to hold society together. The latter is entitled to the first place in the affections, esteem, and practices of men. This gives power and beauty to character, and lies at the foundation of all well-ordered society.

It is a great truth that no man lives to himself. No life is isolated. Every man is in a community, and of a community. He can not separate himself from it. The vicious influence which he shuns, and about which he is indifferent because it does not concern him, is in the community of which he is a part. Its miasma reaches his home and his place of business. He may wish to have nothing to do with it, but it will have something to do with him. This is certain. Vice and wrong of every kind are threats against everybody. For these reasons, the depreciation by word or act, of great moral principles, is an incalculable injury.

The town is also a political centre. The opportunity is here furnished to impart lessons of patriotism. Governmental affairs so directly concern all the people, rich and poor, that it would seem any matter of a political nature relating to the municipality, county, or State, would enlist the interest of the most responsible and influential citizens. If good government is so important to the welfare of the people, it seems that they would emphasize its value by interest in its affairs. The interest should be commensurate with the exalted end in view. It is the solemn duty of all good citizens to show by their acts, and by sacrifices if need be, that “this is a government of the people, by the people, and

for the people." Individual responsibility to the government is the essential condition to make this possible.

We hear much in our day of "thug-rule, ring-rule, and class-rule." A government of a dozen, by a dozen, and for a dozen, is a sign of decay both as to interest and responsibility. But who is to blame? Not the dozen. Blame those who plead indifference, who plead excuses and dissatisfaction, who plead, perhaps, despair of improvement. Blame those who will not help to remove bad men from office, and aid in the enactment of wise and beneficent laws. Dispassionate discussion defines the boundary of truth. Individual interest and responsibility of all the people are signal marks of healthy progress. It is a lamentable sign when a large number of the poorest conditioned men, morally and intellectually, are the guardians of political interests.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PROGRESS OF THE NEGROES.

THEY 'HEY were brought to America by compulsion; they were sold to Southern planters when interest dictated the bargain; others were brought from Africa and sold to the Southern people by reason of the same selfish motive; and they were liberated by no act of their own. Whether enslaved or made freedmen, the effort was not their act. They have ever been the football of superior races. Degraded in slavery, or elevated by philanthropy, the moving force, whether a curse or a blessing, is from without. No Joshua has appeared among them. White captains dared the dangers incident to their enslavement. Adventurous cunning and cupidity placed upon the neck of the negroes the yoke of bondage. In submission they yielded to

the curse. White statesmen, white philanthropists, and white organized efforts have exerted themselves untiringly, and in large and noble measures, to elevate them during the last five and twenty years. What has been done for the negroes, in bane or in blessing, has neither been proposed nor done by the negroes. White men write and speak in their behalf; white men give their money in the interests of the negroes, and white men do the effective think

ing for their good. The negroes are passive. All the predominant influence for their elevation is extraneous. This is a luminous fact in the history of this people. They have been a fruitful cause of contention to the American people. They are a bone of contention to-day. The negro problem does not concern them as a class, but the white people are anxious about its solution. The negroes are an amazingly helpless people.

Amid the strife and progress of the ages, what book, what invention, what trophy in the arts or letters, what achievement in the field of industry, what brave and wise leadership on some ensanguined battle-ground, and what persistent and triumphant victory in any great moral contest of humanity, signalize the part which the sons of Ham have taken in civilization? On the North American Continent they have been in close touch with the stirring activities of the Anglo-Saxon people. What have they absorbed and utilized? The encouragement of friends, the leverage of government, the presence of inspiring Anglo-Saxon examples, have given birth to no high purpose and to no generous spirit of self-dependence among this people. The very incentives of personal and political freedom have impaired their energy. The story of their wrongs, and the results of all the intellectual and moral agencies instituted for their advancement, are written by Anglo-Saxon pens. The world is still waiting for some pen-mark, some epic, that shall chronicle the deeds of a pure Hamite, some granite monument that shall commemorate the heroic or civic services

of a son of Ham. The past is a dreary waste, barren of results. The hope and the inspiration of the future are palled by the past.

KINDS OF NEGROES.

"The great primordial nations of Ham were first four-those of Mezer, Cush, Phut, and Canaan. Of these, the nation of Canaan was much the largest, consisting of twelve nations; that of Mezer was composed of seven nations; Cush, of six; while Phut made only a single nation. Five of the nations descended from Canaan were destroyed, enslaved, or expelled from Judea by Joshua, and six have left no written history. Turning to Africa, we find, according to ethnologists, four great types, the Moorish, the Egyptian, the Berber, or Abyssinian, and the Negro. Of these the Mauric type seems descended from Phut, the Egyptian from Mezer, the Abyssinian from Cush, and the Negro from Canaan."

"The negro type is found aboriginal in Africa, in the Fejee Islands, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Madagascar. Its nations are all black or brownish-black. The hair of the negro is woolly and wiry; his features generally broad and flattened, though there are several tribes of them who have, in connection with woolly hair and dusky skin, the most elegant forms and features, as among the Caffres and Iolofs. There seem to be six or seven kinds of negroes, which we enumerate as follows: (1) The Hottentots, (2) the Caffres, (3) the Guinea negro, and (4) the Iolofs, all of Africa; (5) the Papuan of Oceanica, (6) Negrillo of New Guinea, and (7) the Australian negro. The Guinea negro, common with us, has woolly hair and black skin, thick lips, a broad, flat nose, prognathous jaws, narrow and receding forehead, a slender waist, high hips, slender limbs, and massive feet, rounded on the bottom. The Iolofs, in addition to woolly hair and jet-black skin, possess a fine form and strictly European features. The Caffres are of woolly hair, blackish-brown complexion, and have fine form and features."

If this description of the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham and the grandson of Noah, be

* Dominion; or, The Unity and Trinity of the Human Race.