If in Heaven there be one seat higher than another, it must be reserved for those true Southern matrons, who performed conscientiously their part assigned them by God--civilizing and instructing this race. To the children of Israel God said: "I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance." So He had given _us_ "the heathen for an inheritance," and however bitterly some of us deplored it--as we did--we should have remembered that nothing happens by chance; but that God disposes all events for some purpose of his own. We were instruments in His hand, and if we or our forefathers were chosen by Him to elevate a race in the scale of comfort and intelligence we should not deplore it, but pray that what we have done for them may be a lasting benefit and that God's blessing may follow them in another condition of life. However we may differ in the opinion, there is no greater compliment to Southern slave owners than the idea prevailing in many places that the negro is already sufficiently elevated to hold the highest positions in the gift of our Government. I once met in traveling an English gentleman, who asked me: "How can you bear those miserable black negroes about your houses and about your persons? To me they are horribly repulsive, and I would not endure one about me." "Neither would they have been my choice," I replied. "But God sent them to us. I was born to this inheritance and could not avert it. What would _you_ English have done," I asked, "if God had sent them to you?" "Thrown them into the bottom of the sea!" he replied. Fortunately for the poor negro this sentiment had not prevailed among us. I believe God endowed our people with qualities peculiarly adapted to taking charge of this race and that no other nation could have kept them. Our people did not demand as much work as in other countries is required of servants; and I think had more affection for them than is elsewhere felt for menials. In this connection, I remember an incident during the war which deserves to be recorded as showing the affection entertained for negro dependents: When our soldiers were nearly starved, and only allowed daily a small handfull of parched corn, the Colonel of a Virginia regiment, by accident got some coffee, a small portion of which was daily distributed to each man. In the regiment was a cousin of mine--a young man endowed with the noblest attributes God can give--who, although famishing and needing it, denied himself his portion every day that he might bring it to his black mammy. He made a small bag in which he deposited and carefully saved it. When he arrived at home on furlough, his mother wept to see his tattered clothes, his shoeless feet and starved appearance. Soon producing the little bag of coffee, with a cheerful smile he said: "See what I've saved to bring black mammy!" "Oh! my son," said his mother, "you have needed it yourself. Why did you not use it?"