|
THE NEGRO OUR
BROTHER MAN..
---------------
WE are told, on the
highest authority that "God hath made of one blood all
the nations of men;" and that all are equally regarded
by the Almighty, who is no respecter of persons.
"I am fully convinced," says Mungo Park, the
great African traveller, "that whatever difference there
is between the European and the Negro in conformation
and colour, there is none in the genuine sympathies and
characteristic feelings of our common nature."
Hence the appropriateness of the following lines of the
poet Montgomery: -
HERE dwells the Negro,
nature's outcast child;
Scorned by his brethren; but his mother's
eye,
That gaes on hi from her warmest sky,
Sees in his flexile limbs untutored grace,
Power on his forehead, beauty in his face;
Sees in his breast, where lawless passions
rove,
The heart of friendship and the home of
love;
Sees in his mind, where desolation reigns,
Fierce as his clime, uncultured as his
plains,
A soil where virtue's fairest flowers might
shoot,
And trees of science bend with glorious
fruit;
Sees in his soul, involved with thickest
night,
An emanation of eternal light,
Ordained, 'midst sinking worlds, his dust to
fire,
And shine for ever when the stars expire.
Is he not man, though sweet
religion's voice
Ne'er made the mourner in his God rejoice?
Is he not man by sin and suffering
tried?
Belie the negro's powers: - in headlong
will,
Christian! thy brother thou shalt prove him
still:
Belie his virtues; since his wrongs began,
His follies and his crimes have stamp'd him
man. |
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 13.
Sold by W. and F. G. CASH, 5,
Bishopsgate Street, London; and by JANE JOWETT, Friends'
Meeting Yard, Leeds, at 1s. 2. per 100.
|
