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72   ABBOTT'S MONTHLY
or parliament of man before the members of which all the international and intergovernmental problems are arbitrated. The eleventh ray is the equality of the sexes - the giving of the same educational facilities to men as to women so that they may become adorned with all the virtues of humanity.
"The twelfth ray is the solution of all the economic problems of the world so that each individual member of humanity may enjoy the utmost comfort and well-being. The thirteenth ray is the spread of an auxiliary language. Just as the rays of the phenomenal sun are infinite, likewise the rays of the Sun of Reality are infinite. This summary contains only a few of its rays. The spreading of these rays will deliver the world of humanity from the darkness of ignorance, strangeness and narrowness and will guide it to the center of all these rays. Then the foundation of warfare and strife, animosity and hatred will be destroyed from amongst the people and the misunderstandings existing between the religions will be dispelled. The foundation of the religions of God is one and that is the oneness of the world of humanity."
The Mummy's Jest (Continued from page 69)
glimmer of skin, skin as pale as beautiful marble. The nose then was unveiled, then the upper lip, exquisitely and delicately cut; then the teeth. And among them I saw a gold tooth! The uncasing continued. The chin became exposed to view; then the upper part of the head - luxuriant hair, long and black - the forehead low and white, the eyebrows raven-black. And the eyes opened slowly. All at once the explanation of the strange individuality came to me. The eyes were fully open; it was Fluerette!
"I jumped from me bed. Slowly she was advancing toward me. I flung my arms to embrace her, the woman of all women I loved best in the world. But something black and hideous loomed up suddenly before me, and I fell to the floor. For several minutes I lay stunned by the sudden fall. Then I looked, and there bending over me and peering into my eyes was the fleshless and mouldering face of a foul and barely recognizable corpse! With a shriek of terror I stepped back. I glanced at the mummy. It was lying on the floor, stiff and still, every bandage in its place, while standing above it was the figure of Anubis, lurid and menacing in the fiery gleams of the early dawn."
The Needle's Point (Continued from page 70)
form on the bed, and he saw, or thought he saw, a slow tremor shake her body. Fascinated by the fear in his mind, he made his way to the table and lighted the lamp. The washed-out yellow light threw his contorted shadow on the wall. He kept his eyes on it, fearing to turn around, for he knew now what noise had stopped.
With eyes on the shadow and still clutching the mandolin, he backed toward the bed and stood like a dumb beast awaiting the snap of a whip. Life seemed to stand still. With all his effort he turned his head slowly around and down, until his eyes, red with fear, fell on her puckered forehead. Between her lips one small froth bubble burst and her open mouth made a small black hole in the empty tenseness of her face. Her long fingers, flexed and brittle looking, were spread palm downwards on the bed. Already she smelt cold and sickly sweet. Involuntarily his thumb and forefinger swept the protesting strings and he dropped heavily to his knees, his mandolin on the bed, his head on the instrument.
"Peac-ie," he cried.
The Voodoo and the Coffee Dregs (Continued from page 66)
piece. "Will this do?" she asked timidly as she reached the coin into Aunt Cally's claw-like hand. "It's all I have."
Aunt Cally's countenance clouded as she fingered the coin.
"Two bits fo' a cunjure woman," she said disgustedly. "An' Ah've had this ol' han' crossed wid gold in my day. How come jess two bits, chile; doan you work?"
"I - I can't work - not now," the girl replied.
"Heah's you'box, A'nt Cally." Josie had entered unheard and unseen, and was standing near-by and a little to the rear of Aunt Cally's chair, her arms burdened with a casket-shaped black box.
Aunt Cally assumed a threatening mien, and pointing her finger toward the table where the lamp glowed, "Put it there, an' git, an' stay git, else Ah'll give you a seven years itch you won't soon fergit...Now git!"
Josie scurried.
Goldie eyed the box in the same way that she would have eyed a bleached and grinning skull, fearfully yet fascinated to an overpowering degree. It held her eyes as though it were some powerful magnet.
Aunt Cally painfully arose, went over to the table, and with her back to the girl, busied herself with the mysteries of the conjure box.
Presently she heard a subdued weeping. Turning her head ever so slightly that she might catch a covert glimpse of the girl, she beheld her, face buried in her hands, and gently rocking to and fro in her agony of grief.
"Oh Rudolph, Rudolph," she whispered through her tears, "I need you so, I need you so."
Aunt Cally turned again to her work, apparently oblivious to the grief so near at hand. Presently, finished with the charm she was making, she wrapped it in a bit of paper, closed the box and placed the packet on the lid. She returned to her seat and began to gently stroke the bowed head before her. Soon the girl's weeping ceased. When she had regained her former calm, Aunt Cally asked her, as though she had never heard, "What's dat boy's name, honey?"
"Rudolph."
"Rudolph what?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know de las' name?"
"No'am."
"Well, well...You Josie!"
"Ma,am?" came from the kitchen.
"Tote me in a cup o' coffee - you know."
"Yessum."
When Josie had brought the cup of coffee and departed, Aunt Cally stirred the brew with a meditative spoon. "Drink this, honey," she said presently. "Drink it all. It's good for you." The girl took the cup, hesitated, then quickly drained it, making all the while a wry face at the bitterness of the taste. Aunt Cally took the cup when emptied. She looked at the remaining grounds long and intently, holding the cup at this angle
For JANUARY, 1931     73
and at that until she seemed quite satisfied with what she saw.
Presently she commenced to speak, and her voice assumed its deep and sepulchral tones, used especially on such occasions as this. "Ah see heah a tall, brown-skin boy - almos' yaller." She glanced up to catch the expression of the girl's face. "He smilin', an' Ah see one gol' toof in front," - another glance; she paused a long time, and then, looking intently at the girl - "He fot a little dark scar on his temple..."
"That's him; that's Rudolph!" interrupted the girl, overcome with excitement.
"Hush, honey, 'fore you break de spell - pshaw, now, Ah can't see no mo!"
"But that was him, Miss Cally - "
"A'nt Cally, honey."
"Aunt Cally," corrected the girl. "That was him. Oh, please, please, make him come back to me." The girl was leaning forward imploringly in her eagerness, her eyes begging like a little puppy's.
"Heh! Heh!" cackled Aunt Cally, "Oh, he come back. He be back, bless de Laed, else Ah'll kill him."
"Ma,am?"
"Else he be daid," corrected Aunt Cally. "What for you think Ah made dat chahm?"
She arose and went to the conjure box and returned with the packet, and handed it to the girl. Goldie accepted it somewhat fearfully, and arose.
"You take dese powders, honey, an' sprinkle dem across yo' do'sill tonight, an' Ah lay you dat befo' dis time tomorrow dat rascal will be back."
Goldie was too overcome with joy to speak. Great, big tears of happiness rolled down her cheeks as she moved blindly towards the door.
"Wait, chile," called Aunt Cally. She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew the quarter so recently placed there. "Ah said 'cross' mah han' honey; heah yo' two bits."
"Oh, thank you so much, Aunt Cally."
"Das alri', honey."
They both moved towards the door. Goldie crossed the sill and disappeared into the night. Aunt Cally thought she saw her wave back to her.
She closed the door and moved slowly back towards her chair.
"Bless Gawd!" she exclaimed. "A great, great granny befo' Ah die. Bless de Lawd... You Josie! Wake up dat lazy, good fo' nothin' skunk and send him heah to me."
"Wudolph, oh Wudolph!" lisped Josie in a plaintive wail.
Lifting Himself by His Own Bootstraps (Continued from page 68)
a deadly yellow fever scourge broke out and it so completely demoralized that section of the South that the school did not open until January 1879, and then with but a comparatively few students. In the meantime Prof. Vashon had died, which was responsible for some of the more advanced students going to other schools, for the most part in the North. During all this student body depression Dr. Revels was periodically leaving the grounds for long lecture tours in its behalf and soon his good work began to show results and once again the dormitories began to fill up with splendid young men, who made exceedingly fine appearances on the campus. Whether or not those were the good old days of Alcorn is for those who witnessed them to say for themselves, but they certainly were days that will never be forgotten by them.
Day by day and in every way did Alcorn University grow stronger and better under the Revels second administration. This being the school teaching age for the colored man of the South, reports from the various county school superintendents of the state poured into the president to the effect that, the students of Alcorn University led all the rest in test examinations for teacher's certificates and their school room workm under the circumstance, was par excellent. Alcorn having undergone so many drastic changes, due to incongruities within, the legislatures of the state were skeptical of making appropriations commensurate to its needs, and for that reason, it was but a "book larnin'" school with nothing practical or demonstrative, such as would be used for experimental purposes, hence its students were not fitted to do much else than teach school. Though their parents did little else but farm, yet the training those students got at school gave them no more insight into successful farming than had their parents, this, be it remembered, was before industrial training had made any headway in colleges. Industrial training however had no sooner made its appearance than did Dr. Revels make an effort to put the idea into force and effect at Alcorn, and so Alcorn University became Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, but it was that in name only as the various legislatures made no appropriations to put the theory into practice. Under the "book larnin'" course, however, many students left its class rooms more or less brilliant men, who have subsequently sent back good reports of their stewardship in life.
IN spite of its handicaps Alcorn University under the Dr. Revels' second administration forged itself to the front until it was easily the leading school of the state, if not that entire section of the South, but nine years of continuous grind at the wheel began to tell on the the health of Dr. Revels and at the close of the 1887 school year he tendered his resignation to the trustees and thereafter moved his family back to Holly Springs, where he once more devoted himself to church work and at which he remained until he passed to his final reward.
In brief, Hyram R. Revels, born in obscurity, educated through his own efforts, rose to public fame, fashioned and trained a race, saved souls for Christiandom and died all but in the pulpit battling to make better men and women for both life and death.
"Honor and fame from no condition rise;
Act well your own part there all the honor lies."
Recently in a public address at Waveland, Mississippi, Bishop Robert E. Jones, of the New Orleans Diocese, said of Dr. Revels: "It is a generally acknowledged fact among the colored preachers of the Methodist Episcopal church of Mississippi that the success of that particular religious denomination in that section was largely due to the untiring labors of Dr. Revels. Though he spent many years as presiding elder and superintendent of the Northern Mississippi conference, yet neither pastor or layman had aught but the highest praise for both his work and his memory. In other words he is still revered by all with whom he came in religious, educational, and political contact."