"Arise, shine forth, for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee!" Such is the language of Holy Scripture, and it expresses well the sudden outburst of the joy that filled the hearts of the entire colored race when the Fifteenth Amendment became the law of the land. Then, indeed, did the colored soldier feel that he had a country, and that he had not fought and bled in vain for the cause of freedom and the Union! Then did all colored men and women feel, indeed, that they were men and women among other full-fledged citizens of the United States! Then did they feel, in the celebrated words of Robert Burns, the Scotch poet, that "An honest man, though e’er so poor, is king of men for all that!" If the Emancipation Proclamation called forth a tremendous flood of thankfulness and gratitude, if even the fall of Richmond and the freeing of the last slave called for shouts of joy and rejoicing, much more—yea, ten times more—did the publication of the Fifteenth Amendment exercise the entire redeemed race from the very bottom of their hearts! Their forefathers had been stolen away from Africa; they had been brought here. This was their home, such as it was. They had no other country but the United States. Now, the new amendment to the Constitution had put the right to vote into their hands, the same as others—just the same as others, and they most loyally sent up a shout of joy that reached from Maine to the Rio Grande river, and that shout arose to Heaven and entered into the ears of the celestials.