Such are some of the leading features in the condition of the freedmen, particularly at Port Royal. The enterprise for their aid, begun in doubt, is no longer a bare hope or possibility. It is a fruition and a consummation. The negroes will work for a living. They will fight for their freedom. They are adapted to civil society. As a people, they are not exempt from the frailties of our common humanity, nor from the vices which hereditary bondage always superadds to these. As it is said to take three generations to subdue a freeman completely to a slave, so it may not be possible in a single generation to restore the pristine manhood. One who expects to find in emancipated slaves perfect men and women, or to realize in them some fair dream of an ideal race, will meet disappointment; but there is nothing in their nature or condition to daunt the Christian patriot; rather, there is everything to cheer and fortify his faith. They have shown capacity for knowledge, for free industry, for subordination to law and discipline, for soldierly fortitude, for social and family relations, for religious culture and aspirations; and these qualities, when stirred and sustained by the incitements and rewards of a just society, and combining with the currents of our continental civilization, will, under the guidance of a benevolent Providence which forgets neither them nor us, make them a constantly progressive race, and secure them ever after from the calamity of another enslavement, and ourselves from the worse calamity of being again their oppressors. * * * * * NO AND YES. I watched her at her spinning; And this was my beginning Of wooing and of winning. But when a maid opposes, And throws away your roses, You say the case forecloses. Yet sorry wit one uses, Who loves and thinks he loses Because a maid refuses. For by her once denying She only means complying Upon a second trying. When first I said, in pleading, "Behold, my love lies bleeding!" She heard me half unheeding. When afterward I told her, And blamed her growing colder,-- She dropped upon my shoulder. Had I a doubt? That quelled it: Her very look dispelled it, I caught her hand, and held it. Along the lane I led her, And while her cheeks grew redder, I sued outright to wed her. Good end from bad beginning! My wooing came to winning,-- And still I watch her spinning. * * * * * THE MATHER SAFE.