The God of heaven is pleased to see
   That little children all agree;
   And will not slight the praise they bring,
   When loving children join to sing: 
   We’re all brothers, sisters, brothers, &c.

   For love and kindness please him more
   Than if we gave him all our store;
   And children here, who dwell in love,
   Are like his happy ones above. 
   We’re all brothers, sisters, brothers, &c.

   The gentle child that tries to please,
   That hates to quarrel, fret, and teaze,
   And would not say an angry word—­
   That child is pleasing to the Lord. 
   We’re all brothers, sisters, brothers, &c.

   O God! forgive, whenever we
   Forget thy will, and disagree;
   And grant that each of us, may find
   The sweet delight of being kind. 
   We’re all brothers, sisters, brothers, &c.

We were convinced that the negroes were as capable of receiving instruction as any people in the world.  The testimony of teachers, missionaries, clergymen, and planters, was uniform on this point.

Said one planter of age and long experience on the island, “The negroes are as capable of culture as any people on earth. Color makes no difference in minds.  It is slavery alone that has degraded the negro.”

Another planter, by way of replying to our inquiry on this subject, sent for a negro child of five years, who read with great fluency in any part of the Testament to which we turned her.  “Now,” said the gentleman, “I should be ashamed to let you hear my own son, of the same age with that little girl, read after her.”  We put the following questions to the Wesleyan missionaries:  “Are the negroes as apt to learn, as other people in similar circumstances?” Their written reply was this:  “We think they are; the same diversified qualities of intellect appear among them, as among other people.”  We put the same question to the Moravian missionaries, to the clergymen, and to the teachers of each denomination, some of whom, having taught schools in England, were well qualified to judge between the European children and the negro children; and we uniformly received substantially the same answer.  Such, however, was the air of surprise with which our question was often received, that it required some courage to repeat it.  Sometimes it excited a smile, as though we could not be serious in the inquiry.  And indeed we seldom got a direct and explicit answer, without previously stating by way of explanation that we had no doubts of our own, but wished to remove those extensively entertained among our countrymen.  After all, we were scarcely credited in Antigua.  Such cases as the following were common in every school:  children of four and five years old reading the Bible; children beginning in their A, B, C’s, and learning to read in four months; children of five and six, answering a variety of questions on the historical parts of the Old Testament; children but a little older, displaying fine specimens of penmanship, performing sums in the compound rules, and running over the multiplication table, and the pound, shilling, and pence table, without mistake.