The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848 — John Shaqi
The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848Garnet, Henry Highland
History
The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848
Garnet, Henry Highland
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
All the various forms of truth that are presented to the minds of
men, are in perfect harmony with the government of God. Many things
that appear to be discordant are not really so; for when they are
understood, and the mind becomes illuminated and informed, the imagined
deformities disappear as spectres depart from the vision of one who
had been a maniac, when his reason returns. “God is the rock, his work
is perfect--a God of truth, and without iniquity. Justice and judgment
are the habitations of his throne, and mercy and truth go before his
face. His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and his law is
the truth.”
The truth will profit us nothing if we suffer it not to clothe us in
our right minds--it returns without accomplishing its high mission to
us, if we refuse to let her lead us to the delectable mountain, from
whence we can behold the pure stream of the law of Jehovah, flowing
from his throne, hailed by angel voices and the music of the spheres.
In order to pursue my subject I must, for the sake of distinction, use
some of the improper terms of our times. I shall, therefore, speak of
_races_, when in fact there is but one race, as there was but one Adam.
By an almost common consent, the modern world seems determined to
pilfer Africa of her glory. It were not enough that her children
have been scattered over the globe, clothed in the garments of
shame--humiliated and oppressed--but her merciless foes weary
themselves in plundering the tombs of our renowned sires, and in
obliterating their worthy deeds, which were inscribed by fame upon the
pages of ancient history.
The three grand divisions of the earth that were known to the
ancients, were colonized by the three sons of Noah. Shem was the
father of the Asiatics--the Africans descended from Ham, and Japheth
was the progenitor of the Europeans. These men being the children
of one father, they were originally of the same complexion--for we
cannot through the medium of any law of nature or reason, come to the
conclusion, that one was black, another was copper-colored, and the
other was white. Adam was a red man, and by what law of nature his
descendants became dissimilar to him, is a problem which is yet to
be clearly solved. The fact that the universal Father has varied the
complexions of his children, does not detract from his mercy, or give
us reason to question his wisdom.
Moses is the patriarch of sacred history. The same eminent station is
occupied by Herodotus in profane history. To the chronicles of these
two great men we are indebted for all the information we have in
relation to the early condition of man. If they are incorrect, to what
higher authority shall we appeal--and if they are true, then we may
acquaint ourselves with the history of our race from that period,
“When yonder spheres sublime,
Peal’d their first notes to sound the march of time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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