"IN CHRIST'S STEAD" AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCHES BY JOANNA P. MOORE
During the last fourteen years I have been asked to write the story of my life, but I have said;" No, no, I am too busy living my life to stop to write it. If lives are ever written on earth it should be when that life has begun in eternity"; or I said," There are too many books now, if read there will be no time left to read God's blessed book, the Bible, and why write a book that no one has time to read."
Besides, my life is such a common, every-day affair, who would care to read it? Lately friends have said that much in my life would help the dear colored people of the United States. Now whatever will help them I stand ready to do, if first of all, it will glorify God, and, surely, what really helps any of God's family does glorify Him; therefore, praying that the Holy Spirit may bring to my remembrance the part of my life that will help save souls for whom Jesus laid down His life, I begin my task.
If my readers expect me to entertain them with the amusing, queer, ignorant expressions the colored people have spoken in my hearing, they will be disappointed. The black man has been held up to ridicule too long; even the pictures of him usually seen in papers are only caricatures. It is true that, lately, we do see a few representative colored faces in print. As to their peculiar dialect, the ignorant white people of the South use about the same. I would not dare hold up to ridicule either class, any more than I would make fun of the ignorance of my dear grandmother who had but little chance for an education.
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