Since alienated from their former owners they are, as a general thing, more idle and improvident; and, unfortunately, the tendency of their political teaching has been to make them antagonistic to the better class of white people, which renders it difficult for them to be properly instructed. That such animosity should exist towards those who could best understand and help them, is to be deplored. For the true negro character cannot be fully comprehended or described, but by those who--like ourselves--have always lived with them. At present their lives are devoted to a religious excitement which demoralizes them, there seeming to be no connection between their religion and morals. In one of their Sabbath schools is a teacher, who although often arrested for stealing, continues to hold a high position in the church. Their improvidence has passed into a proverb--many being truly objects of charity; and whoever would now write a true tale of poverty and wretchedness, may take for the hero "Old Uncle Tom without a cabin." For "Uncle Tom" of the olden time in his cabin with a blazing log fire and plenty of corn bread, and the Uncle Tom of to-day, are pictures of very different individuals. And this chapter ends my reminiscences of an era soon to be forgotten, and which will perish under the heel of modern progress. It is a faithful memorial. Would that it might rescue from oblivion some of the characters worthy to be remembered! CHAPTER XVIII. The scenes connected with the late war will recall to the mind of every Southern man and woman the name of Robert E. Lee--a name which will be loved and revered as long as home or fireside remains in old Virginia--and which sets the crowning glory on the list of illustrious men from plantation homes. Admiration and enthusiasm naturally belong to victory; but the man must be rare indeed, who in defeat, like General Lee, received the applause of his countrymen. It was not alone his valor, his handsome appearance, his commanding presence, his perfect manner, which won the admiration of his fellow-men. There was something above and beyond all these--his true Christian character. Trust in God ennobled his every word and action. Among the grandest of human conquerors was he, for early enlisting as a soldier of the cross--to fight against the world, the flesh and the devil--he fought the "good fight" and the victor's crown awaited him in the "kingdom not made with hands." Trust in God kept him calm in victory as in defeat. When I remember General Lee during the war, in his family circle at Richmond--then at the height of his renown--his manner, voice and conversation were the same as when, a year after the surrender, he came to make my mother a visit from his Lexington home.