Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/58

 races, engrossed the general name of Cushite, or Ethiopian, while the Asiatic Cushites became largely mingled with other nations, and are nearly or quite absorbed, or, as a distinct people well-nigh extinct. Hence, from the allusion of Jeremiah to the skin of the Ethiopian, confirmed and explained by such authorities as Homer, Strabo, Herodotus, Josephus, and Eusebius, we conclude that the Ethiopians were an African branch of the Cushites who settled first in Asia. Ethiop, in the Greek, means "sunburn," and there is not the slightest doubt but that these people, in and around Meroe, took their color from the climate. This theory does not at all conflict with that of the common origin of man. Although the descendants of Cush were black, it does not follow that all the offspring of Ham were dark-skinned; but only those who settled in a climate that altered their color.

The word of God by his servant Paul has settled forever the question of the equal origin of the human races, and it will stand good against all scientific research. "God hath made of one blood all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."

The Ethiopians are not constitutionally different from the rest of the human family, and therefore, we must insist upon unity, although we see and admit the variety.

Some writers have endeavored to account for this difference of color, by connecting it with the curse pronounced upon Cain. This theory, however, has no foundation; for if Cain was the progenitor of Noah, and if Cain's new peculiarities were perpetuated, then, as Noah was the father of the world's new population, the question would be, not how to account for