which might be purchased a small ranch near the city of Oakland, across the bay, on which should be built a comfortable dwelling for a home for Pedro and other poor and feeble people who had befriended Jack in his time of need.

This request of the generous-hearted man was most gladly granted; and in a few hours the land was bought, and money, more than Jack had dreamed of, deposited in bank for buildings and improvements. The work was speedily begun, and energetically and judiciously carried on.

And now, overlooking the beautiful bay of San Francisco, may be seen the residence of Capt John Mansfield,-the "Capt." having been given him by the title-loving people of the Pacific coast.

His history is known to but very few of the many people who partake of his hospitality, and who are greatly interested in him because he lost both his hands in the war of the rebellion. They call him a very benevolent, eccentric person, and tell with admiration how his doors are open to the unfortunate of every class and race.

His Yankee common sense and shrewdness enable him to detect imposture, and the deserving always receive assistance at his

hands. Those who are able to work cultivate vegetables, grapes, and other fruits, and flowers, while the sick and cripples are tenderly cared for in the "hospital" department. The grounds and ranch, or farm, as we in New England would call it, form as beautiful a place as can be found within fifty miles of the "Golden Gate."

Pedro still lives, a feeble, lame old man ; and as he is wheeled on sunny days about the grounds of the Mansfield residence by an attendant, he almost fancies himself lord of one of those beautiful vine-growing estates near his native Malaga in Spain.

Bertie has grown to be a fine, tall boy. He has been once to California since his first trip with Bartolome by water; and expects to visit his old friends again with a classmate next vacation. He will never forget Jack, but loves him next to his father and mother; while Jack looks back to that fearful time when he was on the brink of despair, and wishes he could impress upon all despondent souls the truth of Bertie's song:

"God with earthly ills entwineth
Hope and comfort from above;
Everywhere His mercy shineth;
God is wisdom, God is love."
Annie A. Preston.

THE address of Colonel Preston of Lexington, Va., at the last Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association, must be regarded as a paper of great importance. It is important because it exhibits the views of a large class of intelligent, earnest, progressive, liberal-minded Southern Christians, who, more than any others, have in their hands the destiny of the colored population of the South. It is my privilege to reckon a considerable number of this class among my friends; and from my position, it is impossible not to be greatly interested in the views they take of the work to which the remnant of my life is devoted.

Colonel Preston is encouraged to expect that the negro race will make progress in

future in consideration of the amazing progress it made within a hundred years under the influences of Southern slavery. He quotes from Pritchard, Bowen and Sir Samuel Baker, whose testimony, he affirms, cannot be gainsaid, to exhibit the hideous condition of the negroes as found in Africa. They are represented as "either ferocious savages, or sensual, stupid and indolent creatures, scarcely elevated above animal life, strangers to modesty, doing and allowing things, with brutal apathy, which other nations cannot tolerate; never feeling disgust;" "incapable of religious feeling; " "with a nature on a level with the brute, and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog;" with "neither gratitude,

66

pity, love or self-denial, no idea of duty, no religion; only covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty." With such characteristics unmitigated, they were introduced into this country two centuries ago. The progress they have made, chiefly within the last century, is illustrated by concrete examples. Colonel Preston attended a session of the Colored Baptist Association of Virginia, "with the express purpose of comparing it with like ecclesiastical bodies of white people." He says, "I found a very large assembly of colored delegates going through the usual routine of business in an orderly manner, under the control of a moderator more efficient than many a presiding officer I have seen in the chair in conventions of whites. The debates were spirited, sensible and practical." Another example is the colored Sabbath School of which Colonel Preston has been the senior superintendent for twenty years, and of which he says that for character of instruction and discipline, and in the progress of the pupils it will compare favorably with any white school with which he is acquainted. Another example is found in Lexington, where the Colonel resides. There are eight church edifices in the town, four of them belonging to white congregations. "Of these eight," he says, "the one that reflects most credit upon the congregation that erected it is the First Colored Baptist church. It accommodates five hundred hearers. It is well proportioned, tastefully painted, neatly finished and aisles carpeted. The whole has cost not less than $3,500. All this has been done by a congregation, every member of which is a day laborer, with only his two hands to depend upon for the support of himself and family." And this they did with no aid from abroad and little from the resident white population, and without credit.

Upon such representations as these we can readily sympathize with Colonel Preston in his conviction that the Association which he addressed, and every other instrumentality which would bring to this people religion and education, has great encouragement to prosecute its work. As we recall with what sacred fidelity the negro servants

of Livingstone bore his remains from the center of their savage country to the seacoast, we may feel that the picture of their barbarian condition is too unrelieved in its blackness. But the contrast between the two pictures is essentially just; the progress the negroes have made in this country is amazing. And now in the light of this contrast we wish to place one declaration made by Colonel Preston near the close of his address. He says: "There is no place for them as legislators, and no room for them among the whites as doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, architects or artists. By other pursuits they must gain their livelihood, and for other pursuits they must be trained."

In the midst of this address, such a declaration seems as incongruous as a boulder dropped by glacial action, in the midst of a fertile plain. We wish that this declaration, in its hard barrenness, stood an isolated case; but similar marks and evidences are more widespread and enduring in Southern society than are the evidences upon our Northern land of that all-powerful geological monument of the past. We have in Kentucky scores of colored young women who are competent to go out alone and find schools for themselves in strange towns, and then manage and instruct them to the admiration of white commissioners; but the wisest and best of them have not yet reached that degree of culture which qualifies them to ride in the same car with Anglo-Saxon women; though colored servants, without education, are always qualified to ride with their mistresses. Our most fashionable barbers are colored men, and the elite of society enjoy their manipulations; but the most refined colored man in the United States is not qualified to be shaved in the same room with Anglo-Saxons. Our hotels are crowded with colored servants; but if the most quiet and cleanly colored man should sit at one of the tables it would be an unpardonable insult. Rev. Dr. Blank of Louisville is proud of a colored preacher, a graduate of a college and theological seminary, who belongs to the same Presbytery with himself, and attends steadily its ministerial gatherings; but on being asked what he would do if the

dinner bell should ring while he was in consultation with him in his parlor, as he often was, he replied: "I should not ask him to eat with me." Yet Dr. Blank is an excellent Christian, and a representative of the most liberal and progressive class of Southern men. A fine young colored man, a graduate of Berea College, is a member of a teachers' association in southern Indiana by virtue of his grade of certificate. At a recent meeting of the association, the teachers, including himself, were invited to a free dinner. He was led to a little table by himself at a corner of the room; his appetite forsook him at once, and he begged to be excused from dinner.

But further illustration is not needed. All Southern society is saturated with this idea which Colonel Preston puts forward with such positiveness. It was the cornerstone on which the astute Vice-President Stephens proposed to build the Confederacy. It is a settled principle, established by the usages of two hundred years, that negroes can never be the equals of white people in any capacity. In all their reasoning, it takes the place of an axiom, and it often involves them in positions which seem very absurd and even ludicrous to people of a different education. They praise negroes for their eloquence as preachers, and their efficiency in controlling large ecclesiastical assemblies, and in superintending common schools, and in rallying a poor and ignorant people to the building of fine churches, and for their excellent order and rapid progress in Sunday Schools, and for their amazing progress in civilization without schools or teachers or books or permanent family relations; yet they know, as if by intuition, that they can never, with any amount of education and training, become qualified for legislators, lawyers, doctors, professors, engineers, architects or artists. By what a priori reasoning can it be proven that the colored man, who presided so admirably over that large assembly of uneducated men, might not, by ten or twenty years of education, have become qualified for a legislator in some assembly, where half the members are incompetent to preside at any meeting, or even a lawyer in some mount

ain country, where the average lawyer is barely qualified to teach a common school? How can we know that Colonel Preston's driver, Phil, a former slave, so ignorant that he said "fust" for first, "ole" for old, "mo" for more, "sho" for sure, “nuff" for enough, "fo" for before, but yet could inspire and manage half a regiment of poor, ignorant day-laborers so that they erected a capacious and beautiful church, without a debt, might not have become an architect, or colonel, or financier, if he had enjoyed the advantages of an early general and special education? He certainly showed more capacity than many architects, colonels and financiers we have known of Anglo-Saxon extraction. The fact that the North American Indian, the Hebrew, the Turk, the Anglo-Saxon, have preserved their race peculiarities, as Colonel Preston shows, and that the African will do the same, has no bearing on the assertion that "there is no place for them as legislators," etc. The other races have been legislators where they have made themselves homes, and why may not the African, if he has capacity, notwithstanding he retains his race characteristics? When our reasoning brings us to such inconsistencies and absurdities as these may we not question the truth of our intuition, our principle, our axiom, even though it has been handed down by our fathers? When we consider that an iniquitous social system for two hundred years has been moulding and strengthening such ideas, should we not recall that striking passage of Isaiah: "Neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire, I have baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh and eaten it, and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination?

Shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? A deceived heart hath turned him aside that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

The great hindrance to the progress of the colored race is the prevalent belief that the negro never can, the prevalent hope that he never will, and the very common fear that he may rise above the condition of a servant or a serf. It is this which checks and modifies

efforts for his education and operates as a terrible incubus upon him. We encourage and stimulate our white students by reminding them of the great responsibilities they are soon to bear in state and church and the business world; and of the honors and emoluments they may hope for if they are faithful. Such considerations are their inspiration and support in the long and weary course of their education. Shall we hang on the neck of the colored youth, who is buffeting the waves of prejudice and depression threatening to overwhelm him, the leaden weight of an assurance that neither he nor any of his race can ever become legislators, lawyers, doctors, professors, jurors, engineers, architects, artists, or anything else involving authority or much responsibility, so long as they remain in their native land? Shall we say to them: "By other pursuits you must gain your livelihood and for other pursuits you must be trained?" Let us rather say to them: "You have before you a glorious opportunity. A race long oppressed, degraded and despised you are to lift from darkness into the glorious light of pure religion, intellectual culture, and honorable responsibility. The continent of your fathers is to be redeemed, and here in your native land you are to rise higher and higher in the scale of humanity, till prejudice dies away and all the positions of responsibility and honor which you shall show yourselves competent to fill, shall be open to you. We will fasten no clogs upon you, but will lend you our utmost aid to roll off the burden that seems to you so great. Cherish your highest hopes and your brightest anticipations; and if some of them fail be not discouraged; a brighter day is surely coming."

The incentives to high endeavor that come to the negroes from their past are necessarily very meagre. "Oh," exclaimed a very successful teacher of her race in Philadelphia, "my people have so long been getting up good dinners for their white masters that they can think of nothing but their stomachs." The great danger of our colored youth is not that they will cherish aspirations that cannot be realized, but rather that they will lack encouragements which are

essential to enable their vision to pierce the cloud of ignorance and prejudice which, like a pall, hangs over them and their race.

The closing paragraph of Col. Preston's address is in the true spirit. "For the amelioration of the race, the only means within the province of the society which I have the honor to address, are education and religious instruction. To justify and stimulate the using of these means, we need not determine the ultimate destiny of these people." The true mission of this society and of all its workers, is to endeavor by all appropriate means, and as speedily as possible, to qualify this unfortunate race for the new life upon which they have entered; and to remove all hindrances to their elevation to any positions of honor and trust which they may become qualified to fill. Our people need to learn that a negro is no more offensive as an equal than as a servant. It is a blot on our Christianity and our republic, and a crime against humanity, that we spurn from our presence human beings engaged in the same employment with ourselves, but admit them to the closest proximity if they will consent to serve us. It is an injury and an insult to them, but far more harmful to ourselves. We deprecate every expression and every action of good men which tends to countenance and perpetuate this relic of slavery.

In conclusion I hardly need say that Col. Preston's address has been the occasion and not the inspiration of this review. The object of attack is not a Christian brother, but a feeling, a prejudice, a principle, by whatever name it may be called, prevalent not only at the South but more inexcusably so at the North. With us at Berea this is a vital question. If this feeling in respect to negroes is a divinely established principle and not a cruel, sinful prejudice—a thing to be sanctioned and not censured, to be fostered and not abated-then we are not wisely working for our country, for humanity and for God, but are a set of deluded fanatics; and the sooner our work is ended or fundamentally changed the better for all concerned. To this sequestered spot among the hills in central Kentucky come