It being the seventh day of the week, as I was passing my Irish friends, and all quiet, and a company sitting on the grass in the shade of their cabins, I accepted this as my long-sought opportunity to talk with them. Addressing a group of half a dozen women, I said: "I have long desired to talk with you, as I am confident you do not understand me in teaching this colored school. I have felt it my duty to aid the most neglected class of people. We are apt to indulge in prejudices against certain classes or nations of people. Some people are prejudiced against the German people. They'll say he's nobody but a Dutchman, he's not worth noticing; and others are prejudiced against the Irish, and will say, 'They are nobody but Irish people, they are not worth noticing;' and others are prejudiced against black people: 'They are nobody but negroes, and they are not worth noticing. And then there are some who are prejudiced against soldiers, or sailors, as classes of men. People are too apt to despise other nations and classes of men. All this is wrong; God made us all as it pleased him, and it is not for us to find fault with our Heavenly Father, who loves all the human family alike. As we acknowledge the fatherhood of God, we should also acknowledge the brotherhood of man in all nations and classes." Said one man to his friend sitting by, "In faith, Pat, that's good doctrine." "Yes, indade, that's the doctrine Father Mathew prached, ye know." "Jamie, that's all right," said another. One of the women concluded she would know the truth of the reports they had gotten up among themselves. "An' did ye not marry a nagur?" "Why, no! my husband was a white man, who died a number of years ago." "And was he a black man?" "He was a white man, and he left me with eight children, all under age, and the youngest and the oldest have followed their father." "In fath, ye've seen a dale of trouble, I'm sure; and we heard that black man we often saw comin' from schule with ye an' that yellow lass an' boy was your chilther." "That mulatto girl and boy live near my boarding-place, and they generally come and go with me to school and return; and that black man is a young man who has never had the privilege of going to school and learning to read and write and the use of figures, until I opened this school. Now he can read, write, and can use figures to good advantage." "But it's a pity we didn't know ye before. We've been hearin' all this about ye, an' not a bit of it true. Our people was about to set fire to your schule-house--in faith, they said they'd give ye a dressin' of tar an' fithers, an' our praste forbid it." "I knew nothing of that," said I; "but I wanted you to understand me before I left, which will be in four weeks. Then they will have a fine young colored man from Oberlin College to teach their school."