still inhabit the original dwelling-places of their people. In horticultural gardens tender exotic plants are sometimes hardened by frequent transplantings: So these Africans, who were brought to America, found a climate that was warm enough to suit their constitution, and that was yet free from the enervating heats of the tropics. The wisdom of Providence is justified in an improved and bettered race.

2. They needed, for a time, the guidance and protection of a stronger people. And they needed, in order that the best results might follow, in this stronger race, a people of homogeneous blood. They found such a race in the Southern whites as they could have found it nowhere else in the United States. Thus, in Georgia, according to the Census of 1880, there is a total population of 1,538,983. Of the whole number only 10,310 are foreigners. In further illustration it may be mentioned that in Louisiana, where there was not a homogeneous white race, the Christianizing process did not succeed nearly so well as in South Carolina, where nearly all the white people were English, or in Georgia, where, as we have seen, the foreign element in the population is, practically, an inappreciable quantity. How our difficult problem would be complicated were there in the States where the freed negroes are a dense foreign population! Only suppose an Irish ward in New York or Philadelphia, or a German ward in Chicago or Cincinnati, out

masters.

That there were many exceptions to this rule I allow and deplore. But perhaps one would not go too far were he to say, If it was needful for these men in stature and children in intelligence to have masters, for a time, the Southern whites made as good masters as they could have found in any country.

Alas! many of these masters did not recognize the divine hand in the wonderful providences of this strange history; many of them did not realize their sacred function of "school-masters" to bring these children of the sun to Christ. But many of them did, and they were faithful to God and to their servants. Wherein any of them sinned against God in sinning against their dark-skinned brother, alas! they were not alone. Southern masters were not alone in dealing hardly with dependents. "Let him that is without sin"-let him only-" cast the first stone." May I not add this word also?— wherein any have sinned all have suffered. For every wrong done to defenseless slaves the whole race of masters paid a penalty, of which the loss of money was unspeakably the lesser part. For every mercy shown the slave, for every kind word, for every effort to lift him up, for every brotherly office, the good and just God gives the master full recognition and approbation. Men have not always treated the master so justly; they could not, for they saw only in part; and the better part, from

In trying to understand the coming of these African slaves to America and their settlement and history in the South, we must remember these one million of communicants; this whole race more or less influenced by the gospel leaven; we must also consider what these American-African Christians may some day do for Africa.