which is described by Herodotus as a great city in his time, namely, four hundred years before Christ; and where, separated from the rest of the world by almost impassable deserts, and enriched by the commercial expeditions of their travelling brethren, the Cushites continued to cultivate, so late as the first century of the Christian era, some portions of those arts and sciences to which the settlers in the cities had always more or less devoted themselves."[15]

But a few writers have asserted, and striven to prove, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians are quite a different people from the Negro.  Jeremiah seems to have understood that these people about whom we have been writing were Negroes,—­we mean black.  “Can the Ethiopian,” asks the prophet, “change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” The prophet was as thoroughly aware that the Ethiopian was black, as that the leopard had spots; and Luther’s German has for the word “Ethiopia,” “Negro-land,”—­the country of the blacks.[16] The word “Ethiop” in the Greek literally means “sunburn.”

That these Ethiopians were black, we have, in addition to the valuable testimony of Jeremiah, the scholarly evidence of Herodotus, Homer, Josephus, Eusebius, Strabo, and others.

It will be necessary for us to use the term “Cush” farther along in this discussion:  so we call attention at this time to the fact, that the Cushites, so frequently referred to in the Scriptures, are the same as the Ethiopians.

Driven from unscriptural and untenable ground on the unity of the races of mankind, the enemies of the Negro, falling back in confusion, intrench themselves in the curse of Canaan.  “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."[17] This passage was the leading theme of the defenders of slavery in the pulpit for many years.  Bishop Hopkins says,—­

“The heartless irreverence which Ham, the father of Canaan, displayed toward his eminent parent, whose piety had just saved him from the Deluge, presented the immediate occasion for this remarkable prophecy; but the actual fulfilment was reserved for his posterity after they had lost the knowledge of God, and become utterly polluted by the abominations of heathen idolatry.  The Almighty, foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and Japheth, doubtless because he judged it to be their fittest condition.  And all history proves how accurately the prediction has been accomplished, even to the present day."[18]

Now, the first thing to be done by those who adopt this view is, to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Noah was inspired to pronounce this prophecy.  Noah had been, as a rule, a righteous man.  For more than a hundred years he had lifted up his voice against the growing wickedness of the world.