of the human mind--the
incapacity to comprehend religious truths--and its continued existence
among those of Jamaica, can now be understood. The opportunities enjoyed
by the former, for advancement, over the latter, have been _six_ to
_one_. With these facts before the mind, it is not difficult to perceive
that the colored population of Jamaica can not but still labor under
the disadvantages of hereditary barbarism and involuntary servitude,
with the superadded misfortune of being inadequately supplied with
Christian instruction, along with their recent acquisition of freedom.
But while all this must be admitted, of the colored people of Jamaica,
it is not true of those of our own country; for, long since, they have
cast off the heathenism of their fathers, and have become enlightened in
a very encouraging degree. Hence it is, that the colored people of the
United States, both bond and free, have made vastly greater progress,
than those of the British West Indies, in their knowledge of moral
duties and the requirements of the gospel; and hence, too, it is, that
Gerrit Smith is right, in asserting that the demoralized condition of
the great mass of the free colored people, in our cities, is
inexcusable, and deserving of the utmost reprobation, because it is
_voluntary_--they knowing their duty but abandoning themselves to
degrading habits.

This brings us to another point of great moment. It will be denied by
but few--and by none maintaining the natural equality of the races--that
the free colored people of the United States are sufficiently
enlightened, to be elevated by education, in an encouraging degree,
where proper restraints from vice, and encouragements to virtue prevail.
A large portion, even, of the slave population, are similarly
enlightened. We speak not of the state of the morals of either class.

As the public are not well informed, in relation to the extent to which
the religious instruction of the slaves at the South prevails, the
following information will prove interesting, and show that a good work
has long been in progress, and has been producing its fruits:

"The South Carolina Methodist Conference have a missionary committee
devoted entirely to promoting the religious instruction of the slave
population, which has been in existence twenty-six years. The Report[74]
of the last year shows a greater degree of activity than is generally
known. They have twenty-six missionary stations in which thirty-t