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A COLORED MAN SPEAKS FOR HIS RACE.

Address at the Annual Meeting in Chicago,

BY THE REV. GEO. M. MCCLELLAN.


About eleven years ago, out in the country, near Louisville, there was
born a little colored girl. She was her father's first child, and he was
justly proud of her, and calculated that there must be some fitting name
for her somewhere, and that he must get it out of a book. He could not
read, but he could spell a little, and therefore he got him a copy of
Webster's blue-backed speller, and spelled the book half way through
until he found the word "heterogeneous;" therefore that little girl was
christened "Heterogeneous." This morning this programme was handed to
me, and I saw on it "Chinese, Indian, Negro, White;" and I couldn't help
thinking of Heterogeneous. As I looked over the subjects, and thought
that I would have to speak about something, I thought that "Chinese,
Indian, White man and Negro," was quite a subject for a speech. But I
was inclined to be fair, like a certain minister, who was always
preaching on infant baptism. He preached on infant baptism, no matter
what the text was. The deacons and the people of the church got tired of
it, and they concluded to give him some text that would relate to facts,
before there were any infants. So they turned to the Book of Genesis,
and found the text "Adam, where art thou?" And when the minister came to
the pulpit Sunday morning, the deacons gave this text to him and told
him, "Here is a text we want you to preach upon." He demurred a little