talkers, properly held the floor, in which long addresses would have been out of place; but obviously very little time need have been taken to voice the grateful feeling that existed; want of time was not the reason for the omission, such a communication would have been seasonable and warmly welcomed. The query need not be confined to this one occasion. It may well be made broader in its scope, and take into consideration why the Institution has received so little sympathy and encouragement from those who feel especially concerned for the maintenance of the testimonies and customs of the Society of Friends. It is a long time to go back in retrospect, but if my remembrance is correct, for more than twenty years preceding the establishment of Swarthmore, a continued concern was expressed in our Yearly Meetings, lamenting the neglected state of education in Friends' local schools, and regretting the injury sustained by our Society, in that our more intelligent young members, who were resolved to secure a liberal education, were obliged to seek it in institutions alien to the influences of Friends. A negative was, however, always promptly put upon any suggestion to remedy this, by action which might involve pecuniary responsibility on the part of the Yearly Meeting. After long waiting in vain for relief, a concern arose to found a Friends' College, in a manner which should occasion no expenditure by the Meeting, and this eventually took shape in the establishment of Swarthmore, by means of an incorporated stock company, carefully guarded that the management and control should always be vested in members of our Society. For one, I expected that this would secure the active aid and sympathy of many strongly attached not only to the testimonies and principles, but also to the practices and peculiarities of our Society, who had so long lamented the want of a carefully guarded advanced education under the supervision of Friends, and who regretted the resulting decrease of attachment on the part of our younger members to the important testimonies of our Society. Need I say that this expectation resulted only in disappointment, with some prominent exceptions, those who had persistently expressed their disapproval held aloof, complaint was made that the system of voting, giving power in proportion to the amount of stock held, was unfriendly. This objection was promptly met by a change, restricting voting by stock to questions of property, and giving to each stockholder equal rights in the consideration of all other questions. Connected with the College as Treasurer, I cannot recall that this change enlisted in the efforts to obtain subscriptions any considerable number of those who had expressed dissatisfaction, and from that day to this, so far as I know, the solid conservative Friends among us, with but few exceptions, have withheld their aid and support from the Institution. It is said "the College is not carried on as a Yearly Meeting Committee would have conducted it." Whose fault is that? The Yearly Meeting declined to establish and control it. Again, "Some of the customs there are not strictly Friend-like." Whose fault is that? The most ample invitation |