III. In the third and last place, I beg to direct your attention to the unusual spiritual solicitude now everywhere manifest in the Negro race.
This characteristic has had its chief manifestation during the half-century which has just expired, and seems peculiar to it. There is a stirring up now in the spiritual desires and yearnings of this race, such as the world has never before witnessed. From every side we hear the earnest call, from yearning hearts, for Christian light. There is no quarter of the globe, where the children of Africa are gathered together, but where we see this trait of character more discovered than any other. Indeed, risking the imputation of partiality of race, I think I may say that religious susceptibility and moral dispositions are the more marked characteristics of the Negro family, and the main point in which they differ from other races. There is a peculiar fact which proves this point: where the white man goes he first builds a bank or a trading-house: the first effort of the black man is to erect a meeting-house. The enlightenment of the one seeks, first of all, to express itself in mere civilization: the native disposition of the other tends toward some religious manifestation.
During the last few years there has been a more than usual—a most marked expression of these features of character. We have the testimony of West Indian pastors, missionaries, and teachers, to the eager craving of the African peasantry for instruction. In America, the gravest hindrances cannot repress this desire; and among the free black population, I can testify from personal acquaintance and observation
