the one string to the
harmony of which all the others were attuned, was the grand
opportunity that emancipation had afforded to the black race to
lift itself to the level of the duties and responsibilities
enjoined by it. "You have muscle power and brain power," she
said; "you must utilize them, or be content to remain forever
the inferior race. Get land, every one that can, and as fast as
you ean. A landless people must be dependent upon the landed
people. A few acres to till for food and a roof, however bumble,
over your head, are the castle of your independence, and when
you have it you are fortified to act and vote independently
whenever your interests are at stake." That part of her lecture
(and there was much of it) that dwelt on the moral duties and
domestic relations of the colored people was pitched on the
highest key of sound morality. She urged the cultivation of the
"home life," the sanctity of the marriage state (a happy
contrast to her strong-minded, free-love, white sisters of the
North), and the duties of mothers to their daughters. "Why,"
said she in a voice of much surprise, "I have actually heard
since I have been South that sometimes colored husbands
positively beat their wives! I do not mean to insinuate for a
moment that such things can possibly happen in Mobile. The very
appearance of this congregation forbids it; but I did hear of
one terrible husband defending himself for the unmanly practice
with 'Well, I have got to whip her or leave her.'"

There were parts of the lecturer's discourse that grated a
little on a white Southern ear, but it was lost and forgiven in
the genuine earnestness and profound good sense with which the
woman spoke to her kind in words of sound advice.

On the whole, we are very glad we accepted the Zion's
invitation. It gave us much food for new thought. It reminded
us, perhaps, of neglected duties to these people, and it
impressed strongly on our minds that these people are getting
along, getting onward, and progress was a star becoming familiar
to their gaze and their desires. Whatever the negroes have done
in the path of advancement, they have done largely without white
aid. But politics and white pride have kept the white people
aloof from offering that earnest and moral assistance which
would be so useful to a peop