To the unquestionable capacity of the African must be added simplicity, amenity, good-nature, generosity, fidelity. Mahometans, who know him well, recognize his superior fidelity. And such also is the report of travellers not besotted by Slavery, from Mungo Park to Livingstone, who testify also to tenderness for parents, respect for the aged, hospitality, and patriarchal virtues reviving the traditions of primitive life. “Strike me, but do not curse my mother,” said an African slave to his master.[177] And Leo Africanus, the early traveller, describes a chief at Timbuctoo, “very black in complexion, but most fair in mind and disposition.”[178] Others dwell on his Christian character, and especially his susceptibility to those influences which are peculiarly Christian,—so that Saint Bernard could say of him, “Felix Nigredo, quæ mentis candorem parit.”[179] Of all people he is the mildest and most sympathetic. Hate is a plant of difficult growth in his bosom. How often has he returned the harshness of his master with care and protection! The African, more than the European, is formed by Nature for the Christian graces.
It is easy to picture another age, when the virtues which ennoble the African will return to bless the people who now discredit him, and Christianity will receive a new development. In the Providence of God the more precocious and harder nature of the North is called to make the first advance. Civilization begins through knowledge. An active intelligence performs the part of opening the way. But it may be according to the same Providence, that the gentler people, elevated in knowledge, will teach their teachers what knowledge alone cannot impart, and the African shall more than repay all that he receives. The pioneer intelligence of Europe going to blend with the gentleness of Africa will be a blessed sight, but not more blessed than the gentleness of Africa returning to blend with that same intelligence at home. Under such combined influences men will not only know and do, but they will feel also; so that knowledge in all its departments, and life in all its activities, will have the triumphant inspiration of Human Brotherhood.
In this work there is no room for prejudice, timidity, or despair. Reason, courage, and hope are our allies, while the bountiful agencies of Civilization open the way. Time and space, ancient tyrants keeping people apart, are now overcome. There is nothing of aspiration for Universal Man which is not within the reach of well-directed effort,—no matter in what unknown recess of continent, no matter on what distant island of the sea. Wherever Man exists, there are the capacities of manhood, with that greatest of all, the capacity for improvement; and the civilization we have reached supplies the means.
As in determining the function of Government, so here again is the necessity of knowledge. Man must know himself, and that law of Unity appointed for the Human Family. Such is the true light for our steps. Here are guidance and safety. Who can measure the value of knowledge? What imagination can grasp its infinite power? As well measure the sun in its glory. The friendly lamp in our streets is more than the police. Light in the world is more than armies or navies. Where its rays penetrate, there has civilization begun. Not the earth, but the sun, is the centre of our system; and the noon-day effulgence in which we live and move symbolizes that other effulgence which is found in knowledge.
Great powers are at hand, ministers of human progress. I name two only: first, the printing-press; and, secondly, the means of intercommunication, whether by navigation or railways, represented by the steam-engine. By these civilization is extended and secured. It is not only carried forward, but fixed so that there can be no return,—like the wheel of an Alpine railway, which cannot fall back. Every rotation is a sure advance. Here is what Greece and Rome never knew, and more than Greece and Rome have contributed to man. By the side of these two simple agencies how small all that has come to us from these two politest nations of Antiquity! We can better spare Greece and Rome than the printing-press and steam-engine. Not a triumph in literature, art, or jurisprudence, from the story of Homer and the odes of Horace to the statue of Apollo and the bust of Augustus, from the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero to that Roman Law which has become the law of the world, that must not yield in value to these two immeasurable possessions. To the printing-press and steam-engine add now their youthful handmaid, the electric telegraph, whose swift and delicate fingers weave the thread by which nations are brought into instant communion, while great cities, like London and Paris, New York and San Francisco, become suburbs to each other, and all mankind feel together the throb of joy or sorrow. Through these incomparable agencies is knowledge made coextensive with space and time on earth. No distance of place or epoch it will not pervade. Thus every achievement in thought or science, every discovery by which Man is elevated, becomes the common property of the whole Human Family. There can be no monopoly. Sooner or later all enjoy the triumph. Standing on the shoulders of the Past, Man stands also on the shoulders of every science discovered, every art advanced, every truth declared. There is no height of culture or of virtue—if virtue itself be not the highest culture—which may not be reached. There is no excellence of government or society which may not be grasped. Where is the stopping-place? Where the goal? One obstacle is overcome only to find another, which is overcome, and then another also, in the ascending scale of human improvement.
And then shall be fulfilled the great words of prophecy, which men have read so long with hope darkened by despair: “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”; “it shall come that I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory.”[180] The promises of Christianity, in harmony with the promises of Science, and more beautiful still, will become the realities of earth; and that precious example wherein is the way of life will be another noon-day sun for guidance and safety.
The question How? is followed by that other question When? The answer is easy. Not at once; not by any sudden conquest; not in the lifetime of any individual man; not in any way which does not recognize Nature as co-worker. It is by constant, incessant, unceasing activity in conformity with law that Nature works; and so in these world-subduing operations Man can be successful only in harmony with Nature. Because in our brief pilgrimage we are not permitted to witness the transcendent glory, it is none the less certain. The peaceful conquest will proceed, and every day must contribute its fruits.
At the beginning of the last century Russia was a barbarous country, shut out from opportunities of improvement. Authentic report attests its condition. Through contact with Europe it was vitalized. The life-giving principle circulated, and this vast empire felt the change. Exposed to European contact at one point only, here the influence began; but the native energies of the people, under the guidance of a powerful ruler, responded to this influence, and Russia came within the widening circle of European civilization. Why may not this experience be repeated elsewhere, and distant places feel the same beneficent power?