versatility and submissiveness have made many people think they
were an inferior race. This cannot be. Give them a fair chance in
life's battle, train their minds, fill their immortal souls with
worthy conceptions of the truth as only presented by the Roman
Catholic Church, and you will make of the negro race a kind,
charitable, intelligent, worthy Christian people, as full of love
for the country of their former enslavement as the best patriot
descendant of the Revolutionary fathers. Tried in peace and in
war when they have received but half the training of the white
race, they have not been found wanting, but have proven
themselves worthy of offices of trust and honor in every sphere
of life and as good Christians as God has ever granted His divine
grace to. His promises are for all nations and for all times, and
necessarily for the negro as for the white man, all of whom in
their souls are created in His own image and likeness from the
beginning.

Apropos of Romanism among the colored people, Archbishop Janssens,
of New Orleans, writes:

Last year there were baptized 3,705 colored children and 297
colored adults, which I estimate forms a population of about
75,000 Catholics in this Diocese.

We have six convents of colored Sisters, of which four are
schools, one an asylum for 74 girls, and the other an asylum, for
21 old women. There are, besides, nine schools conducted by white
Sisters, and eleven schools conducted by lay teachers--in all,
twenty-four schools with 1,330 scholars. It is not bad.