do their torches in the remaining darkness, to light the pathway of
those that shall follow them into the bright, the delightful realms of
the operatic Muse,--theirs is therefore a beneficent, a noble mission,
the continuance of which promises the happiest results for all
concerned.

XIX.

THE FAMOUS JUBILEE SINGERS

OF

FISK UNIVERSITY.

"The air he chose was wild and sad:...
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong;
Now a wild chorus swells the song.
Oft have I listened and stood still
As it came softened up the hill."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

"If, in brief, we might give a faint idea of what it is
utterly impossible to depict, we would adopt three
words,--_soft, sweet, simple_."

_"The Jubilee Singers:" London Rock._

The dark cloud of human slavery, which for over two hundred weary
years had hung, incubus-like, over the American nation, had happily
passed away. The bright sunshine of emancipation's glorious day shone
over a race at last providentially rescued from the worst fate
recorded in all the world's dark history. Up out of the house of
bondage, where had reigned the most terrible wrongs, where had been
stifled the higher aspirations of manhood, where genius had been
crushed, nay, more, where attempts had been made to annihilate even
all human instincts,--from this accursing region, this charnel-house
of human woe, came the latter-day children of Israel, the American
freedmen.

How much like the ancient story was their history! The American
nation, Pharaoh-like, had long and steadily refused to obey the voice
of Him who said, between every returning plague, "Let my people go;"
and, after long waiting, he sent the avenging scourge of civil strife
to _compel_ obedience. The great war of the Rebellion (it should be
called the war of retribution), with its stream of human blood, became
the Red Sea through which these long-suffering ones, with aching,
trembling limbs, with hearts possessed half with fear and half with
hope hitherto so long deferred, passed into the "promised land" of
blessed liberty.

Slavery, then, ended, the first duty was to repair as far as possible
its immense devastations made upon the minds of those who had so long
been its victims. The freedmen were to be educated, and fitted for the
enjoyment of their new positions.

In this place I may not do more than merely touch upon the beneficent
work of those noble men and women