We may at this point be permitted to institute a comparison between the ancient and modern Ethiopians, the progenitors and descendants of the African race, by enquiring, "What may be expected of the modern African, granting all that is claimed for the ancient, his progenitor?"
We have seen the great susceptibility of the ancient Ethiopian in his adaptation to the highest civilization to the extent of leading all other races in the stride of human progress. These in him were inherent faculties, designed by the Creator as essential to the Divine plan for the civilization of Man. Some race had to lead, to accomplish which the climate, soil, productions, scenery, external physical sensibilities, and geographical location relative to the other races should be such as to enable them to impart and receive, with comparative facility, by communication with them. Such then was Africa, an eternal summer, "no blighting frosts nor chilling winds," the most prolific and abundant productions of every kind, animal, vegetable, and mineral. The landscape, scenery , beauty and odor of flowers, plumage and song of birds, and flavor of delicious fruits, all contributed to the external senses to the extent of continually reminding them of the certainty of an omnipotent God, the Creator of all things, on whom alone they at once placed their dependence.
Then again, in geographical location, Africa is the most remarkable in position.
Of the five grand divisions of the globe, Africa stands in the centre. And in the old relation of these three first old divisions(without regard to America) we find Africa in the close proximate relations of being only separated from Europe by a disconnection of fifteen miles of water by the Straits of Gibralter; and the closer relation of being joined to Asia by a connection of sixty miles of territory at the Isthmus of Suez. Such then were and are Africa's position and facilities for communication with the two other great races of man: the children of Shem and Japheth, and to us the most convincing evidence that in the earliest period of human progress, she and her children were made the centre and propagators of the highest civilization.
A remarkable characteristic of this race from the earliest period is "their high conception and reverence of a Creator of all things." This is indicated by the language they always used when speaking of God the Creator, as we understand and adore him.
We know of no other peoples or nations who had so high a conception of and reverence for God as the Ethiopians and Egyptians though they had many superstitions and also worshipped false gods (which were as matters of policy) and whatever profound metaphysical conception and sincere religious reverence the Israelites may have entertained and disseminated regarding the true God, they obtained both during their Egyptian bondage, and carried them from Egypt with them.
And the enquiry naturally presents itself: How do the Africans of the present day compare in morals and social polity with those of ancient times? We answer, that those south of the "Sahara," uncontaminated by influence of the coast, especially the Yarubas, are equal in susceptibility and moral integrity to the ancient Africans. Those people have all the finer elements of the highest civilization: virtue and matrimonial fidelity being the basis of female excellence and worth, and honor being held sacred among the men, their plighted word on their moral responsibility being a sufficiently binding obligation to ensure its fulfillment. Friendly, sociable and benevolent, they are universally the politest of people. Obscene, profane or blasphemous language is never heard among them, and quarreling and fighting are prohibited by law, and equally unknown. Men do the coarser and heavier work, and women the finer and lighter. The following stanza from the excellent work of that most worthy, learned native Christian gentleman, Agi, known to history as Right Rev. Samuel Crowther, D.D., Bishop of Niger, fully illustrates the relative position of the sexes among the laboring classes to each other:
When the day dawns, The trader takes his money, The spinner takes her spindle, The warrior takes his shield, The weaver takes his batten, The farmer wakes himself and his hoe, The hunter wakes with his fiddle and bow.
Here, of six vocations named in the stanza, there is but one the spinner assigned to woman, the identical calling in which none but woman among the most advanced of modern civilized nations are employed. We have italicized the word, her in the stanza before "spindle" to arrest the attention of the reader. There is not even here any vocation assigned to women at all in the field, as is customary in civilized countries among Christian nations.
Such then are the people of the polity of whose prospective civilization we have symbolized these pages, together with that of their progenitors.
