ok up, of their own accord, a collection to pay for the candles
for their evening meetings, feeling that it was not right for the
Government longer to provide them. The result was a contribution of two
dollars and forty-eight cents. They had just fled from their masters,
and had received only a small pittance of wages, and this little sum was
not unlike the two mites which the widow cast into the treasury. Another
collection was taken, last June, in the church on St. Helena Island,
upon the suggestion of the pastor that they should share in the expenses
of worship. Fifty-two dollars was the result,--not a bad collection for
some of our Northern churches. I have seen these people where they are
said to be lowest, and sad indeed are some features of their lot, yet
with all earnestness and confidence I enter my protest against the
wicked satire of Carlyle.

Is there not here some solution of the question of prejudice or caste
which has troubled so many good minds? When these people can no longer
be used as slaves, men will try to see how they can make the most out of
them as freemen. Your Irishman, who now works as a day-laborer, honestly
thinks that he hates the negro; but when the war is over, he will have
no objection to going South and selling him groceries and
household-implements at fifty per cent. advance on New-York prices, or
to hiring him to raise cotton for twenty-five or fifty cents a day. Our
prejudices, under any reasonable adjustment of the social system,
readily accommodate themselves to our interests, even without much aid
from the moral sentiments.

Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public
trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive
in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must
be addressed. All the elements of human nature must be appealed to,
physical, moral, intellectual, social, and religious. Imperfect indeed
is any system which, like that at New Orleans, offers wages, but does
not welcome the teacher. It is of little moment whether three dollars or
thirty per month be paid the laborer, so long as there is no school to
bind both parent and child to civil society with new hopes and duties.

There are some vices charged upon these people, or a portion of them,
and truth requires that nothing be withheld. There is said to be a good
deal of petty pilfering among them, although they are faithful to
trusts. This is the n