hey tending?--A God
Marshal'd them, gave them their goal--
Ah, but the way is so long!

Years they have been in the wild!
Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks,
Rising all round, overawe;
Factions divide them, their host
Threatens to break, to dissolve--
Ah, keep, keep them combined!
Else, of the myriads who fill
That army, not one shall arrive;
Sole they shall stray; on the rocks
Batter forever in vain,
Die one by one in the waste.

Then, in such hour of need
Of your fainting, dispirited race,
Ye, like angels, appear,
Radiant with ardor divine.
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.
Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.
Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave.
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On, to the City of God!

CHAPTER XXXVIII

EVOLUTION

The story of slavery merges in the stories of the white man and the
black man, to which there is no end. As the main period to the present
study we have taken the beginning of President Hayes's administration in
1877, when the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South marked the
return of the States of the Union to their normal relations, and also
marked the disappearance of the negro problem as the central feature in
national politics. From that time to the present we shall take but a
bird's-eye view of the fortunes and the mutual relation of the two
races.

The people of the Southern States realized gradually but at last fully
that the conduct of their affairs was left in their own hands. From this
time there was no important Federal legislation directed specially at
the South. The restrictive laws left over from the reconstruction period
were in some cases set aside by the Supreme Court and in general passed
into abeyance. There was rare and brief discussion of a renewal of
Federal supervision of elections. But the Northern people, partly from
rational conviction and partly from absorption in new issues, were
wholly indisposed to any further interference. Without such interference
there was no slightest chance of any restoration of political
prep