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