providence they are here, where you can touch them with your
finger. Why here? {130} It will not do to say that nothing can be
made out of them. Go to Texas, to Tennessee, and come right here to
Atlanta now, and our most intelligent white men will tell you that
on the prohibition question, negroes, educated, smart and very
eloquent, have made, and are making, _ringing_ speeches. There have
been smart speakers on both sides. Some of their speeches would do
credit to any white orator in the South. Dr. Sanderson, our late
Professor at Tuskaloosa, stated on the floor of the Synod of
Alabama last week, that he had taught a good deal, and that a young
negro, twenty years of age, one of our divinity students at
Tuskaloosa, was as smart a pupil as he had ever seen; that if he
were in the State University he would be in its first rank of
students, and that he heard him recently preach a sermon on the
mediatorial work of Christ, such that he (Dr. Sanderson) would not
undertake to make a better one on that majestic theme. * * *

In Dallas Presbytery, Texas, recently, a black man was examined for
two days on Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and on all that is required by
our Book of Government for ordination, and he did not falter once.
So the brethren there testify.

Then it comes to this: this race of people is here; the great body
of them are heathen. Can anyone doubt that it is the purpose of the
Almighty to prepare a large number of them, converted, educated and
civilized, to go back to Africa to redeem that continent for
civilization and for Christ? We are commanded to preach the Gospel
to every creature, to teach it to all nations.

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