CHAPTER XXIX.
RETROSPECTION AND PROSPECTION.

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IT has been shown that the tribes of Africa are divisible into three classes: The tribes of the mountain districts, the tribes of the sandstone districts, and the tribes of the alluvial districts; those of the mountain districts most powerful, those of the sandstone districts less powerful, and those of the alluvial districts least powerful. The slave markets of America were supplied,[139] very largely, from two classes of Africans, viz.: the criminal class, and the refuse of African society, which has been preyed upon by local disease, decimated by wars waged by the more powerful tribes which have pushed down from the abundant supply that has poured over the terraces of the mountains for centuries. Nevertheless, some of the better class have found their way to this country. About 137 Negro tribes are represented in the United States.

For every slave landed safely in North America, there was one lost in procuring and bringing down to the coast, and in transportation. Thus in the period of 360 years, Africa was robbed of about 30,000,000 of souls! When it is remembered that the Negroes in America sprang from the criminal, diseased, and inferior classes of Africa, it is nothing short of a phenomenon that they were able to endure such a rigorous state of bondage. Under-fed and over-worked; poorly clad and miserably housed; with the family altar cast down, and intelligent men allowed to run over it as swine; and with the fountains of knowledge sealed by law against the thirstings of human souls for knowledge, the Negroes of America, nevertheless, have shown the most wonderful signs of recuperation, and the ability to rise, against every cruel act of man and the very forces of nature, to a manhood and intelligent citizenship that converts the cautious, impartial, and conservative spirit of history into eulogy! They have overcome the obstacles in the path of the physical civilization of North America; they have earned billions of dollars for a profligate people; they have made good laborers, efficient sailors, and peerless soldiers. In three wars they won the crown of heroes by steady, intrepid valor; and in peace have shown themselves the friends of stable government. During the war for the Union, 186,017[140] Colored men enlisted in the service of the nation, and participated in 249 battles. From 1866 to 1873, besides the money saved in other banking houses, they deposited in the Freedmen's Banks at the South $53,000,000! From 1866 to 1875 there were seven Negroes as Lieutenant-Governors of Southern States; two served in the United States Senate, and thirteen in the United States House of Representatives. There have been five Negroes appointed as Foreign Ministers. There have been ten Negro members of Northern legislatures; and in the Government Departments at Washington there are 620 Negroes employed. Starting without schools this remarkable people have now 14,889 schools, with an attendance of 720,853 pupils! And this does not include the children of color who attend the white schools of the Northern States; and as far as it is possible to get the statistics, there are at present 169 Colored students attending white colleges in the Northern States.

The first blood shed in the Revolution was that of a Negro, Crispus Attucks, on the 5th of March, 1770. The first blood shed in the war for the Union was that of a Negro, Nicholas Biddle, a member of the very first company that passed through Baltimore in April, 1861; while the first Negro killed in the war was named John Brown! The first Union regiment of Negro troops raised during the Rebellion, was raised in the State that was first to secede from the Union, South Carolina. Its colonel was a Massachusetts man, and a graduate of Harvard College. The first action in which Negro troops participated was in South Carolina. The first regiment of Northern Negro troops fought its first battle in South Carolina, at Fort Wagner, where it immortalized itself. The first Negro troops recruited in the Mississippi Valley were recruited by a Massachusetts officer, Gen. B. F. Butler; while their first fighting here was directed by another Massachusetts officer, Gen. N. P. Banks. The first recognition of Negro troops by the Confederate army was in December, 1863, when Major John C. Calhoun, a grandson of the South Carolina statesman of that name, bore a flag of truce, which was received by Major Trowbridge of the First South Carolina Colored Regiment. The first regiment to enter Petersburg was composed of Negroes; while the first troops to enter the Confederate capital at Richmond were Gen. Godfry Weitzel's two divisions of Negroes. The last guns fired at Lee's army at Appomattox were in the hands of Negro soldiers. And when the last expiring effort of treason had, through foul conspiracy, laid our beloved President low in death, a Negro regiment guarded his remains, and marched in the stately procession which bore the illustrious dead from the White House. And on the 15th of May, 1865, at Palmetto Ranch, Texas, the 62d Regiment of Colored Troops fired the last volley of the war!

Several attempts have been made to define the racial characteristics of the Negro, but they have not been attended with success.

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has written more and written better about the American Negro than any other person during the present century. She has given laboriously and minutely wrought pictures of plantation life. She has held up to the gaze of the world portraitures comic and serio-comic, which for the gorgeousness and awfulness of their drapery will perish only with the language in which they are painted.

But Mrs. Stowe's great characters are marred by some glaring imperfections. "Uncle Tom" is too goodish, too lamb-like, too obsequious. He is a child of full growth, yet lacks the elements of an enlarged manhood. His mind is feeble, body strong—too strong for the conspicuous absence of spirit and passion.

"Dred" is the divinest character of the times—is prophet, preacher, and saint. He is so grand. He is eloquent beyond compare, and as familiar with the Bible as if he were its author. And every hero Mrs. Stowe takes in charge must make up his mind to get religion, lots of it too, and then prepare to die. There is a terrible fatality among her leading characters.

Mrs. Stowe has given but one side of Negro character, and that side is terribly exaggerated. But all strong natures like hers are given to exaggeration. Wendell Phillips never tells the truth, and yet he always tells the truth. He is a man of strong convictions, and always pronounces his conviction strongly. He has a poetical nature, is a word-painter, and, therefore, indulges in the license of the poet and painter. Mrs. Stowe belongs to this school of writers. The lamb and lion are united in the Negro character. Mrs. Stowe's mistake consists in ascribing to the Negro a peculiarly religious character and disposition. Here is detected the mistake. The Negro is not, as she supposes, the most religious being in the world. He has more religion and has less religion than any other of the races, in one sense. And yet, divorced from the circumstances by which he has been surrounded in this country, he is not so very religious. Mrs. Stowe seizes upon a characteristic that belongs to mankind wherever mankind is enslaved, and gently binds it about the neck of the Negro. All races of men become religious when oppressed. Frederick the Great was an infidel when with his friend Voltaire, but when suffering the reverses of war in Silesia he could write very pious letters to his "favorite sister." This is true in national character when traced to its last analysis. Men pray while they are down in life, but curse when up. And of necessity the religion of a bond people is not always healthy. There is an involuntary turning to a divine helper; a sort of religious superstition, that believes all things, hopes all things, and is patient. The soul of such a people is surcharged with an almost incredulous amount of poetry, song, and rude but grand eloquence. And when the songs that cheered and lighted many a heavy heart in the starless night of bondage shall have been rescued and purified by the art of music, the hymnology of this century will be greatly indebted to this much-abused people. So, under this religious garb, woven by the cruel experiences consequent upon slavery, the lion slumbers in the Negro.

Every year since the close of the Rebellion the Negro has been taking on better and purer traits of character. Possessed of an impressible nature, a discriminating sense of the beautiful, and a deep, pure taste for music, his progress has been phenomenal. Strong in his attachments, gentle in manners, confiding, hopeful, enduring in affection, and benevolent to a fault, there is no limit to the outcome of his character.

Like the oscillations of the pendulum of a clock the Negro is swinging from an extreme religious fanaticism to an extreme rationalism. But he will finally take his position upon a solid religious basis; and to his "faith" will add virtue, knowledge, and good works. Everywhere under good influences he has made a good citizen. No issue in the State has been foreign to him. He has proven his patriotism and his fondness for this land to which he was dragged in chains, and in his obedience to its laws and devotion to its principles has stood second to none. His home promises much good. His whole life seems to have undergone a radical change. He has shown a disposition and delight in the education of his children; and the constantly growing demand for competent teachers and educated preachers shows that he has outgrown his old ideas concerning education and religion. From an insatiable desire for gewgaws he has turned to a practice of the precepts of economy. From the state of semi-civilization in which he cared only for the comforts of the present, his desires and wants have swept outward and upward into the years to come and toward the Mysterious Future. He has learned the difficult lesson that "man shall not live by bread alone," and has shown himself delighted with a keen sense of intellectual hunger. One hundred weekly newspapers, conducted by Negroes, are feeding the mind of the race, binding communities together by the cords of common interests and racial sympathy; while the works of twenty Negro authors[141] lend inspiration and purpose to every honest effort at self-improvement.

The fiery trials of the young Colored men who gained admission to West Point, and the noble conduct of the four regiments of black troops in the severe service of the frontiers have strengthened the hopes of a nation in the final outcome of the American Negro.

But what of the future? Can the Negro endure the sharp competition of American civilization? Can he keep his position against the tendencies to amalgamation? Since it has been proven that the Negro is not dying out, but on the contrary possesses the powers of reproduction to a remarkable degree, a new source of danger has been discovered. It is said that the Negro will perish, will be absorbed by the dominant race ere long; that where races are crossed the inferior race suffers; and that mixed races lack the power to reproduce their species; and that hence the disappearance of the Negro is but a question of time. Mr. Joseph C. G. Kennedy, superintendent of the Federal Census during the war, took the following view of this question:

"That an unfavorable moral condition has existed and continues among the free Colored, be the cause what it may, notwithstanding the great number of excellent people included in that population, no one can for a moment doubt who will consider that with them an element exists which is to some extent positive, and that is the fact of there being more than half as many mulattoes as blacks, forming, as they do, 36¼ per cent. of the whole Colored population, and they are maternally descendants of the Colored race, as it is well known that no appreciable amount of this admixture is the result of marriage between white and black, or the progeny of white mothers—a fact showing that whatever deterioration may be the consequence of this alloyage, is incurred by the Colored race. Where such a proportion of the mixed race exists, it may reasonably be inferred that the barriers to license are not more insuperable among those of the same color. That corruption of morals progresses with greater admixture of races, and that the product of vice stimulates the propensity to immorality, is as evident to observation as it is natural to circumstances. These developments of the census, to a good degree, explain the slow progress of the free Colored population in the Northern States, and indicate, with unerring certainty, the gradual extinction of that people the more rapidly as, whether free or slave, they become diffused among the dominant race. There are, however, other causes, although in themselves not sufficient to account for the great excess of deaths over births, as is found to occur in some Northern cities, and these are such as are incident to incongenial climate and a condition involving all the exposures and hardships which accompany a people of lower caste. As but two censuses have been taken which discriminate between the blacks and mulattoes, it is not yet so easy to determine how far the admixture of the races affects their vital power; but the developments already made would indicate that the mingling of the races is more unfavorable to vitality, than a condition of slavery, which practically ignores marriage to the exclusion of the admixture of races, has proved, for among the slaves the natural increase has been as high as three per cent. per annum, and ever more than two per cent., while the proportion of mulattoes at the present period reaches but 10.41 per cent. in the slave population. Among the free Colored in the Southern States, the admixture of races appears to have progressed at a somewhat less ratio than at the North, and we can only account for the greater proportionate number of mulattoes in the North by the longer period of their freedom in the midst of the dominant and more numerous race, and the supposition of more mulattoes than blacks having escaped or been manumitted from slavery."

Whatever merit this view possessed before the war of the Rebellion, it is obsolete under the present organization of society. The environments of the Negro, the downward tendencies of his social life, and the exposed state in which slave laws left him, have all perished. In addition to his aptitude for study and capacity for improvement, he is now under the protecting and restraining influences of congenial climate; and pure sociological laws will impart to his offspring the power of reproduction and the ability to maintain an excellent social footing with the other races of the world. The learned M. A. DeQuatrefages says, concerning this question:

None of the eminent men with whom I regret to differ take any account of the influence of the action of the surroundings. I believe that the conditions of the surroundings play as important a part in the crossing of races as they do in other matters. They may sometimes favor, sometimes restrict, sometimes prevent, the establishment of a mixed race. This simple consideration accounts for many apparently contradictory facts. Etwick and Long have affirmed that in Jamaica the mulattoes hold out only because they are constantly recruited by the marriage of whites with negresses. But in San Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, there are, we may say, no whites, and the population consists of two thirds mulattoes and one third negroes. The numbers of the mulattoes are there well kept up by themselves without the introduction of fresh blood. In respect to fertility; different instances of crossing between individuals of the two same races may give different results, according to the place where they are effected. I believe it is unnecessary to insist and show that the physical and physiological faculties of children born of mixed unions ought to present analogous facts.

"In my view the aggregation of physical conditions does not in itself alone constitute the environment. Social and moral conditions have an equal part in it. Here, again, it is easy to establish, in the results of crossings, differences which have no other cause than differences in these conditions. It is true that mongrels, born and grown up in the midst of the hatred of the inferior race and the contempt of the superior race, are liable to merit the reproaches which are commonly attached to them. On the other hand, if real marriages take place between the races, and their offspring are placed upon a footing of equality with the mass of the population, they are quite able to reach the general level, and sometimes to display superior qualities.

"All of my studies on this question have brought me to the conclusion that the mixture of races has in the past had a great part in the constitution of a large number of actual populations. It is also clear to me that its part in the future will not be less considerable. The movement of expansion, to which I have just called attention, has not slackened since the days of Cortez and Pizarro, but has become more extended and general. The perfection of the means of communication has given it new activity. The people of mixed blood already constitute a considerable part of the population of certain states, and their number is large enough to entitle them to be taken notice of in the population of the whole world.

. . . . . . . . .

"These facts show that man is everywhere the same, and that his passions and instincts are independent of the differences that distinguish the human groups. The reason of it is that these differences, however accentuated they may seem to us, are essentially morphological, but do not in any way touch the wholly physiological power of reproduction."[142]

Race prejudice is bound to give way before the potent influences of character, education, and wealth. And these are necessary to the growth of the race. Without wealth there can be no leisure, without leisure there can be no thought, and without thought there can be no progress. The future work of the Negro is twofold: subjective and objective. Years will be devoted to his own education and improvement here in America. He will sound the depths of education, accumulate wealth, and then turn his attention to the civilization of Africa. The United States will yet establish a line of steamships between this country and the Dark Continent. Touching at the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast, and the Gold Coast, America will carry the African missionaries, Bibles, papers, improved machinery, instead of rum and chains. And Africa, in return, will send America indigo, palm-oil, ivory, gold, diamonds, costly wood, and her richest treasures, instead of slaves. Tribes will be converted to Christianity; cities will rise, states will be founded; geography and science will enrich and enlarge their discoveries; and a telegraph cable binding the heart of Africa to the ear of the civilized world, every throb of joy or sorrow will pulsate again in millions of souls. In the interpretation of History the plans of God must be discerned, "For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night."

APPENDIX.

The Hon. Linn Banks, Speaker of the House of Delegates.

To his Excellency, the Governor of Virginia:

Sir: Perceiving that a pamphlet published in this city has been a subject of animadversion and uneasiness in Virginia as well as in Georgia, I have presumed that it might not be amiss to apprize you of the sentiments and feelings of the city authorities in this place respecting it, and for that purpose I beg leave to send you a copy of my answer to a letter from the Mayor of Savannah, addressed to me on that subject. You may be assured that your good people cannot hold in more absolute detestation the sentiments of the writer than do the people of this city, and as I verily believe, the mass of the New England population. The only difference is, that the insignificance of the writer, the extravagance of his sanguinary fanaticism tending to disgust all persons of common humanity with his object, and the very partial circulation of this book, prevent the affair from being a subject of excitement and hardly of serious attention.

I have reason to believe that the book is disapproved of by the decent portion even of the free colored population in this place, and it would be a cause of deep regret to me, and I believe to all my well-disposed fellow-citizens, if a publication of this character, and emanating from such a source, should be thought to be countenanced by any of their number.

I have the honor to be respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. G. OTIS, Mayor of the City of Boston.

Boston, Feb. 10, 1830.

To the Mayor of Savannah:

Sir: Indisposition has prevented an earlier reply to your favor of the 12th December. A few days before the receipt of it, the pamphlet had been put into my hands by one of the Board of Aldermen of this city, who received it from an individual, it not having been circulated here. I perused it carefully, in order to ascertain whether the writer had made himself amenable to our laws; but notwithstanding the extremely bad and inflammatory tendency of the publication, he does not seem to have violated any of these laws. It is written by a free black man, whose true name it bears. He is a shopkeeper and dealer in old clothes, and in a conversation which I authorized a young friend of mine to hold with him, he openly avows the sentiments of the book and authorship. I also hear that he declares his intention to be, to circulate his pamphlets by mail, at his own expense, if he cannot otherwise effect his object.

You may be assured, sir, that a disposition would not be wanting on the part of the city authorities here, to avail themselves of any lawful means for preventing this attempt to throw firebrands into your country. We regard it with deep disapprobation and abhorrence. But, we have no power to control the purpose of the author, and without it we think that any public notice of him or his book, would make matters worse.

We have been determined, however, to publish a general caution to Captains and others, against exposing themselves to the consequences of transporting incendiary writings into your and the other Southern States.

I have the honor to be your obedient servant,

H. G. OTIS.

Part 6.

THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION.

CHAPTER XI.

LIST OF WORKS BY NEGRO AUTHORS.

"Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa." Autobiography. Boston, 1837.

"Light and Truth." Lewis (R. B.). Boston, 1844.

"Volume of Poems." Whitfield, (James M.). 1846.

"Volume of Poems." Payne, (Daniel A., D.D.). 1850.

"The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered." Delaney (Martin R.). Philadelphia, 1852.

"Principia of Ethnology: The Origin of Races and Color." Delaney (Martin R.).

"Narrative of the Life of an American Slave." London, 1847. "My Bondage and My Freedom." New York, 1855. "Life and Times." Hartford, Conn., 1882. Douglass (Frederick).

"Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro," etc. Ward (Rev. Samuel Ringgold). London, 1855.

"The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution." Nell (Wm. C). Boston, 1855.

"Narrative of Solomon Northup." New York, 1859. "Twenty-two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman." Rochester, 1861. Stewart (Rev. Austin).

"The Black Man." Boston, Mass., 1863. "The Negro in the Rebellion." Boston, 1867. "Clotelle." Boston, 1867. "The Rising Sun." Boston, 1874. "Sketches of Places and People Abroad." 1854. Brown (Wm. Wells, M.D.).

"An Apology for African Methodism." Tanner (Benj. T.). Baltimore, 1867.

"The Underground Railroad." Still (William). Philadelphia, 1872.

"The Colored Cadet at West Point." Flipper (H. O.), U. S. A. New York, 1877.

"Music and Some Highly Musical People." Trotter (James M.). Boston, 1878.

"My Recollections of African Methodism." Wayman (Bishop A. W.). Philadelphia, Pa., 1881.

"First Lessons in Greek." Scarborough (W. S., A.M.). New York, 1882.

"History of the Black Brigade." Clark (Peter H.)

"Uncle Tom's Story of His Life." From 1789 to 1879. Henson (Rev. Josiah). Boston.

"The Future of Africa." New York, 1862, Charles Scribner & Co.

"The Greatness of Christ," and other Sermons. Crummell (Rev. Alexander, D.D.). T. Whittaker, 2 and 3 Bible House, New York, 1882.

"Not a Man and Yet a Man." Whitman (A. A.).

"Mixed Races." Sampson (John P.). Hampton, Va., 1881.

"Poems." Wheatley (Phillis). London, England, 1773.

"As a Slave and as a Freeman." Loguen (Bishop, J. W.).

CHAPTER XIII.

THE JOHN BROWN MEN.

The subjoined correspondence was published in the Republican, J. K. Rukenbrod, editor, at Salem, Ohio, Wednesday, December 28, 1859. The beautiful spirit of self-sacrifice, the lofty devotion to the sublime principles of universal liberty, and the heroic welcome to the hour of martyrdom, invest these letters with intrinsic historic value.

LETTER FROM EDWIN COPPOCK TO HIS UNCLE JOSHUA COPPOCK.

Charleston, Va., December 13, 1859.

My Dear Uncle: I seat myself by the stand to write for the last time, to thee and thy family. Though far from home, and overtaken by misfortune, I have not forgotten you. Your generous hospitality toward me during my short stay with you last Spring is stamped indelibly upon my heart; and also the generosity bestowed upon my poor brother, at the same time, who now wanders an outcast from his native land. But thank God he is free, and I am thankful it is I who have to suffer instead of him.

The time may come when he will remember me. And the time may come when he will still further remember the cause in which I die. Thank God the principles of the cause in which we were engaged will not die with me and my brave comrades. They will spread wider and wider, and gather strength with each hour that passes.

The voice of truth will echo through our land, bringing conviction to the erring, and adding numbers to that glorious Army who will enlist under its banner. The cause of everlasting truth and justice will go on "conquering and to conquer," until our broad and beautiful land shall rest beneath the banner of freedom. I had hoped to live to see the dawn of that glorious day. I had hoped to live to see the principles of the Declaration of our Independence fully realized. I had hoped to see the dark stain of slavery blotted from our land, and the libel of our boasted freedom erased; when we can say in truth that our beloved country is "the land of the free, and the home of the brave."—But this cannot be. I have heard my sentence passed, my doom is sealed. But two brief days between me and eternity. At the expiration of those two days, I shall stand upon the scaffold to take my last look at earthly scenes. But that scaffold has but little dread for me; for I honestly believe I am innocent of any crime justifying such punishment.

But by the taking of my life, and the lives of my comrades, Virginia is but hastening on that glorious day, when the slave will rejoice in his freedom; when he can say that I too am a man, and am groaning no more under the yoke of oppression. But I must now close. Accept this short scrawl as a remembrance of me. Remember me to my relatives and friends. And now Farewell.

From thy nephew,

EDWIN COPPOCK.

P. S. I will say for I know it will be a satisfaction to all of you, that we are all kindly treated, and I hope the North will not fail to give Sheriff Campbell and Captain Avis due acknowledgment for their kind and noble actions.

E.

LETTER FROM EDWIN COPPOCK TO THOMAS WINN.

My Dear Friend Thomas Winn: For thy love and sympathy, and for thy unwearied exertion in my behalf, accept my warmest thanks. I have no words to tell the gratitude and love I have for thee. And may God bless thee and thy family, for the love and kindness thee has always shown towards my family and me. And when life with thee is over, may we meet on that shore where there is no parting, is the farewell prayer of thy true friend.

EDWIN COPPOCK.

THAT LETTER.

The following is the letter from Edwin Coppock, seized upon by the Virginia authorities as a pretence for not commuting his sentence. The offensive remark consisted alone wherein he spoke of the chivalry as "the enemy." There certainly is nothing in this communication that could justify a Government in taking the life of a man whom it otherwise considered not guilty of a capital crime, but whose greatest offence was that of being found, as Wise claimed, in bad company. We give the letter entire:

EDWIN COPPOCK TO MRS. BROWN.

Charleston Jail, Virginia, November —, 1859.

Mrs. John Brown—Dear Madam: I was very sorry that your request to see the rest of the prisoners was not complied with. Mrs. Avis brought me a book whose pages are full of truth and beauty, entitled "Voice of the True-Hearted," which she told me was a present from you. For this dear token of remembrance, please accept my thanks.

My comrade, J. E. Cook, and myself, deeply sympathize with you in your sad bereavement. We were both acquainted with Anna and Martha. They were to us as sisters, and as brothers we sympathize with them in the dark hour of trial and affliction.

I was with your sons when they fell. Oliver lived but a few moments after he was shot. He spoke no word, but yielded calmly to his fate. Watson was shot at 10 o'clock on Monday morning, and died about 3 o'clock on Wednesday morning. He suffered much. Though mortally wounded at 10 o'clock, yet at 3 o'clock Monday afternoon he fought bravely against the men who charged on us. When the enemy were repulsed, and the excitement of the charge was over, he began to sink rapidly.

After we were taken prisoners, he was placed in the guard-house with me. He complained of the hardness of the bench on which he was lying. I begged hard for a bed for him, or even a blanket, but could obtain none for him. I took off my coat and placed it under him, and held his head in my lap, in which position he died without a groan or a struggle.

I have stated these facts thinking that they may afford to you, and to the bereaved widows they have left, a mournful consolation.

Give my love to Anna and Martha, with our last farewell.

Yours truly,

EDWIN COPPOCK.

COOK'S LAST LETTER TO HIS WIFE.

Charlestown Jail, Dec. 16, 1859.

My Dear Wife and Child: For the last time I take my pen to address you—for the last time to speak to you through the tongue of the absent. I am about to leave you and this world forever. But do not give way to your grief. Look with the eyes of hope beyond the vale of life, and see the dawning of that brighter morrow that shall know no clouds or shadows in its sunny sky—that shall know no sunset. To that eternal day I trust, beloved, I am going now. For me there waits no far-off or uncertain future. I am only going from my camp on earth to a home in heaven; from the dark clouds of sin and grief, to the clear blue skies, the flowing fountains, and the eternal joys of that better and brighter land, whose only entrance is through the vale of death—whose only gateway is the tomb.

Oh, yes! think that I am only going home; going to meet my Saviour and my God; going to meet my comrades, and wait and watch for you. Each hour that passes, every tolling bell, proclaims this world is not our home. We are but pilgrims here, journeying to our Father's house. Some have a long and weary road to wander; shadowed o'er with doubts and fears, they often tire and faint upon life's roadside; yet, still all wearied, they must move along. Some make a more rapid journey, and complete their pilgrimage in the bright morn of life; they know no weariness upon their journey, no ills or cares of toil-worn age. I and my comrades here are among that number. Our pilgrimage is nearly ended; we can almost see our homes. A few more hours and we shall be there.

True, it is hard for me to leave my loving partner and my little one, lingering on the rugged road on which life's storms are bursting. But cheer up, my beloved ones; those storms will soon be over; through their last lingering shadows you will see the promised rainbow. It will whisper of a happy land where all storms are over. Will you not strive to meet me in that clime of unending sunshine? Oh! yes, I know you will; that you will also try to lead our child along that path of glory; that you will claim for him an entrance to that celestial city whose maker and builder is God. Teach him the way of truth and virtue. Tell him for what and how his father left him ere his lips could lisp my name. Pray for him. Remember that there is no golden gateway to the realms of pleasure here, but there is one for the redeemed in the land that lies starward. There I hope we may meet, when you have completed your pilgrimage on the road of life. Years will pass on and your journey will soon be ended. Live so that when from the verge of life you look back you may feel no vain regrets, no bitter anguish for mis-spent years. Look to God in all your troubles; cast yourself on Him when your heart is dark with the night of sorrow and heavy with the weight of woe. He will shed over you the bright sunshine of His love, and take away the burden from your heart.

. . . . . . . . .

And now farewell. May that all-wise and eternal God, who governs all things, be with you to guide and protect you through life, and bring us together in eternal joy beyond the grave. Farewell, fond partner of my heart and soul. Farewell, dear babe of our love. A last, long farewell, till we meet in heaven.

I remain, in life and death, your devoted husband.

JOHN E. COOK.

FUNERAL OF JOHN E. COOK.

The funeral of Capt. Cook took place at Brooklyn on the 20th, from the residence of Mrs. S. L. Harris. The services were conducted by the Rev. Mr. Caldicott, of the Lee Avenue Dutch Reformed Church, and at the Cypress Hills Cemetery by the Rev. Wm. H. Johnson. Of the body the day previous, the Tribune says:

Owing to the length of time that elapsed between the decease and the time the body was delivered into the charge of Dr. Holmes, the process of embalming has been somewhat difficult, and consequently the appearance of the remains is not so natural as it otherwise would have been. Last evening the body was placed in an erect position, in order to allow the injected fluid to settle in the veins and arteries, so as to give to the face a more natural appearance. The swelling has entirely disappeared from the neck and face, and the decomposition which had set in had been checked. The remains will not be enshrouded until this morning, when they will be placed in the coffin, enclosed in a white merino robe with a satin collar, satin cord about the waist, and a black neckerchief about the neck.

Yesterday afternoon the father, sisters, and wife of the deceased were permitted to view the remains. His wife removed the breast-pin and a miniature of their child from about his neck, which she had placed there but a few days previous to his execution. She is but eighteen years of age, and has an infant four months old. She is from Harper's Ferry, Va., where she was married about seventeen months since. She, as well as the other relatives, was overwhelmed with sorrow, and it was some moments before they were sufficiently recovered to be enabled to leave the body. The refusal of the Consistories of the Lee Avenue and Fourth Reformed Dutch Churches to permit the services to be held in their edifices has given rise to the expression of much feeling, and many of the friends of the deceased infer that this refusal is made from a fear of censure on the part of some of the members of their congregations, in allowing a Christian burial to the remains.

In the little burial-ground at Oberlin, Lorain County, Ohio, there is a monument dedicated to the memory of three of the John Brown Men, as follows:

L. S. Leary, died at Harper's Ferry, Oct. 20, 1859, aged 24 years.
S. Green, died at Charlestown, Virginia, Dec. 2, 1850, aged 28 years.
J. A. Copeland, died at Charlestown, Virginia, Dec. 2, 1859, aged 25 years.

The monument bears the following inscription:

These Colored citizens of Oberlin, the heroic associates of the Immortal John Brown, gave their lives for the Slave.

THE NEGRO ARTIST OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY ON THE CAPITOL.

When the bronze castings were being completed at the foundry of Mr. Mills, near Bladensburg, his foreman, who had superintended the work from the beginning, and who was receiving eight dollars per day, struck, and demanded ten dollars, assuring Mr. M. that the advance must be granted him, as nobody in America, except himself, could complete the work. Mr. M. felt that the demand was exorbitant, and appealed in his dilemma to the slaves who were assisting in the moulding. "I can do that well," said one of them, an intelligent and ingenious servant, who had been intimately engaged in the various processes. The striker was dismissed, and the negro, assisted occasionally by the finer skill of his master, took the striker's place as superintendent, and the work went on. The black master-builder lifted the ponderous, uncouth masses, and bolted them together, joint by joint, piece by piece, till they blended into the majestic "Freedom," who to-day lifts her head in the blue clouds above Washington, invoking a benediction upon the imperilled Republic!

Was there a prophecy in that moment when the slave became the artist, and with rare poetic justice, reconstructed the beautiful symbol of freedom for America?[143]