Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/429

Rh in ruling, an experienced colonial governor for instance, might perhaps seem better fitted for the post than one who is a prince, and, as far as we know, only a prince. But here again it would be foolish to dispute about details. Any civilized ruler would be better than any barbarian. And Mr. Grant Duff's proposal for the employment of Indian officials is at all events wise and practical. Our platform then is simple. The more impetuous fervor of Mr. Gladstone leads us to a certain point, which is the least with which we can put up. The colder reason of Mr. Grant Duff leads us to a further point, to which we shall be delighted to follow him thither if we can, and, if he assures us that we can, no one can have any reason to doubt his assurance. Lord Derby then has his lesson; he has his commission. His teachers, his employers, have spoken their mind. The least we ask is the freedom of the revolted lands; but we take this only as a step to the day when the New Rome shall be cleansed from barbarian rule. There may be risks, there may be difficulties; but the Turk would hardly be so mad as to stand up against six great powers. Three such powers have in past times been enough to bring him to reason. If the trembling despot dares to dispute the will of his masters, he must again be taught a yet more vigorous form of the same lesson which was taught him when France cleansed Peloponnesus of the destroying Egyptian, when England, France, and Russia joined to crush the power of the Turk in the harbor of Pylos. The blinded ministers of that day could see in the good work nothing but an "untoward event." England now is wiser. Her people will have quite another name in their mouths, if the obstinacy of the barbarian should again draw upon him such another stroke of righteous vengeance.

 

 From Fraser's Magazine.

is little more than half a generation since four millions of Africans were held in apparently hopeless bondage in the United States — a condition which determined their status as one of social subordination and inferiority in all Christian lands. The emancipation in the British, French, Danish, and Dutch colonies was able, it seems, to effect little towards improving the standing of the negro. He was bound to a servile position until the supremacy of the cotton empire of the West was overthrown. The proclamation of freedom in the United States gave to the negro at once a position which he had never before occupied; and though he is in America numerically weak, and, in a measure, personally insignificant, still the barriers in the way of his progress and growth are rapidly disappearing.

But it is not easy to efface impressions which have been busily taught and cheerfully imbibed during centuries. The Christian world, trained for the last three hundred years to look upon the negro as made for the service of superior races, finds it difficult to shake off the notion of his absolute and permanent inferiority. Distrust, coldness, or indifference are the feelings with which, generally speaking, any efforts on his part to advance are regarded by the enlightened races. The influence of the representations disparaging to his mental and moral character, which, during the days of his bondage, were persistently put forward without contradiction, is still strong in many minds. The full effect of the new status of the negro race will not be sufficiently felt during the present generation to relieve even his best friends of the pity or contempt for him which they may be said to have inherited, and which, we will grant, has been fostered from the civilized world coming in contact, for the most part, only with the degraded tribes of the African continent.

One of the most important of the results which have occurred from the labors and sufferings of Livingstone has been the light which he has been able to throw upon the subject of the African races at home, awakening at least doubts in the minds of the most apathetic as to the truthfulness or fairness of the representations disparaging to the negro's character which have been for so long a time in unimpeded circulation. The whole Christian world has been aroused by that humble missionary to the importance of "healing the open sore of the world" and penetrating the "dark continent" with the light of Christianity and civilization. Catholics and Protestants — Christians of every name and nationality — are vying with each other in endeavors to promote the work of African regeneration.

One sanguine or sensational letter from Mr. Stanley calling attention to a favorable 