I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with the recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of slaves.
No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs. May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here is still his country.
OLD UNCLE JAKE.
He was bowed by many a year of service; he was white-woolled, thick-lipped, and a true son of Africa, yet a grand and knightly soul animated that dusky breast—a soul that many a scion of the blood royal might envy.
The children loved him, the neighbors respected him, his own color looked up to him as a superior being, and they whose goods and chattels he had formerly been, were sure to heed his counsels in all important family matters. Aye, he had an honorable record. If his skin was black, his soul was white as the whitest and from lusty boyhood to the present there had been no need of "stripes" for Uncle Jake.
He had been the playmate of "young marster," the boon companion in all 'possum hunts and fishing frolics, and when each had arrived at man's estate the goodfellowship contracted in youth knew no surcease.
When the tocsin of war resounded through the South, and the call for volunteers was made, "marster" was one of the first to buckle on his armor and hasten to the front—doing so with greater heart as Uncle Jake was left in charge of those dearer than life to him.
And royally did the poor unlettered African fulfil the trust committed to his keeping. He took upon himself the burden of all plantation matters and sooner than one hair on the heads of "missus or chillun" should be injured, he would have sacrificed his life freely any day. And when the war was over he positively refused to join in the hegira of his brethren, preferring rather to live on in the same old place that had witnessed his birth and the strength of his manhood's prime.