“The negro,” said Dr. Gresham, thoughtfully, “is not the only branch of the human race which has been low down in the scale of civilization and freedom, and which has outgrown the measure of his chains.  Slavery, polygamy, and human sacrifices have been practiced among Europeans in by-gone days; and when Tyndall tells us that out of savages unable to count to the number of their fingers and speaking only a language of nouns and verbs, arise at length our Newtons and Shakspeares, I do not see that the negro could not have learned our language and received our religion without the intervention of ages of slavery.”

“If,” said Rev. Carmicle, “Mohammedanism, with its imperfect creed, is successful in gathering large numbers of negroes beneath the Crescent, could not a legitimate commerce and the teachings of a pure Christianity have done as much to plant the standard of the Cross over the ramparts of sin and idolatry in Africa?  Surely we cannot concede that the light of the Crescent is greater than the glory of the Cross, that there is less constraining power in the Christ of Calvary than in the Prophet of Arabia?  I do not think that I underrate the difficulties in your way when I say that you young men are holding in your hands golden opportunities which it would be madness and folly to throw away.  It is your grand opportunity to help build up a new South, not on the shifting sands of policy and expediency, but on the broad basis of equal justice and universal freedom.  Do this and you will be blessed, and will make your life a blessing.”

After Robert and Rev. Carmicle had left the hotel, Drs. Latimer, Gresham, and Latrobe sat silent and thoughtful awhile, when Dr. Gresham broke the silence by asking Dr. Latrobe how he had enjoyed the evening.

“Very pleasantly,” he replied.  “I was quite interested in that parson.  Where was he educated?”

“In Oxford, I believe.  I was pleased to hear him say that he had no white blood in his veins.”

“I should think not,” replied Dr. Latrobe, “from his looks.  But one swallow does not make a summer.  It is the exceptions which prove the rule.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Dr. Gresham, “that we have been too hasty in our judgment of the negro?  He has come handicapped into life, and is now on trial before the world.  But it is not fair to subject him to the same tests that you would a white man.  I believe that there are possibilities of growth in the race which we have never comprehended.”

“The negro,” said Dr. Latrobe, “is perfectly comprehensible to me.  The only way to get along with him is to let him know his place, and make him keep it.”

“I think,” replied Dr. Gresham, “every man’s place is the one he is best fitted for.”

“Why,” asked Dr. Latimer, “should any place be assigned to the negro more than to the French, Irish, or German?”

“Oh,” replied Dr. Latrobe, “they are all Caucasians.”