Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/384

 which is for the rest under the direction of its own coloured officials and ministers.

The more I see of these coloured people the more is my curiosity and my interest aroused, not that I see among the negroes anything great, anything which makes them superior to the whites. I cannot divest my mind of the idea that they are, and must remain, inferior as regards intellectual capacity. But they have peculiar and unusual gifts. Their moral sense is, it seems to me, as pure and delicate as their musical perception; their sensibility is acute and warm, and their good temper and cheerful disposition are evidently the peculiar gifts of nature, or more correctly gifts of God. And though they may not have shown themselves original in creative genius, yet there is in their way of comprehending and applying what they learn a really new and refreshing originality: that may be heard in their peculiar songs; the only original people's songs which the New World possesses, as soft, sweet, and joyous as our people's songs are melancholy. The same may be observed in their comprehension of the Christian doctrines, and their application of them to daily life.

Last Sunday I went to the church of the Baptist negroes here with Mr. F., one of the noble-minded and active descendants of the Pilgrim fathers, who resides in Savannah, and who has shown me much kindness. The name of the preacher was Bentley, I believe, and he was perfectly black. He spoke extempore with great animation and ease. The subject of his discourse was the appearance of the Saviour on earth, and the purpose for which he came. “I remember,” said he, “on one occasion, when the President of the United States came to Georgia, and to our town of Savannah—I remember what an ado the people made, and how they went out in great carriages to meet him. The carriages were decorated very grandly, and the great cannon pealed forth one shot after another. And so the President came