onvey. As the rich chorus of matchless voices
poured out in perfect time and tune, "Rise, shine, and give God the
glory," the thoughts of earthly freedom, of freedom from sin, and
finally of freedom from the toils, cares and sorrows of earth to be
baptized into the joys of heaven, all seemed to blend into the many
colored but harmonious strain. The singing of the simple hearted
trustful, emancipated slave! Shall we ever hear the like again on
earth? Alas, that the high hopes and glowing prophecies of that
auspicious hour have been so deferred that the hearts of millions have
been made sick!

Of the songs that came out of slavery with these long suffering
people, Colonel Higginson, who perhaps got nearer to them in sentiment
than any other literary man not really, of them, says: "Almost all
their songs were thoroughly religious in their tone, however quaint
their expression, and were in a minor key both as to words and music.
The attitude is always the same, and, as a commentary on the life of
the race, is infinitely pathetic. Nothing but patience for this
life--nothing but triumph in the next. Sometimes the present
predominates, sometimes the future; but the combination is always
implied."

I do not know when this "soldier" song had its birth, but it may have
sprung out of the perplexity of the slave's mind as he contemplated
the raging conflict and saw himself drawn nearer and nearer to the
field of strife. Whether in this song the "present predominates," and
the query, therefore, has a strong primary reference to carnal weapons
and to garments dyed in blood; whether the singer invites an opinion
as to his fitness to engage in the war for Freedom--it may not be
possible to determine. The "year of Jubilee," coming in the same song
in connection with the purpose for which the singer is to be made a
soldier, gives clearer illustration of that combination of the present
and future which Mr. Higginson says was always present in the
spirituals of that period, if it shows no more. When it is remembered
that at that time Charleston was literally trodden under foot by black
soldiers in bright uniforms, whose coming seemed to the colored people
of that city like a dream too good to be true, it is not hard to
believe that this song had much of the present in it, and owed its
birth to the circumstances of war.

Singularly enough the song makes the Negro ask the exact question
which had been asked about him from the earliest da