Martin Luther King Jr. Day Anthology

Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at last said,-- "Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher." "IS he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself." "You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?" "No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,--can't read a letter." "Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?" Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room. "When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this o