“Under the same dim shadows of these lofty trees will these men stand and reveal to the ignorant tribes the knowledge they learned in the torturing school of slavery.
“The dark baptism wherewith they were baptized will set them apart and fit them for this great work. They will speak with the fellowship of suffering which touches hearts and enkindles holy flames.
“Their teachings will have the supreme consecration of agony and martyrdom. They will speak with the pathos of grief, the earnestness and knowledge born through suffering and ‘the constant anguish of patience.’
“It is such agencies as these that God has always blessed to the upbuilding of His kingdom. And will not the dwarfed natures about them gradually be transformed by the teachings of these apostles into a civilized, God-fearing people?
“THE DARK FACES OF THESE APOSTLES.”
“Methinks the dark faces of these apostles will shine with the glowing image of God’s love and providence—the providence that watched over them and kept them in a strange land, and then brought them back in safety, fitted to tell the story of God’s love and power, and His mercy that had redeemed them and made them free.
“And when the lowest and most unknowing one shall ask, ‘Who are these?’ methinks the answer will be as it was to St. John: ‘These are they who come out of great tribulations.’”
I wuz demute, and didn’t say nuthin’, and John Richard sez, in a deep axent and a earnest one, “But will this Government be warned by past judgments and past experience and be wise in time?
“I don’t know,” sez he, a answerin’ himself; for truly I didn’t know what to say nor how to say it.