Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 | Page 9

which we know of tyranny--your SLAVERY. It is a disgrace and
blot on your free government and on a Christian State. We have
nothing in Russia or Hungary which is so degrading, and we have
nothing which so crushes the mind. And more than this, we hear you
have now a LAW, just passed by your National Assembly, which
would disgrace the cruel code of the Czar. We hear of free men and
women, hunted like dogs on your mountains, and sent back, without
trial, to bondage worse than our serfs have ever known. We have, in
Europe, many excuses in ancient evils and deep-laid prejudices, but
you, the young and free people, in this age, to be passing again, afresh,
such measures of unmitigated wrong!"--Home life in Germany, by
Charles Loving Brace. Mr. Brace honestly adds: "I must say that the
blood tingled to my cheek with shame, as he spoke."
[5] "We have read the book, and regard it as Anti-Christian, on the
same grounds that the chronicle regards it decidedly anti
ministerial."--New York Observer, September 22, 1852.--Editorial.
The Bishop of Rome also regards the book as Anti-Christian, and has
forbidden his subjects to read it. On the other hand, the clergy of Great
Britain differ most widely from the reverend gentlemen of the
"Observer" and the Vatican, in their estimate of the character of the

book. Said Dr. Wardlaw, who on this subject may be regarded as the
representative of the Protestant Divines of Europe: "He who can read it
without the breathings of devotion, must, if he call himself a Christian,
have a Christianity as unique and questionable as his humanity."
[Illustration: Antoinette L. Brown (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]

The Size of Souls.
A quaint old writer describes a class of persons who have souls so very
small that "500 of them could dance at once upon the point of a
cambric needle." These wee people are often wrapped up in a lump of
the very coarsest of human clay, ponderous enough to give them the
semblance of full-grown men and women. A grain of mustard seed,
buried in the heart of a mammoth pumpkin, would be no comparison to
the little soul, sheathed in its full grown body. The contrast in size
would be insufficient to convey an adequate impression; and the tiny
soul has little of the mustard seed spiciness.
Yet if this mass of flesh is only wrapped up in a white skin, even
though it is not nearly thick enough to conceal the grossness and
coarseness of the veiled material, the poor "feeble folk" within will
fancy that he really belongs to the natural variety of aristocratic
humanity. He has the good taste to refuse condescension sufficient to
allow him to eat at table with a Frederick Douglass, a Samuel R. Ward,
or a Dr. Pennington. Poor light little soul! It can borrow a pair of flea's
legs, and, hopping up to the magnificent lights of public opinion, sit
looking down upon the whole colored race in sovereign contempt.
Take off the thin veneering of a white skin, substitute in its stead the
real African ebony, and then place him side by side with one of the
above-mentioned men. Measure intellect with intellect--eloquence with
eloquence! Mental and moral infancy stand abashed in the presence of
nature's noblemen!
So, mere complexion is elevated above character. Sensible men and

women are not ashamed of the acknowledgment. The fact has a popular
endorsement. People sneer at you if you are not ready to comprehend
the fitness of the thing. If you cannot weigh mind in a balance with a
moiety of coloring matter, and still let the mind be found wanting,
expect, in America, to lose cast yourself for want of approved taste.
If sin is capable of being made to look mean, narrow, contemptible--to
exhibit itself in its character of thorough, unmitigated bitterness--it is
when exhibited in the light of our "peculiar" prejudices. Mind, Godlike,
immortal mind, with its burden of deathless thought, its comprehensive
and discriminating reason, its brilliant wit, its genial humor, its
store-house of thrilling memories--a voice of mingled power and
pathos, words burning with the unconsuming fire of genius, virtues
gathering in ripened beauty upon a brave heart, and moral integrity
preeminent over all else--all this could not make a black man the social
equal of a white coxcomb, even though his brain were as blank as white
paper, and his heart as black as darkness concentrated. May heaven
alleviate our undiluted stupidity!
ANTOINETTE L. BROWN.

Vincent Ogé
[Fragments of a poem hitherto unpublished, upon a revolt of the free
persons of color, in the island of St. Domingo (now Hayti), in the years
1790-1.]
There is, at times, an evening sky-- The twilight's gift--of sombre hue,
All checkered