I once heard a very plain man say (and he was
cross-eyed, and awkwardly flung together in other respects) that
he should be a handsome man when public opinion shall be changed.
Since I have been editing and publishing a journal devoted to the
cause of liberty and progress, I have had my mind more directed
to the condition and circumstances of the free colored people
than when I was the agent of an abolition society. The result
has been a corresponding change in the disposition of my time and
labors. I have felt it to be a part of my mission--under a
gracious Providence to impress my sable brothers in this country
with the conviction that, notwithstanding the ten thousand
discouragements and the powerful hinderances, which beset their
existence in this country--notwithstanding the blood-written
history of Africa, and her children, from whom we have descended,
or the clouds and darkness (whose stillness and gloom are made
only more awful by wrathful thunder and lightning) now
overshadowing them--progress is yet possible, and bright skies
shall yet shine upon their pathway; and that "Ethiopia shall yet
reach forth her hand unto God.
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