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66    Abbott's Monthly 

The Voodoo and the Coffee Dregs
(Continued from page 26)

cabbage and jowl filtered through the air.

"Ma'am?" answered Josie, in a high treble.

"Go wake up Honeyboy and tell him to tote in some coal from the shed. This fire is nearly out. That boy," she sighed, "will sho' be the death o' me."

Aunt Cally's voice was like a spectral warning, "Let dat chile be," she said. "Honeyboy am tired. You Josie!" she cried, "doan you wake dat boy. Tote in dat coal when you get through what you doin'."

"Ah can't see why you always takin up for that boy, Aunt Cally, when he don' do a blessed thing. He ain't never been nothin' but trouble, trouble, trouble, ever since Sam lef' him with us to bring up. In trouble al the time, down in Vicksburg, an' pretty soon it be the same way here. You always takin' up for him, an' pettin' him. You ain't never done that for Joe's children, nor young Cally's children neither-nor even mine. Iffen it hadn't been for Mist' Roy, Mist' Tolliver would have put Honeyboy in the Pen'tentury long 'go."

"Yes, chile," cackled Aunt Cally, "an' what did Ah do for Mist' Tolliver? What did Ah do for Mist' Tolliver, honey? Heh! Heh! Mist' Tolliver can' walk ri' now. What's matter with his laigs? Answer me dat!" Her voice became high pitched in her emotion. "What's matter with his laigs, his han's, his ahms? Rhum'tism? Heh! Heh! Rhum'tism! Cunjure did it, honey. Ol' A'nt Cally jus' took out her cunjure box an' she fixed him for shure."

Samantha was silenced. Presently she arose and with a "Mus' go look to the cookin'," departed to the kitchen.

Silence reigned save for the periodic palpitation of the clock, an the less frequent falling of a burned coal thro the grate. Aunt Cally, past mistress of Voodoo, slept as she liked to do-stiffly upright in her padded chair, in the dark-and alone.

She awoke suddenly, immediately alert. Someone had knocked.

Aunt Cally arose, her old bones creaking with her efforts, and moved toward the door as fast as her old age would permit, tapping with her cane lie some blind person. Before she could reach the door, the knocking was repeated, very gentle and with an air timidity.

Without any questioning or any show of fear, Aunt Cally opened the door. She peered out upon a woman of undiscernible age standing in the deep shadows; a woman of medium height and slender-bareheaded, and wrapt in a cloak held fast by tense fingers.

"Ah. Does A'nt Cally live here?" she asked timidly, and with manifest hesitation.

"Ah'm A'nt Cally, honey. What does you want from A'nt Cally?"

The woman shifted from one foot to the other and looked off up the street as though to gain assurance from the long lane of street lamps that winked into the distance. She drew a long breath as a diver does before plunging into cold depths.

"Are you a fortune teller, a...a Voodoo woman?"

Aunt Cally's interest quickened. "Come in, honey, come in." she opened wide the door and bustled aside, with the exaggerated deference of a stage Uncle Tom, so that the visitor might enter. She then closed the door and taking the hesitant woman by the hand, led her in the darkness to the middle of the room.

"You Josie!" Aunt Cally shrilled, "tote me in a lamp, baby."

Josie soon appeared bearing a lamp in her two hands, a big, bright lamp, almost too big for her childish strength. She reminded one of a dwarfed Ethiopia bearing a torch into a benighted land. "Sit it there, honey, on that table...turn it up a little higher, baby, so's ol' A'nt Cally can see."

As soon as the lamp had been adjusted and the youthful handmaiden had departed, Aunt Cally turned her attention to her visitor who still remained standing. Her sharp eyes took in her every feature; her height, her dress, delicate features, large frightened eyes, her sleek dark hair and last, her cloak that failed of its concealing purpose.

"Sit down, honey," she said after her close scrutiny.

"What's yo' name, honey?"

The girl looked around hesitatingly, found a chair, drew it up before the old woman and sat down upon its edge for all the world like a frightened bird ready to dart away at the first sign of danger. She attempted an answer, stopped, swallowed hard and tried again.

"Goldie. Goldie Brown."

"Goldie Brown," Aunt Cally repeated. "Pretty, chile, a pretty name fo' sho'." She pulled a chair up in front of Goldie and sat down hunched forward over her cane. "What you want al' A'nt Cally to do for you, honey?" she asked in her most wheedling tones.

The girl's great eyes, brimming with tears, caught the rays of light from the lamp and twinkled like two big, bright stars.

"I-I want you to make him come back to me," she whimpered. A tear grown over-large for its confines slowly rolled down her cheek and splashed upon her folded hands.

Aunt Cally exhibited well feigned ignorance. "Sho' now, yo' hubby done lef' you, chile?"

"No. I ain't got no hubby ma'am."

"Sho', now, an' he wouldn't ma'y you? An' such a nice sweet chile, too." She clucked her disappointment at such unworthy action on the part of the missing party. "Well, you done come to de right pusson dis time fo' sho'. A'nt Cally will bring him back an' he won't be de fust one, neither. Lor' love you, chile, when Ah was down home Ah brung Tilly Childer's man plum from N'Orleans back to Vicksburg, an' he'd done been gone close on to three years-brung him home, honey, an' Ah didn't move outen my house. Cunjure did it, chile, conjure did."

She turned in her chair and shrilled toward the kitchen, "You Josie, tote me my cunjure box, an' watch yo' step when you do it, too."

"Now, honey," she said, reverting her attention to Goldie, "jess you cross my han' with silver, an' Ah'll sho' bring him back."

With some embarrassment, the girl reached into the folds of her cloak and brought forth a twenty-five cent
(Continued on page 72)



for January, 1931           67

Making Brotherhood a Reality
(Continued from page 28)

As 'Abdu'l-Baha' puts it: "Temples are symbols of the reality and the divinity of God, the collective center. Consider how, within a Temple, every race and people are seen and represented-all in the presence of the Lord, covenanting together in the covenant of love and fellowship, all offering the same melody, prayer and supplications to God. Therefore, it is evident that the church is a Collective Center for Mankind. For this reason, there have been churches and temples in all the divine religions."

But today it is needful, if we are to establish religious unity and the true brotherhood of man, "that a place be built for all the religions of the world; that all religions and races and sects may gather together; that the oneness of the human world may be proclaimed."

The design of the Temple now rising at Wilmette came to the architect, the late Louis Bourgeois, as an inspiration. He said that when the wonder of it swept over him he would work in sheer joy often fourteen hours a day. He said the first thing to come to him was one of the beautiful doorways; then the first floor; then the second floor with its high galleries. A long time after this there shone before his mind's eye the soaring beauty of the dome. 

The "Architectural Record" for June, 1920 the year Mr. Bourgeois first presented his model of the Temple to the world, gives the following descriptions of its architecture and symbolism: "The first story in its simplicity of line suggests the Greek and Egyptian temples; while the treatment of the doors and windows is Romanesque in form, and both Gothic and Arabic in the intricacy and beauty of ornamentation. The second story is Renaissance in line and Gothic in the interlaced arches of its openings. The third is restful, quiet and Renaissance in treatment. Above it rises a lovely dome, suggestive of Byzantine forms; beams of the done itself like hands clasped in prayer, so that the dome gives the feeling of ascension and aspiration found previously in the Gothic towers alone. 

"In the geometric forms of the ornamentation covering the columns and surrounding the windows and doors of the temple, one deciphers all the religious symbols of the world...and, supreme above all, the wonderful nine pointed star, figured in the structure of the temple itself, an appearing again and again in its ornamentation, as significant of the Spiritual Glory in the World today.

"The nine pointed star reappears in the formation of the windows and doors, which are all topped by this magnificent allegory of spiritual glory, from which extend gilded rays covering the lower surfaces, and illustrating, in this vivid an artistic limning, the descent of the Holy Spirit."

Mr. H. Van Buren Magonnigle in an article on "A Temple of Light" in a recent issue of "The Technology Review" is quoted by the author as saying: "Mr. Bourgeois has conceived a Temple in which structure as usually understood is to be concealed, visible support eliminated s far as possible, and the whole fabric to take on the airy substance of a dream; it is lacy envelope enshrining an idea, the idea of Light, a shelter of cobweb interposed between earth and sky, struck through and through with light."

Mr. Allen B. McDaniel and Mr. F. H. Newell of the Research Service professions at the University of Illinois, are the engineers who are supervising the building of the Temple and Mr. Benjamin B. Shapiro of Chicago has made the elaborate and intricate engineering drawings, which presented many new and challenging problems. Mr. McDaniel is also chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai's of the United States and Canada. The actual construction works of the interstructure is being carried forward by the George A. Fuller Co. of Boston and New York.

What is the Baha'i movement that is behind this remarkable Temple? The movement took its rise in 1844 in Persia which in olden times was the illustrious land of statesman, philosophers, poets and artists. Today the Baha'i movement has spread throughout the world. It centered first about a radiant youth called the Ba'b. European Historians have described the wonderful charm of this pure-hearted hero of progressive and Universal religion who was shot in 1850 after six years of brilliant teaching.

After the Ba'bs martyrdom, Baha'n'lla'h, a Persian noble, led forward the movement. He announced the dawn of a new age, an age when brotherhood ad peace should cover the earth even as the waters cover the sea. His universal principles, however, were too vast for the limited minds of his contemporaries. He and little band of followers were driven by the reactionary leaders of Persia into exile and prison; and at last in 1868, were immured in the desolate barracks of Acre in Palestine.

But the persecution of men cannot distinguish the light of God's Holy Spirit when it shines from the minds of his universal educators. From this "Most great prison" of Acre Bahe'n'lla'h spread his gospel of universal love throughout western Asia. After his passing in 1892, his son, "Abduu'l-Bahi'a, became his successor.

Under his inspired guidance the Baha'i cause has gone round the world. It has bound Christians, and Moslems, Buddhists and Parsees, Jews and Hindus into a wonderful spiritual brotherhood.

The Baha'is believe we stand at the dawn of that promised day of universal peace and love when, as Christ foretold, men "shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God." Abdu'l-Bahi'a in the "Arabic Quarterly Review" summed up the principles of this new day in the following words: "Praise be to God that the Sun of Reality has shone forth with the utmost brilliancy from the eastern horizon. the regions of the world are flooded with its light. There are many rays to this sun.
 
"The first ray is heavenly teachings. The second ray is the oneness of the world of humanity. The third

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