I am sure every one says that it is a shame to make me sing, but they make me sing, all the same. I enjoy the applause and the excitement--who would not? What I do _not_ enjoy is being obliged to sing in church every Sunday. Dr. Hoppin has persuaded aunty to let me help in the choir; that is, to sing the Anthem and the "Te Deum," but it amounts to my doing about all the singing. Don't you think this is cruel? However, there is one hymn I love to sing, and that is, "Shout the Glad Tidings, Exultingly Sing." I put my whole heart and soul in this, and soon find myself shouting the "glad tidings" all alone, my companions having left me in the lurch. We laughed very much at aunty's efforts in the Anti-slavery movement (just now at its height), when all Massachusetts has risen up with a bound in order to prove that the blacks are as good as the whites (if not better), and should have all their privileges. She, wishing to demonstrate this point, introduced Joshua Green, a little colored boy (the washerwoman's son), into the Sunday-school class. The general indignation among the white boys did not dismay her, as she hoped that Joshua would come up to the mark. The answer to the first question in the catechism (what is your name?), he knew, and answered boldly, "Joshua Green." But the second question, "Who made you?" was the stumbling-block. He sometimes answered, "Father," and sometimes, "Mother." Aunty, being afraid that he would answer, "Miss Fay," had him come to the house during the week, where she could din into him that it was God who made him and all creation. "Now, Joshua, when Dr. Hoppin says to you, 'Who made you?' you must answer, 'God, who made everything on earth and in heaven'--you understand?" "Yes, ma'am," and repeated the phrase until aunty thought him ripe to appear at Sunday-school, which he did on the following Sunday. You may imagine aunty's consternation when Dr. Hoppin asked Joshua, "Who made you?" and Joshua looked at aunty with a broad grin, showing all his teeth, and said, "Lor', Miss Fay, I forget who you said it was." This was aunty's last effort to teach the blacks. She repeated this episode to Mr. Phillips Brooks, who, in return, told her an amusing story of a colored man who had been converted to the Catholic religion, and went one day to confession (he seems not to have been very sure about this function). The priest said to him, "Israel, what have you to confess? Have you been perfectly honest since the last time? No thefts?" "No, sir." "None at all? Stolen no chickens?" "No, sir." "No watermelons?" "No, sir." "No eggs?" "No, sir." "No turkeys?" "No, sir; not one." Then the priest gave absolution. Outside the church Israel found the companions whom he had left waiting for him. "Well, how did you get on?" they asked. "Bully!" answered Israel. "But if he'd said ducks he'd have got me." Cousin James Lowell said: "See how a negro appreciates the advantages of the confession."