Native Eloquence.
Not a few of the freedmen, though illiterate, exhibit remarkable powers of eloquence. The missionary, in describing the address of one of them, after a discourse by the former, says, "The address was a masterpiece. It melted every heart. He appealed to the soldiers present who were in rebellion against God, striving to put down rebellion in this land, and asked them how they, who had been taught to read the Bible, and had learned the Lord's Prayer in infancy from a mother's lips, could stand in judgment, when a poor, despised, and inferior race, who, though denied the Bible, had been taught of God, and found their way to Christ, should rise up and condemn them. He then turned to his fellow 'contrabands,' and entreated them to embrace thankfully, and improve, the boon already given. He considered the present a pledge of the future—the virtual emancipation of fifteen or eighteen hundred the promise of the emancipation of four millions. The Lord works from little to great."