Litchfield enquirer., 1874-04-16

in those classic shades in time past, ever did better. in slaveFy's palmiest days. The cOlored orator was fGcilSs Drinceps in the evenings debate, and carried the suf- frages, if not the convictions, of his hear ers And he did another thing. He sum- marily settled, for his own case, at least, that envious and stupid sheer of the phi losophical nincompoops who assert that the ''callahd mind" is merely parrot brain ed, facile in memory and imitation, but incapable of high attainments or philoso- phic generalization! Bah! for such vapid- ity!
 The much-abused dusky legislators of South Carolina did grand thing for her future safety and glory when they threw open the halls of the great University of the state to all complexions, and provided free State scholarships, giving 8 good sup port to the incumbent, open, by competit- i've examination, to all corners, black or white, native or foreign to the State. To the intelligent student of history such events are pregnant with mighty meaning. One of the grandest triumphs for learning which the world ever saw was the part which her Universities played in the mar velous resucitation, of Prussia, after she had been ground to dust by Napoleon Bonaparte. Such resuscitation, to a better and nobler glory than the old, is the education of her colored sons and daughters-many of them carrying her proudest blood in their veins, and finest chiseled features in their faces-working out for the South to-day. Nothing but a bloody revolution, a war of races, can dis turb the upward march of the colored race in the South. But war of races is an absurdlty, though only so because the white man knows that he, not the black, must go under in such a strife,
 A word about the religious state of the blacks. have everywhere found that ''nigger religion" is one of the stock tests of negro-haters, North as we'll as south Of course, the inconsistencies of Christ ians are the devils choicest game. and al- ways will be. And of course an ignorant plety, is always fanatical piety, or always liable to be such. Some good stories are told of negro piety here, some almost too good to be hidden under a bushel On St, Helena's Island, near Beaufort, for in stance, it is related on good authority that not long ago colored convert in a Baptist revival stole new pair of black pantaloons to be baptized in, and after immersion was convicted of the theft By the way, how about baptismal regenera- tion that time?
 But of what white race, and in what white community, is not some equally rich incident narrated? But bogus relig- ion, black or white, cannot harm the true. Such misadventures in piety no more represent the morals and piety of the blacks than of the whites. They rep resent ignorance and vice, but ignorance and vice wear all complexions. If, howev- CT, one would get true glimpse of the piety of the colored people, let hlm see them, as have done, in their devout, though often demonstrative, congrega- tions, in their busy and eager Sunday schools, or around their humble, but god ly, family altars: One ex-planter, ruined by the Rebelnon-now superintendent for Northerner of plantation which his family had held under patents from the English crown for seven generations, and who was bitter against the freed negroes and their friends--was obliged to name me one venerable man, whom he had known from his own boyhood. and to confess that this aged "Uncle Tom was an IsraeIite indeed, a man whoes veracity, fidelity, and Godfearing piety he had proved for forty years, and had found them pure and changeless as fine gold. Who of US knows more than one such saint, of any color, so tried by us and proved? Who of us could hope that our kindest friends dare say for us so much? Religious education, the Bible read by and for himself, is ali the black man needs to bring his piety up to level with the best. Without this bis rich devotional nature runs to weeds. But where nature can raise weeds, knowl- edge and grace can raise blade, ear, and full corn.
 Such were my impressions Of the indus trial, educational, and religious prospects of the Southern negro. With any thing like fair chance in the future, he will be the most rapidly developing manof whom history gives us any account.
 Knoxville, Tenn, March 31, 1874