f the
human family; and the disciples of these teachers have endeavored to
justify their views by the most dehumanizing treatment of the Negro.
But, fortunately for the Negro and for humanity at large, we live now
in an epoch when race malice and sectional hate are disappearing
beneath the horizon of a brighter and better future. The Negro in
America is free. He is now an acknowledged factor in the affairs of
the continent; and no community, state, or government, in this period
of the world's history, can afford to be indifferent to his moral,
social, intellectual, or political well-being.

It is proposed, in the first place, to call the attention to the
absurd charge that the Negro does not belong to the human family.
Happily, there are few left upon the face of the earth who still
maintain this belief.

In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis it is clearly stated that
"God created man," "male and female created he them;"[1] that "the
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul;"[2] and
that "the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it."[3] It is noticeable that the sacred
historian, in every reference to Adam, speaks of him as "_man_;" and
that the divine injunction to them was,--Adam and Eve,--"Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."[4] As among the
animals, so here in the higher order, there were two,--a pair,--"male
and female," of the human species. We may begin with man, and run down
the scale, and we are sure to find two of a kind, "male and female."
This was the divine order. But they were to "be fruitful," were to
"replenish the earth." That they did "multiply," we have the
trustworthy testimony of God; and it was true that man and beast, fowl
and fish, increased. We read that after their expulsion from the
Garden of Eden, Eve bore Adam a family. Cain and Abel; and that they
"peopled the earth."

After a number of years we find that wickedness increased in the
earth; so much so that the Lord was provoked to destroy the earth with
a flood, with the exception of Noah, his wife, his three sons and
their wives,--eight souls in all.[5] Of the animals, two of each kind
were saved.

But the most interesting portion of Bible h