NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. All orders and enquiries concerning Advertisements, or other business connected with this Magazine, are to be addressed to THE Report of the Bedford Meeting is in type BRIGHTON.-Through Beal and Embling. The Freed-Man. SEPTEMBER, 1865. THE REV. HENRY MARTYN read and use them during the Doctor's absence. Dr. Storrs, who has been recruiting for a few weeks, will soon be again in our midst. After months of hard toil for the Freed-man, change became necessary. Our friend, however, having descended the snow-clad slopes of the Alps, and the vine-clad terraces of Germany, will again soon be with us, ready for a new campaign. Dr. Storrs is also a veteran, and the son of a chief in the anti-slavery cause. His father, immortalized by the poet Whittier, distinguished as the tutor of the author of the "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," trained his son to believe in WE call the especial attention of our the Gospel as the Gospel of freedom, readers to the able article of Dr. Storrs of peace, and of good-will towards in the present number of "The Freed-men. The lessons thus imparted grew Man," and also to the letters of Dr. with his growth, and were indelibly Walden, addressed to Dr. Storrs, which impressed upon his conscious and spiriwe print with pleasure for the perusal tual nature by a higher power. When of our readers this month. Dr. Wal- but a young minister in the Congregaden's letters are especially worthy of tional Church of the United States, it mention on account of his experience, was felt that our valued friend was to undoubted veracity, and power to des- be trusted in a difficult and trying posicribe the scenes he witnesses. Enjoy- tion. There were many earnest men ing the pleasure of Dr. Walden's personal acquaintance, we feel more than ordinary satisfaction in commending his valuable communications to the careful attention of our friends. The Doctor is a veteran in the service of freedom. In Kansas his pen as an editor and his voice as a minister of peace were constantly employed in advocacy of the oppressed. He is a Christian in the truest sense of the term, and a warm patriot. His letters to our valued friend Dr. Storrs are placed before our readers through the kindness of W. Allen, Esq., who was authorized to in Cincinnati, and throughout the State of Ohio; but many of the clergy were tame and undemonstrative on the question of slavery. A firm, true man was wanted. Young Henry Ward Beecher, brought up in the neighbourhood of the Lane Seminary at Cincinnati, where he said his father, the good old Dr. Beecher kept the apple-tree well pruned by cutting switches to thrash him and his brothers, and where his gentle sister Harriet met the young professor who was afterwards to be her husband, knew the circumstances and condition of the Queen city well. Application was made Review. Oration at the Raising of "the Old Flag," at Sumter, and Sermon on the Death of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. By the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Manchester: Alexander Ireland & Co., Pall Mall Court. to him when he was young Henry Ward Beecher no longer, save in his buoyant feelings and his fresh, loving, truthful heart, but after he had become the minister, author, and patriot of worldwide fame, to select a true, earnest, able young minister for the first Congregational Church in Cincinnati. His choice fell upon Henry Martyn Storrs. Mr. Storrs went to Cincinnati a young late President of the United States; held on Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, man, now many years ago, and has won the appointed day of national humiliation and for himself by his fidelity and Christian prayer, in the George Street Methodist Chapel, constancy a good report. We were Bremen, Germany. Bremen Methodist Book The Assassination of President Lincoln. By T. W. Christie, B.A., Camb. Leamington: D. Sarney. 1865. introduced to him by the Committee Concern. 1865. of the Western Freed-men's Aid Com- In the first of these pamphlets we mission in April last, and after con- have the thrilling oration of Henry verse and conference with him, strenu- Ward Beecher, delivered at Fort Sumously advised him to accept the invi- ter, and also his sermon on the death of tation he had received to visit our President Lincoln. Mr. Beecher took country as the advocate of the op- for his text Deut. xxxiv., 1—5, “And pressed. Dr. Storrs came. At the Moses went up from the plains of Moab," meeting at the Westminster Palace &c., concluding "So Moses, the servant Hotel, at the assembly of the Congre- of the Lord, died there in the land of gational Union in London, at the great Moab, according to the word of the meeting in the Town Hall in Birming- Lord." J. H. Estcourt, Esq., of Manham, at many meetings all over the chester, has written an able prefatory country, and at the private meetings of introduction to the oration, and an eloour Committee, Dr. Storrs's addresses quent sketch of the life of Abraham and courteous conduct have met with Lincoln, as an introduction to the serthe entire approval of the friends of mon. The whole pamphlet, which is the Freed-man. The claims of a large elegantly got up, is presented as a mechurch and congregation will require morial gift to working men, and bears the speedy return home of this devoted the following inscription: apostle of Freedom. In the meantime we earnestly solicit the friends of the Freed-man to aid to their utmost the object for which Dr. Storrs has visited Great Britain. We shall be glad to hear from any who may desire a visit from Dr. Storrs. THE Committee of the Freed-men's Aid Society meet every Monday at two o'clock at the Anti-Slavery Society's Rooms, No. 27, New Broad Street, City, E.C. This Memorial is dedicated to those work. ing men who through evil report and good re dinary kind, espoused that cause, and man- Mr. Estcourt says- All civilization was wounded to the heart by that barbaric act of the agent of slavery, and it reeled, horror-struck, from an association which had been well nigh cemented by bonds. A nation mourned, as never nation mourned before, for in the departed President had been centered the faith and hope of the African people, and the pride and honour of the Saxon race. Mr. Beecher, in his noble sermon, speaking of the "sainted Lincoln," says, Never rising to the enthusiasm of more im not say that there are not single natures, here and there, scattered through the vast wilderness which is covered with this poisonous vine who escape the poison. There are; but they are not to be found among the men that believe in it, and that have been moulded by it. They are the exceptions. Slavery is itself barbarity. The nation which cherishes it is barbarous; and no outward tinsel or glitter can redeem it from the charge of barbarism. We cannot withhold one fine passage lyric "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave: His soul is marching on." Mr. Beecher says— passioned natures in hours of hope, and never in this sermon. The preacher seems sinking with the mercurial in hours of defeat to have had in his mind the American to the depths of despondency, he held on with immovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that it might not be premature, and hope against caution, that it might not yield to dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselessly, through four black and And now the martyr is moving in triumphal dreadful purgatorial years, wherein God was march, mightier than when alive. The nation cleansing the sin of this people as by fire. At rises up at last the watcher beheld the day dawn for the and states are his pall bearers, and the cannon every stage of his coming. Cities country. The mountains began to give forth beats the hours with solemn progression. their forms from out the darkness; and the Dead, Dead, DEAD, he yet speaketh. Is East came pushing towards us with arms full Washington dead? Is Hampden dead? Is of joy for all our sorrows. Then it was for David dead? Is any man that ever was fit to him to be glad exceedingly, that had sorrowed live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in immeasurably. Peace could bring to no other the unobstructed sphere where passion never heart such joy, such rest, such honour, such comes, he begins his illimitable work. His trust, such gratitude. But he looked upon life now is grafted upon the infinite, and will as Moses looked upon the promised land, and then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows, oh had gone from among us. people, are his peace. Your bells, and bands, Speaking of Slavery, Mr. Beecher and muffled drums, sound triumph in his ear. says it Slavery wastes its victims and destroys the masters. It destroys public morality, and the possibility of it. It corrupts manhood in its very centre and elements. Communities in which it exists are not to be trusted. They are rotten. Nor can you find timber grown in this accursed soil of iniquity that is fit to build our ships of state, or lay the foundation of our households. The patriotism that grows up under this blight, when put to proof, is selfish Wail and weep here; God makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on! We are under deep obligations to Mr. Estcourt for this noble pamphlet, and cordially recommend it not only to our working men but to all classes of the community. The second pamphlet is by a clergyman, and contains a burst of indignant eloquence at "the record of those horrid deeds of bloodshed and assassination flashed upon us from America." "Lea and brittle; and he that leans upon it shall be pierced. The honour that grows up in the midst of slavery is not honour, but a bastard quality that usurps the place of its better onlymington," says Mr. Christie, "is silent! to disgrace the name of honour. I do No public meeting called -none an nounced." Just so: let us, however, is both pleasing and saddening. We are inform this gentleman that we visited cheered at finding what has been done, by the Leamington to plead for the poor freed-aged and infirm men-and the women and chilmen, and were told that its inhabitants discouraging circumstances, but our apprehendren of the Refugees-under very adverse and exhausted all their sympathy for South-sions are excited, for this class when we find ern slaveholders, and that they had that so many able-bodied men are likely to neither compassion nor help for the poor become competitors with this weakly classpanting, naked, starving, ignorant fugi- in the race for a living. It must be very satistives rushing in from the house of bond- factory also to those who have so willingly contributed their time and their money to aid age. At the time we shook off the dust the Freed-men, to find that these acts are from our feet as we left the fair town, thoroughly appreciated by the poor people and remembering that the most deadly poi- that the fact of their possessing friends in son is found with the brightest flowers, England and elsewhere, has tended to cheer and the vilest scorpions under the fairest them on, and bring a ray of hope over the dark picture of their future. stones. We shall be glad to hear that Mr. Christie, who writes so boldly, is exerting himself for those poor ones in defence of whom Mr. Lincoln sacrificed his life. The third pamphlet contains a sermon by the Rev. Bishop E. S. Janes, D.D., of New York, on 2 Sam. iii, 38, "And the king said unto his servants, know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?" The sermon is replete with interesting incidents in the life of Abraham Lincoln. Correspondence. LETTERS FROM THE REV. J. M. WALDEN, M.A. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "FREED-MAN." It will be seen that the Educational efforts on behalf of the coloured people must be con- WM. ALLEN. Missisippi River, June 2nd, 1865. My Dear Friend, I reached Memphis, Tenn. on Sunday even. ing last. It had been my purpose only to remain part of a day, in which to adjust some business matters with the Provost Marshal of Freed-men, pertaining to our work at that point, intending to take the first steamer down for Natchez. As I was waiting for a boat, and could not tell what hour one might touch the landing, I could make no satisfactory exploration of matters, though detained there three days. I can only give you some general impressions gathered from such glimpses of the In consequence of Dr. Storrs of Cincinnati, being absent upon the Continent, I have had the pleasure of opening several very in teresting letters addressed to him by John M. Walden, corresponding Secretary of the Wes-work as I had. tern Freed-Men's Aid Commission, and who in conjunction with Levi Coffin, another member of said Commission, have recently visited together, the Camps of the Freed-Men at Galatin, Hendersonville, and Nashville, Tennessee. The information communicated in these letters, It is estimated that there are from 12,000 to 15,000 coloured people in and immediately about Memphis, besides the coloured soldiers in the fortifications and camps. I doubt if there be another point in the country where they are more favourably situated to demon strate their ability to provide for themselves tudes of coloured people in the same destitute under ordinary circumstances. I know not condition in which we first found those at how exacting slavery may have been there Memphis, who only need to be cared for during before the war, but so thoroughly have the this season of their destitution, and encouraged customs of society become Northernized under and somewhat directed in shaping some industhe presence and touch of the Yankee, that, trious pursuit, to realize all the success and whatever be the sentiment of former slave- demonstrate all the thrift of these. The owners, compensated labour is now the all-coloured people of Memphis are however not as prevailing system. In the palmy days of yet entirely independent. There is no state slavery, when the beauties of the "patriarchal provision for schools nor is there likely to be system were portrayed before the Northern for months, perhaps years, and they are not public to strengthen its supporters, I remember able to support schools for themselves. To often to have heard glowing descriptions of assist them in this work of education is now the joyous slaves in their Sunday attire atten- the principal field for benevolent efforts there. ding Divine service, etc., all of which very In Memphis and vicinity during the past month many were inclined to receive with a good there were 10 schools in progress; in these 29 degree of allowance; I also remember very teachers have been employed; 1,948 scholars many predictions that without the care and enrolled, with an average attendance of 1,297. supervision of their masters the negroes would Towards the support of these schools the soon sink into the most hopeless destitution. coloured people paid 800 dollars for the month It was between six and seven o'clock Sunday some two-thirds of the total expenditures. evening that I passed through the streets of The deficiency is paid by the commissions. I Memphis. I saw hundreds of coloured persons suppose about one-third of the coloured children walking about, and almost without exception in Memphis are in these shools; those who very well and quite tastefully dressed. They attend no doubt embrace the classes most manifest great fondness for high colours, but competent to aid in the support of the schools; many of them exercise no little taste in hence to increase the number of schools until arranging their dress and harmonizing the they shall be adequate for the educational colours. The sight I here witnessed was very work there, will make the demand upon the suggestive to my mind of self-support. Sub- commissions relatively larger. If we could at sequently, in passing through the streets once lay our plans to double the number of during my detention there, I found coloured schools and teachers in Memphis at the openmen engaged in many forms of industry; and ing of the fall term in September; and bring what was most notable, I not only saw them into them a still larger proportion of those acting as assistants in stores, but also in some who have little or nothing to contribute, it instances as salesmen. All this was gratifying; surely would be a judicious and efficient it was indicative of the practical results of direction of a part of the means of which we freedom to this people; the favourable solu- are made the almoners. There is no doubt tion of the great problem of Emancipation. that the Board would be ready to do this if When you visited Memphis little more than the contributions we receive shall enable us to two years ago you found this same people extend the work at this point and keep it up almost entirely dependent on Government at other points. It seems very evident that for food, and on the Charities of the North for while education is one of the great needs of clothing and every other necessary of life. the emancipated it is to be secured to them in They were helped through the season of their the main for some time to come, through the suffering; they were encouraged and inspired benevolent contributions of their friends in by the interest that benevolent christian men America and Europe. These poor people daily and women took in them: they began to do for suffer the result of their ignorance. In too themselves, and now behold the result. In many cases they are over-reached in their hundreds of places in the now conquered and contracts-deceived in the purchases they impoverished Southern States there are multi-make, cheated in changing their money, and |