d,
About de break of day;
Good Lord, we'll rise in de mornin',
And fly, and fly away,
On de mornin's wings, to Canaan's land,
To heaben, our happy home,
Bright angels shall convey our souls
To de new Jerusalem."

"Hallelujah, amen, bress de Lord. How is ye dis night, Mammy Grace?"
said a cheerful voice at the cabin-door.

"Ho! go 'long, Simon,--I knowed ye was comin'. Ye allus blows yer
trumpet 'fore yer gits here. Come in, help yerse'f to a cha'r. Here,
chile," addressing Tidy, "here's yer supper,--eat it now; and don' ye
neber let what I's telled ye slip out of yer 'membrance."

Which Tidy was not at all likely to do. She picked up the bread which
was thrown to her, and, munching it as she went along, walked away to
the pump to get a drink of water.

Children, when you rise in the morning and come down stairs to the
cheerful breakfast, or when you are called at noon and night, to join
the family circle again around a neatly-spread table, did you ever think
what a refining influence this single custom has upon your life? The
savage eats his meanly-prepared food from the vessel in which it is
cooked, each member of his household dipping with his fingers, or some
rude utensil, into the one dish. He is scarcely raised above the cattle
that eat their fodder at the crib, or the dog that gnaws the bone thrown
to him upon the ground. And are the slaves any better off? They are
neither allowed time, convenience, or inducements to enjoy a practice,
which is so common with us, that we fail to number it among our
privileges, or to recognize its elevating tendency; and yet they are
stigmatized as a debased and brutish class. Can we expect them to be
otherwise? Who is accountable for this degradation? By what system have
they become so reduced? and have any suitable efforts ever been made for
their elevation?

Since I wrote this chapter, I have learned some things with regard to
the freed men at Port Royal, where so many fugitive slaves have taken
refuge during the war, and are now employed by Government, and being
educated by Christian teachers, which will make what I have just said
more apparent. Dr. French, who has labored among this people, in a
public address, drew a pleasing picture of the improvements introduced
into the home-life of the negroes,--how, as they began to feel free, and
earn an independent subsistence, their cabins were whitewashed, swept
clean, k