to-morrow night, and to bring some
wide-awake colored man with me. There is a Southerner whom he wishes me
to meet. I suppose he wants to discuss the negro problem, as they call
it. He wants some one who can do justice to the subject. I wonder whom I
can take with me?"

"I will tell you who, I think, will be a capital one to take with you,
and I believe he would go," said Iola.

"Who?" asked Robert.

"Rev. Carmicle, your pastor."

"He is just the one," said Robert, "courteous in his manner and very
scholarly in his attainments. He is a man whom if everybody hated him no
one could despise him."

CHAPTER XXVI.

OPEN QUESTIONS.

In the evening Robert and Rev. Carmicle called on Dr. Gresham, and found
Dr. Latrobe, the Southerner, and a young doctor by the name of Latimer,
already there. Dr. Gresham introduced Dr. Latrobe, but it was a new
experience to receive colored men socially. His wits, however, did not
forsake him, and he received the introduction and survived it.

"Permit me, now," said Dr. Gresham, "to introduce you to my friend, Dr.
Latimer, who is attending our convention. He expects to go South and
labor among the colored people. Don't you think that there is a large
field of usefulness before him?"

"Yes," replied Dr. Latrobe, "if he will let politics alone."

"And why let politics alone?" asked Dr. Gresham.

"Because," replied Dr. Latrobe, "we Southerners will never submit to
negro supremacy. We will never abandon our Caucasian civilization to an
inferior race."

"Have you any reason," inquired Rev. Carmicle, "to dread that a race
which has behind it the heathenism of Africa and the slavery of America,
with its inheritance of ignorance and poverty, will be able, in less
than one generation, to domineer over a race which has behind it ages of
dominion, freedom, education, and Christianity?"

A slight shade of vexation and astonishment passed over the face of Dr.
Latrobe. He hesitated a moment, then replied:--

"I am not afraid of the negro as he stands alone, but what I dread is
that in some closely-contested election ambitious men will use him to
hold the balance of power and make him an element of danger. He is
ignorant, poor, and clannish, and they may impact him as their policy
would direct."

"Any more," asked Robert, "than the leaders of the Rebellion did the
ignorant, poor whites during our late conflict?"

"Ignorance, poverty, and clannishness," said Dr. Gresham, "are more
s