"Freedman's Village, near Arlington, is really an attractive-looking place; comfortable houses, nicely white-washed; a school-house, capable of accommodating two or three hundred children, and a 'Home' for the aged and infirm. Fervor and earnestness pervade the sermons and prayers of the colored people here. One gave thanks for 'the glorious privilege that we ain't all dead and shut up in hell.' "Some of us might not have realized before that it was a glorious privilege to be still left on earth, either as faithful servants, to do the Master's bidding, or to become reconciled to Him before we were snatched away with no alternative but to be 'shut up in hell.' "You would have been touched to witness their grief at the death of our beloved President. Every tenanted hut was decked with some badge of mourning. Thousands went to look at their emancipator, as he lay in state in the White House. Aunt Cicily, who bore the yoke of slavery one hundred and ten years, looked on Mr. Lincoln with a reverential feeling, beautiful to behold in one so aged--'for the privilege,' she says, 'that he gave me to die free.'" "Some old men who had learned to read while in slavery, said, 'We toted massa's children to school, stayed all day, and then toted them back. We learned to read, and massa didn't know it; and now we can read de blessed Book ourselves. De good people of de North have been bery good, bery good to us. Jesus tell dem to help de poor slave: by-and-by we can help ourselves. We tank you all bery much!' Mother, child, and grandchild sometimes go hand-in-hand to the school-room. The stimulating motive with most of the adults is a fervent desire to read the Bible." * * * * * "The marriage record kept among the Freedmen, shows that a large part of the marriages, especially at first, were of those who had lived together as husband and wife, perhaps many years, without an opportunity to be legally united. One old man, of almost three-score and ten, was thus joined in lawful marriage to his venerable wife. At the conclusion of the ceremony, when the pastor extended his hand with the nuptial benediction, and dismissed them with a short prayer, they dropped on their knees together, their eyes streaming with tears of thankfulness, and still kneeling, the old man reached out both arms and hugged her to his heart, saying aloud, 'My dear old woman, I bless God that I can now, for the first time, kiss my own lawful wife.'" An agent, under date 5th month, 1863, writes: