The Negro A Beast In The Image Of GOD

192 MANy AND THE NEGRO.
Roman empire,' or down to our day,
if ^-ou will, we observe
that, however divergent these routes may be in
the ultimate, they all converge upon the Noachian
Deluge. Scattered thickly along these various routes,
we note the wrecks of principalities, kingdoms and
empires, with here and there one which, in the zenith
of its wealth and power, ruled the world. But alas!
Their glory has departed;
their once intellectual, cultured
and pow^erful populations no longer grace the
earth— their name is history;
instances even
in many
their national boundaries are stricken from the maps
of the world; their once fertile fields, that bloomed and
fruited in the smiles of heaven, and yielded an abundant
harvest as the reward of intelligent, industrious
culture, are now barren wastes, which bear the unmistakable
impress of the curse of God and are properly
described in Scripture as desolations; their former
cities, once the flourishing marts of the world's commerce,
are now buried beneath the earth; or, if
any
vestige of them remains upon its surface still, a mass
of ruins alone mark their sites; their once splendid
capitals, within the palaces of which the royalty, the
nobility, the intellect, the culture, the beauty, the
chivalry, the wealth and fashion of those ancient
realms held high revel, are now swept from the earth;
or, if any vestige of them remains, they
are in
ruins and, like Petra, Idumea's once proud capital,
they are degraded to a fold for herds and flocks; or,
like Nineveh, that city "that dwelt carelessly," they