dren, one about seven, the other not more than three years old.
The elder had his arm thrown lovingly around the almost naked form of
the other, and with an open primer in the lap of one, they were at
their study. An hour after, I returned by the same spot, and was both
pleased and surprised to find them still at it. God bless the little
ones!

"This desire, or rather eagerness, to learn to read, is manifested by
all. I have stopped by the wayside many a time, and have immediately
collected a group of old and young about me, and have made them repeat
the alphabet after me slowly, letter by letter. They esteem it the
greatest kindness I can show them, and as I turn to depart, the
fervent 'God bless you, massa,' 'Tank de Lord, massa,' reach my ears."

MORALS OF THE FREEDMEN.

After the mission had been established, one of the officers' wives
remarked to another, "I do not miss my things nowadays."

Nearly all the church members had taken the temperance pledge.

"They have their vices," writes a northern physician on one of the
plantations on Port Royal Island; "deception and petty thieving
prevail. They are careless, indolent, and improvident. They have a
miserable habit of scolding and using authoritative language to one
another. All these vices are clearly the result of _slave education_,
and will gradually disappear under improved conditions.... If one is
honest with them, and gets their confidence, the rest is easily
accomplished."

MARRIAGE.

A very large portion, probably, at least, more than half of the
"married" freed people, had been married only in slave fashion, by
"taking up together," or living together by mutual agreement, without
any marriage ceremony. The missionary proposed to such that they
should be married agreeably to the usages in the free states. The
leaders of the colored people were conversed with, and they, without
exception, agreed as to the propriety of the measure. One, now
advanced in life, said, that when he proposed to his companion to go
to a minister and be lawfully married, she replied, "Oh, what use will
it be? Master can separate us to-morrow." But he coincided fully in
the propriety of the proposed course.

Mr. Lockwood, after preaching on the sanctity of the marriage
relation, proceeded to unite in wedlock several couples, among whom
were some who had lived together for years. He gave each of the
parties a certificate, in handsome form, which they seemed to prize
very