poor; but it can certainly do no harm to meet them with the
everlasting truth.

In the Gospel of Luke we read this remarkable historical statement:
"And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian,
coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he
might bear it after Jesus."[10] By referring to the map, the reader
will observe that Cyrene is in Libya, on the north coast of Africa.
All the commentators we have been able to consult, on the passage
quoted below, agree that this man Simon was a Negro,--a black man.
John Melville produced a very remarkable sermon from this passage.[11]
And many of the most celebrated pictures of "The Crucifixion," in
Europe, represent this Cyrenian as black, and give him a very
prominent place in the most tragic scene ever witnessed on this earth.
In the Acts of the Apostles we have a very full and interesting
account of the conversion and immersion of the Ethiopian eunuch, "a
man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of
the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come
to Jerusalem for to worship."[12] Here, again, we find that all the
commentators agree as to the nationality of the eunuch: he was a
Negro; and, by implication, the passage quoted leads us to the belief
that the Ethiopians were a numerous and wealthy people. Candace was
the queen that made war against Augustus Cæsar twenty years before
Christ, and, though not victorious, secured an honorable peace.[13]
She reigned in Upper Egypt,--up the Nile,--and lived at Meroe, that
ancient city, the very cradle of Egyptian civilization.[14]

"In the time of our Saviour (and indeed from that time
forward), by Ethiopia was meant, in a general sense, the
countries south of Egypt, then but imperfectly known; of one