Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/30

 with a full realization of what the words mean, that the great mass of the Negroes in the South professing religion have a form of Christianity without its substance; and, further, that they have no comprehension of what that substance ought to be," (p. 3.) And this after two hundred years of Southern training!

Then, next, Dr. Tucker, self-contradictory as usual, exhorts—"Work through the Church South;" that is, be it noticed, through this inept and fruitless Church South, which has brought the Negro to a state of ignorance of "what the substance of Christianity ought to be!" But let us follow our author: "Work through the Church South and then you will enlist those who thoroughly know what they are about; know how to reach the colored people; who love them with the remembrances of childhood and youth and manhood, as strangers can never learn or grow to care for them" (p. 27.)

Did ever any one hear such assumption! The Church South "thoroughly knows what they are about!" But for two hundred years they have had an awkward way of showing it! "They know how to reach the colored people!" But, alas, in two hundred years have failed to reach them; and now Dr. Tucker himself is calling for a new departure; exhorts an attempt de novo in order to reach and christianize them! This is logic with a vengeance! But lastly comes the claim—"!!" [sic] This is the old claim which the American people have heard ad nauseum. Alas for all their knowledge they never knew them well enough to treat them as men! They never knew them well enough to give them freedom! They never knew them well enough, after freedom came, to stimulate culture, manhood, and superiority among them.

Precisely this same claim was made by the slaveholders in the British West Indies. They were constantly telling