under the lash of worse than Egyptian taskmasters—whose minds are beclouded by ignorance and enfeebled by suffering, need only to have the same advantages which Europeans and their descendants have enjoyed, triumphantly to refute the unfounded calumny that they are inferior in the powers of intellect, and less susceptible of mental improvement. We maintain, that the people of color are not in any respect inferior to the white man, and that under favorable circumstances they would rise again to the rank they formerly held.

The everlasting architecture of Africa still exists—the wonder of the world, though in ruins: her mighty kingdoms have yet their record in history; she has poured forth her heroes on the field, given bishops to the church, and martyrs to the fires. And for African physiognomy, as though that should shut out the light of intellect, go to your national museum, contemplate the features of the colossal head of Memnon, and the statues of the divinities on which the ancient Africans impressed their own forms, and there see, in close resemblance to their features, the mould of those countenances which once beheld as the creatures of their own immortal genius the noblest and most stupendous monuments of human skill, and taste, and grandeur. In the imperishable porphyry and granite, is the unfounded and pitiful slander publicly and before all the world refuted: there we see the African under cultivation. If he now presents a different aspect, cultivation is wanting—that solves the whole case: for, even now, where education has been expended upon the pure and undoubted descendants of Africans, it has never been bestowed in vain. Modern times have witnessed, in their persons, Generals, Physicians, Philosophers, Linguists, Poets, Mathematicians, and Merchants—all eminent in their attainments, energetic in enterprise, and honorable in character; and the Mission schools in the West Indies exhibit a quickness of intellect, and a thirst for learning, to which the schools of this country do not always afford a parallel." (Sermon by Richard Watson, pp. 7, 8, Butterworth, 1824.)

Sacred history bears ample testimony to the learning of the Egyptians. "Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt." Even in our own country, under the oppressive system which slavery and prejudice have reared to crush the people of color, the superiority which occasionally shines out, notwithstanding all the disabilities by which we have surrounded them, proves beyond dispute that they are the gifted children of our Heavenly Father. In proof of this, we shall adduce from numerous testimonies, that of F. A. Sayre, for nine years a teacher of one of the public schools in Cincinnati.

"Facts have been developed in the progress of the day schools and Sunday schools here, which have made me believe that the colored people are not only equal to white people in natural capacity to be taught, but that they exceed them: they do not receive instruction; they seize it as a person who has long been famishing for food—seize the smallest crumb."

I several times visited the different schools for colored children and have always been gratified to observe the good order and attention to study which the pupils manifest, and particularly with the affection with which they regard their teachers. I have, however, known more particularly the school for boys which brother W—— teaches, there I have seen boys of from 9 to 12 years of age, who had learned the alphabet within a year, who were able to exhibit to advantage, in reading and spelling, to write legibly, to recite long lessons in History, which they had been a short time studying, and to undergo an examination in Arithmetic, which when I first witnessed it, perfectly astonished me. I have taught common schools for about 15 years at intervals, and have visited many taught by others, and I must candidly say, that I have never been acquainted with one which for rapid progress in the different studies pursued, and for the interests manifested by the pupils could be compared with this, nor have I ever seen so much good feeling in the intercourse of teacher and pupils."

And, in corroboration of the above position, we shall mention a few out of many instances in which persons of color have surmounted every obstacle to mental and moral improvement. James Derham, who was originally a slave, was skilled in the languages, and became the most distinguished Physician at New Orleans. Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, says, "I conversed with him, and found him very learned: I thought I could give him information concerning the treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him than he could expect from me." Benjamin Bannaker was a slave in Maryland: he obtained his freedom, and removed to Philadelphia. Without any encouragement but his passion for acquiring knowledge, and with no other books than the works of Ferguson and the tables of Tobias Mayer, he applied himself to the study of Astronomy. In 1794 and '95, he published Almanacs at Philadelphia, in which are calculated and exhibited the different aspects of the planets, a table of the motions of the sun and moon, their risings and sittings, and the courses of the bodies of the planetary system. Bannaker sent his Almanac in manuscript to Thomas Jefferson, previous to its publication, accompanied by a long and interesting letter on the condition of his brethren; and the following extracts are taken from Jefferson's reply:—"Sir, I thank you sincerely for your letter, and for the Almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do, to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men; and that the appearance of the want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I have taken the liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the opinions which have been entertained of them." A late West India paper mentions the death of Mr. Watkis, a colored lawyer in Jamaica, "by which the bar was deprived of one of its brightest ornaments." In the Island of St. Kitts, the proportion of colored members is increasing every year, and several of the special magistrates are colored men. The Editor of the St. Christopher Weekly Intelligencer and Advertiser is a colored man, who has been a bold advocate of liberal principles. He is described as a thorn in the side of the planters, and a great blessing to the Island. And in the United States of America, there are men and women now living whose talents, piety, and worth, are undeniable.

If we contemplate the moral character of the colored man we shall meet with even more frequent demonstrations of the kind care of our beneficent Creator who hath made of one blood all nations, and bestowed upon his rational creatures those qualities of the heart which are the brightest ornament of human nature. "In maternal, filial and fraternal affections," says Wadstrom, "I scruple not to pronounce them superior to any Europeans I was ever among." "Of all the people I have ever met I think they are the kindest, they will let none of their people want for victuals, they will lend and not look for it again, they will even lend clothes to each other if they want to go any where, if strangers come to them they will give them victuals for nothing, they will go out of their beds that strangers may sleep in them."—We not unfrequently have the evidence of slaveholders themselves to the faithfulness and tender attachment of their slaves. In a sermon preached by George W. Freeman,