One of the "Watch-dogs" struck Miss Lake on one occasion. On another,
a "Watch-dog" went boldly up to two policemen to whom a fugitive slave
had appealed for help, seized his prey, and without resistance from
the policemen, carried her bodily back to slavery along the public
street, in view of many spectators. At another time several of them
rushed in upon a scene of rescue, overcame the police officer, and
hurled him down stairs, dealt in the same manner with some men in
the rescue party, and then turned upon the missionary and would have
subjected her to the same treatment. She said firmly: "Do not lay a
hand upon me! I will go out by myself," and overawed, they allowed
her to walk out untouched through their midst into fresh air and to
safety. It is hardly necessary to add that the missionary did not, on
this occasion, get the poor slave.
We have already said, but it bears repeating, that white men as well
as Chinese, resort to these slaves. One rescued girl told of another
captive, bound by night to her bed and to her unwilling task. Think of
the education of the youths of San Francisco in such schools of vice
as this,--what a menace they must necessarily become to the women of
their own family and acquaintance! A young woman managed to get a
request for help sent to a rescue worker. The missionary responded
by a carefully arranged plot for the identification of the girl. It
included the understanding that when the rescuer with the officer
should enter the place, she was to have in her hands, and to raise
to her lips a handkerchief which the missionary had managed to get
conveyed to her. They entered, saw her with the handkerchief held
to her face, at the little soliciting window, but the poor girl had
endured so much that at the sight of friends she lost her nerve and
presence of mind, fluttered her handkerchief, and cried out, "Oh,
472. Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all
it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without it we
cannot be discontented; with it we cannot be content.
473. Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.
474. Members. To commence with that.--To regulate the love which we owe to
ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we are
members of the whole, and must see how each member should love itself,
etc....
475. If the feet and the hands had a will of their own, they could only be
in their order in submitting this particular will to the primary will which
governs the whole body. Apart from that, they are in disorder and mischief