THE LIBERATOR.

'That the black people possess mental powers capable of extensive cultivation has been sufficiently evinced in the instances of << Gustavus Vasa>> . Ignatius Sancho, Lislet, Capitien, Fuller, Wheatley, and many others; and the time may arrive when the lights of freedom and science shall shine much more extensively on these dark children of bondage, when the knowledge of the true faith shall awaken the nobler principles of their minds, and its practice place them, in moral excellence, far above those who are now trampling them in the dust. How will the spirit of regret then sadden over the brightness of our country's fame, when the muse of history shall lead their pens to trace the annals of their ancestors, and the inspiration of poetry instruct their youthful bards to sing the oppression of their fathers in the land of freedom.'&#151 LEWIS'S HISTORY OF LYNN.

July 14, 1778
The Pennsylvania Packet

Just published, and now selling at BELL'S Book store, next door to St. PaulChurch in Third street, PHILADELPHIA, << GUSTAVUS VASA>> , THE Deliverer of His Country. Inscribed to His Excellency GENERAL WASHINGTON, Commander in Chief of the Forces of the Thirteen United States of America.

Shall tyrant policy and slavish fear

To Freedomsweetest tale shut Britainear?

Shall her brave sons the Patriotic Chief disclaim?

Her infants should be taught to lisp his name.

ANONYMOUS.

Written by HENRY BROOKE, Esquire, Author of the Fool of Quality, of the History of Juliet Grenville, &c. &c. &c.

July 13, 1774
The Pennsylvania Gazette

This day is published, and to be sold by JOHN SPARHAWK and JOHN DUNLAP, In Philadelphia, price Ten Shillings, neatly bound, JULIET GRENVILLE, OR THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN HEART, (Three volumes elegantly printed in two) By Mr. BROOKE, author of the FOOL OF QUALITY. THIS ingenious and pathetic work abounds with sentiments of the most refined and important kind. --- Animated with the love of virtue, the author has endeavoured to disseminate its seeds into the minds of the rising generation, and in order to engage the attention of the young, the gay, and the indolent, he has delivered to most important precepts under the pleasing veil of an engaging narrative. - And thus the reader becomes enamoured of virtue, while he is engaged in the perusal of an interesting tale.

"JULIET GRENVILLE is indubitably a work of genius and uncommon merit; as are indeed all the productions of this writer, from his << Gustavus Vasa>> to the present work. He entitles it "The History of the Human Heart."- And it must be acknowledged the human heart is a subject with which Mr. Brooke seems to be so well acquainted, that we may truly say, he has in various instances described its native operations and genuine movements, that while we read him, our feeling, to use his own expression, a tuned, though subordinate instrument, hear unison and accord to every word he utters."

Monthly Review.

July 24, 1851
FREDERICK DOUGLASS PAPER
Rochester, New York

FOR FREDERICK DOUGLASS' PAPER.

GLASGOW, June 29th, 1851.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: - Being respectively the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Baptist ministers, it was with pain I read the allegations in the North Star, taken from the London Morning Advertiser, inculpating that body, to which I am so much attached, in the guilt of slaveholding and slavery palliating.
As I cannot refute the charges preferred against the Baptists on the other side of the Atlantic, I am anxious to aver that those on this side of the ocean are clear from so foul an accusation, and were so when slaveholding was sanctioned by Great Britain in her West India Colonies.
More than half a century ago, my father held a correspondence with Dr. Rogers, an eminent Baptist Minister in Philadelphia, and from his zeal in denouncing the crime of man-enslaving, the Doctor procured my father's election to be an honorary member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and the certificate or diploma of his membership was framed, and constituted a conspicuous decoration of the wall of his parlor.
I well remember when a boy, a fugitive slave who assumed the name of "<< Gustavus Vasa>> ," being a frequent guest at our table. He published his memoirs, and was a man of considerable talent.
In those days, Dr. Rippon, a Baptist Minister, contemporary with my father, gave a monthly lecture to people of color at his Chapel, and not unfrequently was he seen proceeding to his place of worship with a colored female leaning on each arm. This was a reversion of the deed which brought upon yourself, sir, such an atrocious insult in the streets of New York.
At that distant period, a debating society held its meetings at Coachmakers Hall, London, and the slavery question was a frequent theme for discussion, and one of the most powerful speakers against the traffic in human beings, was the late Judge Baron Gurney, then a Barrister and a member of a Baptist church. I recollect the horror that thrilled the hearts of the spectators, when Mr. Gurney one evening placed on his head an iron machine of torture, which inflicted great pain upon the slave, and an iron gag penetrated his mouth, confining his tongue and preventing articulation. He exhibited the whips also, and many other implements of cruelty adopted by the planters and their agents.
So great was the indignation of the British public at that period, that multitudes discontinued the use of sugar and other productions of slave labor, my father's family and many of his congregation, among the number.
My grandfather had the honor of being acquainted with the philanthropist, John Howard, and my mother has told me that denunciations of slavery were among the topics of their frequent conversations.
To come to recent days, sir, who among the champions of negro rights was a more potent denouncer of their wrongs, than Wm. Knibb, the Baptist Missionary, of whom a member of Parliament said in his place, that such was his influence over the slaves in Jamaica, and such their love for hi, that by a stamp of his foot he could cause 20,000 armed negroes to rush to execute his will. - A large proportion of the slaves of Jamaica were members of the churches of the Baptist Missionaries, to the pastors of which the negroes looked for sympathy and succor as their only friends, which so incited the hatred of the slaveholders that many of the missionaries were imprisoned and their chapels destroyed. I could adduce a multitude of additional facts to exonerate the British Baptist from a participation in the sentiments of those in the States, but I will have mercy upon your space, having said enough I trust to repudiate either identity or congeniality.
As a Baptist in sentiment, I have confined myself to the defense of that body, but it is due to the other denominations of dissenters to say that these are in no degree behind the Baptists in their reprobation of the wickedness of converting a man into a chattel, his body to be manacled and lacerated, his mind to be debased by forbidding the means of knowledge, and his soul perilled by incitement to immorality, and sealing up that book which inculcates virtue and "maketh wise unto salvation." The pulpits, the writings, the magazines and the newspapers of the dissenters, concur in the condemnation of this enormity, and its perpetrators and in disgust towards those who attempt any extenuation.
Before I drop my pen, permit me to avow my conviction that the heinous fugitive slave law will further the cause which the North Star advocates by arousing an universal feeling of indignation throughout the whole civilized world, for I maintain that those countries in which slavery exists, do not belong to the civilized world.
By long-continued unavailing effort, anti-slavery energy was becoming languid, and sympathy lethargic; this first atrocity has invigorated the one, and aroused the other - This outrage has given power to the pen, and eloquence to the tongue; it has touched the lips of a Thompson, and a Douglass, and a Garrison with a "live coal from the altar" of humanity. It has sent Brown and the Crafts to Scotland and England, to exhibit themselves as "great facts" in proof of its abominable working. England and Scotland have been stirred by their narratives and touching appeals. This stimulating law urged Mr. Thompson and yourself to Canada, and the proximate asylum has thrown its shield over the fugitive, and drawn its sword against the hunter and the holder of slaves. Then what has caused the pulpit and the parlors of the ministers of religion in Britain to be closed against the apologizers of slavery? The loathing that has been engendered by the horror of the fugitive slave law. So far from the enactment being untoward, it will accelerate emancipation. The foreheads of the slaveholders, brazen as they be, will not be proof against the universal frown. The heartless slaveholder will quail before the execration of the world. The cruel are cowards.
Josiah Henson, the slave whose arms were both broken by a brute while in bondage, and whose memoirs are just published, is also another of the fruits of the detestable law, another fact, his book and his pitiable condition, from the impotence of his fractured limb, are working powerfully in evoking sympathy to the children of bondage.
Yours most cordially, F. B.

ITEM #79930
September 10, 1794
The Pennsylvania Gazette

JUST PUBLISHED,
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September 8.

May 18, 1827
FREEDOM'S JOURNAL
New York, New York

From the Abolition Intelligencer.
The surprising influence of prejudice.

That savage nations enveloped in the darkness of ignorance, inured to scenes of rapine and cruelty and murder, should become so lost to all the finer sensibilities of our nature as that "their tender mercies are cruel," is not a matter of very great astonishment. But it is really something more than marvelous that the man whose character has been humanized by civilization, whose mind has been illumined by the rays of science, and whose heart has been renovated by the power of the gospel, should become the advocate of the cruel policy of those dark and ruthless sons of nature.
Should the origin of African slavery be enquired for, it must be sought among the most barbarous nations, and will be found growing out of the most sordid and malignant passions of the human heart; while fraud and violence have in almost every instance, been the means by which our slaves were originally procured. Yet are there multitudes in our own enlightened country, in our boasted land of liberty, who, with the book of God in their hands, and a public profession of allegiance to the compassionate Saviour in their mouths, unblushingly stand forth as the advocates of this cruel system.
How shall we account for such conduct? By supposing that such characters are sturdy hypocrites, who have continued to do violence to their own sense of duty until "their consciences have become seared as with a hot iron?" This may in some instances be the fact; but we are persuaded that in most cases their conduct should be regarded merely as a specimen of the surprising influence of prejudice on the human mind. The prejudice of education, of example, and self interest, all uniting, prepare the mind to receive the most glaring sophistry and to settle down upon its deductions as securely as upon those of the most logical reasoning.
In our last we attended to the argument drawn from the colour of our slaves in support of African slavery. In the present No. we will notice that which is drawn from the assumed fact of the inferiority of the blacks in point of intellect. That the blacks are inferior to the whites in intellectual powers is constantly asserted with the utmost confidence as a fact by the advocates of the system. And from this fact they seem to think the inference fair that they were intended for slaves. But we do not hesitate to declare that the fact is gratuitously assumed, and that the history of mankind not only contradicts but abundantly refutes the assumption.
But before we refer to history we ask how is this inferiority of African intellect to be established" By comparing the slave with his master? Yes, the poor African born in the land of strangers, denied the advantages of education, excluded from all means of mental improvement, bowed down under the burden of a hopeless and perpetual slavery, without any motive to exertion, save the fear of the lash, is brought into contrast with the high minded and aspiring son of fortune, who has been dandled on the lap of affluence, favoured with all the advantages of education, and stimulated with the high hopes of distinguishing his character, immortalizing his name, and ennobling his posterity. Is this fair, is it candid, is it honest? And almost equally unfair would it be to compare the inhabitants of our own country, or of any of the civilized nations of Europe, with the barbarous and uncivilized tribes of Africa; and from the comparison to pronounce an original and permanent inferiority of mind as characterising the African. Let it be remembered that climate and manners and customs and religion and government all have influence in giving character to a nation, and that in all these respects the African labours under an obvious disadvantage. Nevertheless their character is doubtless far superior to what is generally represented by those who feel interested in defaming them.*
Now keeping in mind the many disadvantages under which for so many ages they have laboured both at home and abroad, let us turn our attention to the character of a few individuals whom history represents as having, by the energies of their own native geniuses, arisen to a degree of eminence, which not only rescues their race from the charge of original inferiority of mind, but also sheds a brilliancy and dignity over their own characters.
Hannibal, an African who had received a good education, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general and director of artillery under the Peter the great of Russia, in the beginning of the last century.
The son of Hannibal, above mentioned, a mulatto, was lieutenant-general in the Russian corps of artillery. Greg. p. 173.
Francis Williams, a black, was born in Jamaica about the close of the 17th century. - He was sent to England and there entered the University of Cambridge. After his return to Jamaica he opened a school and taught Latin and the mathematics. He wrote many pieces in Latin verse in which he discovered considerable talents. Greg. 207 - 219.
Antony Williams Amo was born in Guinea, and brought to Europe when very young. - Under the patronage of the princess of Brunswick, he pursued his studies at Halle in Saxony, and at Wittemburg, where he greatly distinguished himself by his talents and good conduct. In 1734 he "took the degree of doctor in philosophy at the university of Wittemberg." "Skilled in the knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages," and "having examined the system of ancients and moderns," he delivered "private lectures on philosophy" with great acceptance. "In 1744 he supported a thesis at Wittemberg, and published a dissertation, on the absence of sensation in the soul, and its presence in the human body." He was "appointed professor," and the same year supported a thesis, "on the distinction which ought to be made between the operations of mind and those of sense." Gregorie highly commends these "two dissertations," as evincive of a mind "exercised in reflection" and addicted to "abstruse discussions." In the opinion of Blumenbach they "exhibit much well digested knowledge of the best physiological works of the time." In a memoir of Amo, "published at the time by the academic council, his integrity, talents, industry, and erudition, are very highly commended." Gregoire was unable to discover what became of him afterwards. Greg. p. 173-176. Rees under man.
Job. Ben Solomon, son of the Mahometan king of Banda, on the Gambia, was taken in 1730 and sold in Maryland. He afterwards found his way to England, where his talents, dignified air, and amenity of character procured him friends, among the rest Sir Hans Sloane, for whom he translated several Arabic manuscripts. After being received with distinction at the Court of St. James, he was sent back to Bunda. The letters which he afterwards wrote to his friends in England, and America were published and perused with interest. This man is said to have been able to repeat the koran from memory. Greg. p. 160 - 161.
James Eliza John Capitein was born in Africa. At the age of eight he was purchased on the river St. Andre by a slave dealer, who made a present of him to one of his friends. By the latter he was carried to Holland, where he employed himself in painting, and acquired the elements of the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldaic languages. He afterwards went to the University of Leyden, where he devoted himself to the study of theology. "Having studied four years he took his degrees, and in 1742 was sent as a Calvanistic minister to Guinea." What became of him was never known. While in Holland he published an elegy in Latin verses, two Latin dissertations, (one on the calling of the Gentiles, and the other on slavery,) and a small volume of sermons. Greg. p. 196 - 207.
Ignatius Sancho was born on board a slave ship on her passage to Carthagena in South America. Before he was two years old he was carried to England, where in the course of his life he distinguished himself as a literary character. He died in England in 1780. After his death an edition of his letters was published in two octavo volumes, which were well received by the public. - Greg. p. 227 - 234. Rees under man.
Thomas Fuller, a native of Africa, and a resident near Alexandria in the district of Columbia, though unable to read or write, excited surprise by the facility with which he performed the most difficult calculations. - Being asked one day how many seconds a person had lived who was seventy years, seven months and seven days old, he answered in a minute and a half. On reckoning it up after him a different result was obtained. - "Have you not forgotten the leap years?" says the black. This omission was supplied, and the number then agreed with his answer. When this account was given by the late Dr. Rush, Fuller was seventy years old. Greg. p. 183 - 185. Rees under man.
Belinda was brought from Africa at the age of twelve, and sold in Massachusetts. - After being a slave to one man forty years, she addressed to the legislature of that state, in 1782, an eloquent petition for the freedom of herself and daughter, which has been preserved in one of the volumes of the American Museum. Greg. p. 167 - 168.
An African by the name of Maddocks, was a Methodist preacher in England. Rees under men.
Othello published at Baltimore in 1789, an essay against the slavery of negroes. "Few works can be compared with this for force of reasoning and fire of eloquence. Greg. p. 185 - 187.
Caesar, a black of North Carolina, was the "author of different pieces of printed poetry which have become popular." Greg. p. 168.
Ottobah Cugoano was born on the coast of Fantin in Africa. He was dragged from his country and carried to the island of Grenada. Having obtained his freedom he went to England, where he was in 1788. - Hiatoli, a distinguished Italian, was for a long time acquainted with him in London, "and speaks in strong terms of his piety, his mild character and modesty, his integrity and talents." Cugoano published a work on the slave trade and the slavery of negroes, which discovered a sound and vigorous mind, and which has been translated into French. Greg. p. 288 - 299.
<< Gustavus Vasa>> , whose African name was Olando Equiano, was born in the kingdom of Benin in 1746. At the age of twelve he was torn from his country and carried to Barbadoes. After passing into various hands and making several voyages to Europe, he at length obtained his freedom, and in 1781 established himself in London. There he "published his Memoirs, which have been several times reprinted in both hemispheres" and read with great interest. "Vasa published a poem containing 1122 verses;" and in 1789 he presented to the British parliament a petition for the suppression of the slave trade. His life and works are familiarly known in England. Greg. p. 219 - 227. Rees under man.
Phillis Wheatly, born in Africa in 1753, was torn from her country at the age of seven, and sold in 1761 to John Wheatly of Boston.
Allowed to employ herself in study, she "rapidly attained a knowledge of the Latin language." In 1762, at the age of nineteen and still a slave," she published a little volume "of religious and moral poetry, which contains 39 pieces," and has run through several editions in England and the United States." She obtained her freedom in 1775, and died in 1780. Greg. p. 234, 241.
Benjamin Banaker, a black, of Maryland, applied himself to astronomy with so much success, that he published almanacks in Philadelphia for the years 1794 and 1795. - Greg. p. 185, 188.
The son of Nimbana, of Niambanna, "king of the region of Sierra Leone," who "ceded a portion of his territory for the use of the colony," (New York Spectator, No. 2019,) "came to England to study." "He rapidly acquired different sciences, and in a short time was so well acquainted with the Hebrew as to be able to read the Bible in the original. This young man who gave such promising hopes, died a short time after his return to Africa. Greg. p. 161, 162.
James Derham, born 1767, was formerly a slave in Philadelphia. "In 1738, at the age of twenty-one, he became the most distinguished physician at New Orleans." "I conversed with him on medicine," says Dr. Rush, "and found him very learned. I thought I could give him information concerning the treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him than he could expect from me." Greg. p. 182, 183.
Toussaint Louverture, general of St. Domingo, was once a slave. He was a man of "prodigious memory," brave, active, indefatigable, and really great. Greg. p. 102, 105.
Christophe, the late king of Hayti, arose from slavery to a throne, and has displayed great energy of character.

*The African," says Sir James Yeo, who has for a considerable time been stationed upon the coast of Africa, "is very superior in intellect and capacity to the generality of Indians in North America. They are more sociable and friendly to strangers, and except in the vicinity of European settlements, are a fine and noble race of men." (Sir James Lucas Yeo's letter to John Wilson Croker, Esq. published in the New York Spectator for Nov. 7th, 1817.)

March 2, 1861
THE CHRISTIAN RECORDER
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

OVERRULING PROVIDENCE.

"Providence," says Sir Walter Raleigh, "is an intellectual knowledge, both foreseeing, caring for, and ordering all things, and doth not only behold all past, all at present, and all to come, but is the cause of their so being, which prescience is not." Of course, only an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient Being could exercise a superintendent of this sort. That Jehovah is not simply Creator, conservator, ruler, and director: "in him we live, and move, and have our being."

"God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions." Over mankind He exerts a supreme control, rendering all our doings subservient to His wise designs. The inferior animals are no less directly influenced by Him: - "Are not two sparrows," said our Saviour, "sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father?" This supervision and interference extends to inanimate objects as well: - the seasons, the winds, the trees and flowers, all bear daily homage to the authority of an Eternal King. "There is a purpose," says Isaiah, "purposed upon the whole earth; there is a hand stretched out upon all the nations." This is something very different from mere occasional interpositions of Divine Power, mere convulsive efforts of that arm which moves the universe. God permits no existence without His sanction; the most trivial action requires His concurrence; His regulative energy is everywhere apparent, continuous, and sustained. He does more than repair the machine when out of gear, or lend His aid to prevent a catastrophe, or give signal examples of retributive justice: the minutest material particle receives an impulse from above; He sees, and understands, and arranges everything according to His good pleasure. No "atoms dance disordered: in His creation; there is no such thing as "blind chance." That there are mysteries in the Divine mode of working no one need deny: finite beings cannot be expected to comprehend either the purposes of the infinite, or the manner in which He effects them. The existence of sin is itself a fact which transcends human intelligence, as enigma which shall puzzle polemics till the end of time. Why an Almighty Creator, perfectly holy, good, and pure, should tolerate rebellion against Himself, wide-spread iniquity, oppression, and impurity, it would be in vain for us to attempt to explain. It is our capacity, not God's wisdom, which is at fault; and without question He has a sufficient reason for not allowing us to understand, as Shakespeare says,

"Those mysteries which Heaven
Will not have earth to know."

We may be at a loss to interpret the handwriting of the Creator on nature's wall, - to conceive why old ocean, lashed into fury, should be permitted to swallow up valuable cargoes and useful men, - why fearful accidents should be suffered to take place, hurrying hundreds into eternity, - why wars, and crime should be allowed to desolate the earth. The presumptuous man, pondering on these things, instead of taking into account the limitation of his own intellect, proceeds at once to deny the Almighty's sovereignty or goodness, to

"Rejudge the justice, be the god of God!"

The humble Christian derives from such considerations a deeper sense of his own ignorance, and a more earnest desire to repose a childlike confidence in the Divine government.

It may not be unprofitable to consider for a little, some of the manifestations of an overruling Providence which history and experience supply. Although it is quite true that God's hand fashions and regulates everything, that not an apple falls to the ground, not a leaf sweeps along the wintry wind, not a drop swells the river without His permission; and true, that clouds and darkness often hide His doings, that many things occur apparently inconsistent with the general design of His administration, - it is equally true that very signal and unusual displays of Providential interference do once and again arrest the attention, and that flashes of light do now and then pierce the gloom of His ore mysterious dispensations.

The merest accident, the most trifling occurrence, we all know, has often brought about results of the greatest importance to mankind. Every instance of this sort appears to be an argument for, an illustration of the deep interest, the direct interposition of God in the affairs of men. Scarcely any one but can remember some trivial circumstance, apparently fortuitous, really providential, which affected more or less influentially his whole subsequent history. A slight illness, a casual rencontre, a change of weather, a gust of wind, a slip of the foot, have often changed the whole current of a man's life, and by so doing affected the destiny of nations and the interests of the world. A living poet thus beautifully alludes to that of which every reflecting person must have at one time or another been conscious: -

"On such slight hinges an existence turns!
How frequent, in the very thick of life,
We ruh clothes with a fate that hurries past!
A tiresome friend detains us on the street;
We part, and turning, meet fate in the teeth.
A moment more or less had 'voided it."

We must regard the Providence of God as an infinite and complicated machine, the well-working of every wheel depending on some joint at an immense distance, and the correspondence of the whole being too intricate for mortal comprehension; or as a mighty web very tangled, apparently to us, but each thread of which is connected, in a manner known to eternal wisdom, with other threads so far removed that humanity cannot trace the connexion. The relations which all the events of history bear to each other; the consequences which actions performed now may lead to a century hence; the correspondences between men and their doings in different ages, glimpses of which now and then may be obtained, - the more we study them only teach us the more emphatically how little we do or can know of God's scheme of government, and how evident are the marks of a skill passing knowledge. There is perfect harmony and perfect system in God's arrangements, and ever and anon we unexpectedly obtain an insight into the intimate connexion subsisting between two events occurring at a great interval of time. "And as there is not," says Bishop Butler, "any action or natural event, which we are acquainted with, so single and unconnected as not to have a respect to some other actions or events; so, possibly, each of them, when it has not an immediate, may yet have a remote, natural relation to other actions and events, much beyond the compass of the present world." --- "Nor can we give the whole account of any one thing whatever; of all its causes, ends, and necessary adjuncts;" --- "any one thing whatever may, for aught we know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any other."

So smoothly, so harmoniously, so obediently to natural laws does the great system of moral administration work, that its Divine Author is only visible to the eye of faith. His scheme requires no miraculous agency to insure its perfect adaptation to the desired end. He guides in secret His complicated handiwork, and very rarely lifts the veil which hides from vulgar curiosity the wonderful, because far distant causes of effects now seen. We may entertain certain designs, and in endeavouring to carry them out we may take certain steps; but these steps often lead to consequences of which we had not the slightest conception, and never could have foreseen. The more we reflect, the more clearly we shall be convinced that we are mere instruments in the hands of a superior Power.

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we will."

Michael Angelo, when he agreed to furnish Pope Julius II with the design of a mausoleum, little imagined that he was initiating a great movement against the Church of Rome. Yet, so it was. That monument required a temple of corresponding magnificence to enclose it; for its construction a large sum of money had to be raised; indulgences were sold for that purpose; and the traffic in indulgences opened Luther's eyes to the evils of the papacy. Thus the building of St. Peter's was the cause of the Reformation.

Even the greatest and most far-seeing men are to a large extent unwilling instruments in the hand of a higher intelligence to bring about results of which they never dreamed. We adopt a course without being aware of one-tenth of the consequences to which it will lead; we enter upon a path which conducts us in a direction very different from if not entirely opposite to, our expectations. Man proposes, God disposes. The creature taken that part in the performance which has been assigned to him in the Creator's plan. He may have had objects of his own in view; but they are lost sight of, or overshadowed, in order to accomplish nobler ends. These ends are neither always visible at the time nor always revealed afterwards; the curtain rises only occasionally to strike the beholder with mingled admiration and awe.

In the history of the Reformation, we have many striking instances of the infallible wisdom shown by the Almighty disposer in so arranging affairs as to advance his own beneficent ends, and to promote the emancipation of the human mind from papal tyranny. The devout and observant reader cannot fail to be struck throughout the whole account of that struggle, with the manifestations of Supreme interposition on the side of infant Protestantism. Luther was ardent, intrepid, and uncompromising. His life might easily have been sacrificed in those times of excitement and violence had he not possessed a protector in the person of Frederick the Wise, and had not that prince been as wary and judicious as he was zealous and resolved. Then, Charles V. was under special obligations to the Elector of Saxony, a circumstance which restrained him from urging the latter to sacrifice the professor whom he esteemed. He had, moreover, a formidable rival in Francis I.; and the natural jealousy between sovereigns who nearly divided Europe between them, prevented them uniting their forces to nip the new religion in the bud. Love and pride at the same period involved Henry VIII., of England, in a quarrel with the Pope; while the usurpations and arrogance of the hierarchy in Sweden threw its just and able monarch, << Gustavus Vasa>> , into the arms of the reforming party. The Catholic princes, too, were then not a little alarmed at the progress of Moslem arms in the East. The most effective precautions, in fact, seemed to have been taken to prevent that Romish armies joining against the common enemy. Had all the nominally papal powers combined to crush incipient feeble Protestantism, influences more clearly superhuman still would have been required to reserve it. Various events in the story of the crusades against the Albigenses, of the religious conflicts in Languedoc, and of the promulgation of the Pragmatic Sanction in France, teach us the same lesson. The Lord bringeth the counsel not only of the heathen, but of despotic and persecuting Christians to naught; "He maketh the devices of the people of none effect." The same Providence, which, in the fourth century, permitted Julian the Apostate, to undertake his rash expedition into Persia, which ended in the death of the imperial persecutor and the deliverance of the Church, took advantage of the corruption of that Church, in the dark ages, in order to preserve that remnant of learning which enabled the scholars of the next period to appreciate the literature of Greece and Rome.

The use of a Latin liturgy and the establishment of monasteries conduced to the preservation and the right understanding of those immortal works by ancient authors, the study of which gave a new impetus to scholarship, and caused the revival of letters. "Such, says Mr. Hallam, "is the complex reciprocation of good and evil in the dispensations of Providence, that we may assert, with only an apparent paradox, that had religion been ore pure it would have been less permanent, and that Christianity has been preserved by means of its corruptions."

But the doctrine of an overruling Providence is susceptible of abuse, and has been abused by fanatics in every age. The human mind is prone to regard the unusual rather than the usual, and to refuse submission to the general administration of the Divine government. We ought carefully to guard against that presumptuous readiness to interpret the judgments of God which characterizes too many religionists, and while deeply sensible of His gracious interposition on our own behalf and on behalf of others in circumstances of danger and trouble, brought on too frequently by our own imprudence or sin, we should continually keep in mind that He who rules the universe does so on fixed principles, and that He allows us to admire special evidences of His working, but neither to comprehend nor to become exponents of His plans.

September 5, 1840
THE COLORED AMERICAN
New York, New York

"PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR."

Prejudice against color! Pray tell us what color? Black? brown? copper color? yellow? tawny? or olive? Native Americans of all these colors everywhere experience hourly indignities at the hands of persons claiming to be white. Now, is all this for color's sake? If so, which of these colors excites such commotion in those sallow-skinned Americans who call themselves white? Is it black? When did they begin to be so horrified at black? Was it before black stocks came into fashion? black coats? black vests? black hats? black walking canes? black reticules? black umbrellas? black walnut tables? black ebony picture frames and sculptural decorations? black eyes, hair and whiskers bright black shoes, and glossy black horses? How this American color-phobia would have lashed itself into a foam at the sight of the celebrated black goddess Diana of Ephesus! how it would have gnashed upon the old statue, and hacked away at it out of sheer spite at its color! What exemplary havoc it would have made of the most celebrated statues of antiquity. Forsooth they were black! their color would have been their doom. These half-white Americans owe the genius of sculpture a great grudge. She has so often crossed their path in the hated color, it would fare hard with her if she were to fall into their clutches. By the way, it would be well for Chantry and other European sculptors to keep a keen look-out upon all Americans visiting their collections. American color-phobia would be untrue to itself if it did not pitch battle with ever black statue and bust that came in its way in going the rounds. A black Apollo, whatever the symmetry of his proportions, the majesty of his attitude, or the divinity of his air, would met with great good fortune if it escaped mutilation at its hands, or at least defilement from its spittle. If all foreign artists, whose collections are visited by Americans, would fence off a corner of their galleries for a "negro pew," and straight-way colonize in thither every specimen of ancient and modern art that is chisselled or cast in black, it would be a wise precaution. The only tolerable substitute for such colonization would be plenty of whitewash, which would avail little as a peace-offering to brother Jonathan, unless freshly put on: in that case a thick coat of it might sufficiently placate his outraged sense of propriety to rescue the finest models of art from American Lynch-law: but it would not be best to presume too far, for color-phobia has no lucid intervals, the fit is on all the time. The anti-black feeling, being "a law of nature," must have vent; and unless it be provided, wherever it goes, with a sort of portable Liberia to scrape the offensive color into, it twitches and jerks in convulsions directly. But stop - this anti-black passion is, we are told, "a law of nature," and not to be trifled with!" Forsooth! What a sinner against nature old Homer was! He goes off in ecstacies in his descriptions of the black Ethiopians, praises their beauty, calls them the favorites of the gods, and represents all the ancient divinities as selecting them from all the nations of the world as their intimate companions, the objects of their peculiar complacency. If Homer had only been indoctrinated into this "law of nature," he would never have insulted his deities by representing them as making negroes their chosen associates. What impious trifling with this sacred "law" was perpetrated by the old Greeks, who represented Minerva, their favorite goddess of Wisdom, as an African princess. Herodotas pronounces the Ethiopians the most majestic and beautiful of men. The great father of history was fated to live and die in the dark as to this great "law of nature!" Why do so many Greek and Latin authors adorn with eulogy the beauty and graces of the black Memnon who served at the seige of Troy, styling him, in their eulogiums, the son of Aurora? Ignoramuses! They knew nothing of this great "law of nature." How little reverence for this sublime "law" had Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, and those other master spirits of ancient Greece, who, in their pilgrimage after knowledge, went to Ethiopia and Egypt, and sat at the feet of black philosophers to drink in wisdom. Alas for the multitudes who flocked from all parts of the world to the instructions of that negro, Euclid, who, three hundred years before Christ, was at the head of the most celebrated mathematical school in the world. However learned in the mathematics, they were plainly numsculls in the "law of nature!"
How little had Antiochus the Great the fear of this "law of nature" before his eyes, when he welcomed to his court, with the most signal honors, the black African Hannibal; and what an impious perverter of this same law was the great conqueror of Hannibal, since he made the black poet Terence one of his most intimate associates and confidents. What heathenish darkness brooded over the early ages of Christianity respecting this divine "law of nature," when Philip went up into the chariot of the Ethiopian eunuch and sat with him, and when the Spirit of God said to him, "Go near and join thyself to this chariot." Both grossly outraged this "law of nature." What a sin of ignorance! The most celebrated fathers of the church, Origen, Cyprian, Tertullian, Augustine, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Cyril - why were not these black African bishops colonized into a "negro pew," when attending the ecclesiastical councils of their day. Alas, though the sun of righteousness had risen on primitive Christians, this great "law of nature" had not! This leads us reverently to ask the age of this law. A law of nature, being a part of nature was created by piecemeal, and this part was overlooked in the early editions, but supplied in a later revisal. Well, what is the date of the revised edition? We will save our readers the trouble of fumbling for it, by just saying, that this "law of nature" was never heard of till long after the commencement of the African slave trade; and that the feeling called "prejudice against color," has never existed in Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Italian States, Prussia, Austria, Russia, or in any part of the world where colored persons have not been held as slaves. Indeed, in many countries, where multitudes of Africans and their descendants have been long held slaves, no prejudice against color has ever existed. This is the case in Turkey, Brazil, and Persia. In Brazil there are more than two millions of slaves. Yet some of the highest offices of state are filled by black men. Some of the most distinguished officers in the Brazilian army are blacks and mulattoes. Colored lawyers and physicians are found in all parts of the country. Besides this, hundreds of the Roman Catholic clergy are black and colored men; these minister to congregations made up indiscriminately of blacks and whites. The same remark may be made of all the South American states and Mexico. General Guerrero, late president of Mexico, was a colored man, so is General Alvarez, one of the most distinguished of the Mexican generals, and some of the most prominent men of the Mexican congress are mulattoes. General Paez, the distinguished president of Venezuela, is also a colored man. General Piar, who bore a conspicuous part in the commencement of the Columbian revolution, was a mulatto. General Sucre, the commander-in-chief at the battle of Ayacucho, in 1824, the most remarkable ever fought in South America, was a black man with woolly hair. In 1826 he was elected president of Bolivia.
As we find ourselves crowded for space, a variety of facts, illustrating the entire absence of "prejudice against color" in European countries, must be omitted. We can find room for only those that follow: - Anthony William Amo, a full blooded negro, a native of Guinea, was, in 1774, appointed Professor of Philosophy in the University of Wirtemberg, in Germany. He was afterwards removed to Berlin and made a counsellor of state to his Prussian majesty. An African negro named Annibal was a general and director of artillery in the army of Peter the Great, who conferred upon him, as a mark of honor, the order of Saint Alexander Nenski. His son, a mulatto, was, in 1784, a lieutenant-general of artillery in the Russian service. Geoffroy L'Islet, a mulatto, originally an officer of artillery in the French army, was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and was living a few years since. Pelet, a highly respected and popular officer in the National Guards of France, is a dark mulatto. Capitein, who graduated with great applause at the University of Leyden, in Holland, and afterwards became a clergyman, and published a volume of sermons in the Dutch language, was a negro, a native of Guinea. Ignatius Sancho, the associate of Garrick, and the friend and correspondent of the celebrated Sterne, was a negro. Louis Phillipe, the present king of the French, had, in his boyhood, as one of his playmates, Scipio Africanus, a young negro, who was one of the family of the Duke of Orleans, (Egalite.) Scipio afterwards became an officer in the French army under Joubert, and was killed with that officer at the battle of Novi, in 1799. A brave Brazilian negro, named Henry Diaz, who was colonel of a regiment of blacks, and had done the state important service in the Dutch war, was invited to Portugal by King John, IV., who received him at his court with distinguished honor, conferred upon him knighthood, and caused a medal to be struck in commemoration of his services. Benoit, a negro of Palermo, called by historians the "Holy Black," was among the most eulogized and honored saints in the Roman Catholic Church of the age in which he lived. One of the members of the French national assembly, between forty and fifty years since, was Mentor, a negro, a native of Martinique. A mulatto, named St. George, who served in the French army after the revolution, was, as the Abbe Gregoire informs us, the "idol of fashionable society" in the French capital. General Dumas, who for a long time commanded a legion in the French army, and was one of Bonaparte's favorite generals of division, and named by him the "Horatius Cocles of the Tyrols," was a mulatto. Kina, a favorite officer in the British army, and who, on a visit to London, received the most flattering attentions in honor of his services in the West Indies was a negro. Correa de Serra, the secretary of the Portuguese academy, asserts that in Lisbon and other parts of Portugal there are distinguished lawyers and professors who are negroes. A public teacher of Latin at Seville, in Spain, during the last century, was a negro named Don Juan Latino. It is a fact well known, that some of the highest offices in the Turkish and Persian empires have been filled by negroes. Job Ben Solomon, a negro born on the Gambia, was treated with marked attention in the polite and literary circles of England, and received at the court of St. James with high distinction. Jules Raymond, author of various works in French, and a member of the national Institute of France, was a mulatto. << Gustavus Vasa>> , a negro born at Benin, resided many years in London, where he mingled with refined society and was highly respected. His son, Sancho, was assistant librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, and secretary to the Vaccine Institution. One of the most popular lawyers at the royal court of Martinique is M. Papy, a mulatto. A. De Castro, aid-de-camp to the governor general of the Danish West Indies, is a mulatto: his son is aid-de-camp to the governor of St. Thomas. George Washington Jefferson, a mulatto from St. Domingo, who resides near Brighton, England, associates with the most respectable society, and is a director in a bank there. Prince Sanders was a dark mulatto, a native of Boston, but resided many years in London, where he was a great favorite in fashionable circles, was invited to breakfast with the Prince Regent, and received flattering attentions from distinguished literary characters. For a century past a considerable proportion of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Cape de Verd Islands have been negroes. Thomas Jenkyns, a negro, native of Guinea, was, for a number of years, a teacher of a parish school near Edinburgh, in Scotland; he afterwards entered the university, where he distinguished himself for scholarship: he was so great a favorite with the faculty that the professors generally relinquished their fees to assist him in his education. He eventually became a preacher, and was deputed by the British Society for promoting Christian knowledge as a missionary to Mauritius, where he still resides. The secretary of the governor of Antigua, in 1837, was a mulatto: so is a Mr. Athill, who was at the same time postmaster-general of Antigua, and a member of assembly. Edward Jordan, who has been for many years editor of the ablest and most influential paper published in the island of Jamaica, is a mulatto. Mr. J. has also been for some years a leading member of the Jamaica assembly, and alderman of the city of Kingston. Richard Hill, who has been for a number of years at the head of the special magistracy in Jamaica, (a body of about sixty magistrates) and their official organ of communication with the government, is a dark mulatto.
When Lord Sligo was governer of Jamaica Mr. Hill was his official secretary, and an inmate of his family: - his lordship, when in New-York in the summer of '39, on his return to England, speaking of Mr. Hill, said, "With no gentleman in the West Indies was I, in social life, on terms of more intimate friendship." Price Watkis, recently deceased, who for the last ten years of his life was at the head of the Jamaica bar, and for a long time a distinguished member of the assembly, was the son of a negress. Mr. Osborn, another member of the same body, and also the son of a negress, was elected to the assembly by the parish of St. Andrews, in which he was born a slave! Mr. Osborn was, a few years since, appointed by the governor a magistrate of the parish in which he resided, and a judge of the court of common pleas.
- Anit Slavery Almanac.