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Show 110 <'d, laughed, nnd went to and fro, tossing upward their un fettered hnnds; but high above the whole there was a mighty soutH.l which ever and anon swelled up; it was the utterings in broken negro dialect, of gratitude to God. "After this gush of excitement had spent itself, and the congregation became calm, the religious exercises were resumed, and the remainder of the night w:1s occupied in singing and pray€r, in rending the Bibl e, and in a dd resse~ from the mis;sionaries, explaining the nature of the ft·ecdom just received, and exhorting the free people to be industrious, steady, obedient to the laws, and to show themselves in all things worthy of the high boon which God had conferred upon them." NOTE-page 63. On reading to a friend my remarks on the African character, he obsen•ed to me, that similar Yiews had btoen taken hy Alexander Kin mont, in his " Lectures on Man: Cinc innati, 1839." This induced me to examine the lectures, and I hr.d the satisfaction of finding not only a coincidence of opinions, but that the author had pursued the subj ect much more thorou g-hly and illustrated it with much strength and beauty. I would recommend this work to such ftS delight in bold and orirrinal thinkin". The reader, indeed, will often questio0n the soundn°ess of the aut~or's c?nclusions; but even in these cases, the mmd wdl be waked up to great and interesting subj~cts of reflec· tion. I will subjoin a few extracts relatmg to the African character. "When the epoch of the civilization of the Negro family arrives, in the lapse of ages, they will dtsplay in their natire land some very pecuhar and mterestinO" traits of charnct~?r, of which we, a distinct branch otthe human family, can at present form ~o c?nc~ption. It will be,-indeed it must be,- a ciVJ!tzatwn .. l!i~ 1' Ill of a peculiar stamp; perhaps, we might venture to conjecture, not so much distinguished by art as a certain beautiful nature, not so marked or adorned by science, as exalted and refined by a new and lovely theology ;-a reflection of the \ig-ht of heaven, more perfect and endearing than that ~-hich the intellects of the Caucasian race have ever yet exhibited. There js more of the chi_Zd, of unsophisticated nature, in the Negro race than m the Europcan."-p. H10. "The peninsula of Africa is the home of the Negro and the appropriate and destined seal of his future glory and civil ization,-a civilization which we need not fear to predict will be as distinct in all its features from that of all other races, as his complexIon and natural temperament and genius are different. But who can doubt that here, also, humanity in its more advanced and millen ia! stage will reflect, under a sweet and mellow light, the softer attributes of the divine beneficence. If the Caucasian race is destin ed as would appear from the precocity of th::ir gemus and the1r natural qmrkness and extreme aptitude to the arts, to reflect the lustre of the divine wisdom or to speak more properly, the divine science shali \\'e en\'y the Negro if a later but far nobler ci\·ilizaw tion. await him,-to return the splendor of the di\·ine attnbut~s. ~f mercy and b.enc,·olence in the practice and exhJlJJtJOn of all the milder and gentler virtues ?" -p. HJ!. "If there are fewer vivid manifestations of intellect in the Negro family than in the Caucasian as I am disposed to believe, does that forbid the ho,;e of the return of th~t pure and gentle state of society among them wh1ch attracts the peculiar rerrard of heaven 1"-p. 192. 0 "The sweeter gra~es of the Christian religion ap!' ear almost too trop1cal a~1d tender plants to grow m the soil of the Caucasmn mmd; they require a character of human natu re, of which you can see the rude lineaments in the Ethiopian, to be implanted in nnd grow naturally and beautifnlly withal."-p. 218. |
