etic situations
arising out of the mixture of people and sentiments in the South. The
story tells of an ostracized Northern white teacher who, from young
womanhood, labors away her life for the Negroes, until her age and
health reach that degree of disadvantage that her position as teacher,
once her medium of charity, becomes her only means for a living. In
the meantime the Negroes whom she and others helped to uplift and
develop, and to whom, because of race distinction, most all avenues
outside of menial labor are closed, except preaching and teaching, had
become her competitors. In the conflict that arose over the
reappointment of the white missionary teacher and a young Negro to the
place the pitiful situation is again taken care of by Mr. Chestnut's
fine art. "The House Behind the Cedars," until his latest, "The Marrow
of Tradition," was his most ambitious attempt. In this book the story
of an Octoroon family is put forth in all the pathos and tragedy that
is the lot of so many Negroes who belong wholly to neither race.

Mr. Chestnut's latest book, "The Marrow of Tradition," is a strong and
vigorous presentation of the colored man's case against the South in
the form of a dramatic novel. This book especially deserves a wide
reading among the Negroes, who have none too many friends to plead
their cause. Mr. Chestnut, as one truly high-rank novelist among us,
ought to have such a hearing among the eight millions that would give
him all the advantages of a successful novelist from a financial
standpoint as a return for his labor, which is by no means for himself
alone.

In closing, it is but fair to say, while the artists of high rank
among us are few in number, in an article discussing the Negro as a
writer, in mentioning names at all, it must necessarily follow that
there are very many names not here mentioned that would deserve to be
if in such an article as this there were any intention or necessity to
mention the whole list of Negro writers who write well and with power
in every department of letters.

TOPIC XVII.

DID THE AMERICAN NEGRO PROVE, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THAT HE IS
INTELLECTUALLY EQUAL TO THE WHITE MAN?

BY M. W. GILBERT, D. D.

[Illustration: M. W. Gilbert, D. D.]

REV. M. W. GILBERT, D. D.

The subject of this sketch was born July 25, 1862, at
Mechanicsville, Sumter County, South Carolina. His parents
were slaves and his father, a Baptist mini