There is a sense of isolation, of solemnity and majesty, in the scene which none of us are likely to forget. So high are we elevated above the world that the pure vault of ether over our heads seems nearer to us than the blue rolling earth, with its wooded hills and smiling valleys below. No sound comes up to us, no voice of water or note of bird breaks the stillness. We are in the region of that eternal silence which wraps the summits of the "everlasting hills." A repose that is full of awe broods over this lofty peak, which still retains the last rays of the sinking sun, while over the lower world twilight has fallen.

HENRY WOODFEN GRADY.

1851-1889.

HENRY WOODFEN GRADY was born at Athens, Georgia, and educated at the State University. He became an editor, and in ISSO purchased an interest in the Atlanta "Constitution" on whose staff he remained till his death. His articles, addresses, and editorials made his name well known throughout the country, and contributed no little to the development of Southern industries after the war. monument has been erected to him in Atlanta,

A

The New South, [a series of articles].

WORKS.

Editorials, addresses, &c.

THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR.

(From The New South, 1889.*)

Master and Slave.-Perhaps no period of human history has been more misjudged and less understood than the slave. • By permission of "New York Ledger," Robert Bonner's Sons, N. Y.

holding era in the South. Slavery as an institution cannot be defended; but its administration was so nearly perfect among our forefathers as to challenge and hold our loving respect. It is doubtful if the world has seen a peasantry so happy and so well-to-do as the negro slaves in America. The world was amazed at the fidelity with which these slaves guarded, from 1861 to 1865, the homes and families of the masters who were fighting with the army that barred their way to freedom. If "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had portrayed the rule of slavery rather than the rarest exception, not all the armies that went to the field could have stayed the flood of rapine and arson and pillage that would have started with the first gun of the civil war. Instead of that, witness the miracle of the slave in loyalty to his master, closing the fetters upon his own limbs-maintaining and defending the families of those who fought against his freedom-and at night on the far-off battle-field searching among the carnage for his young master, that he might lift the dying head to his breast and bend to catch the last words to the old folks at home, so wrestling the meantime in agony and love that he would lay down his life in his master's stead.

History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety, and the unprotected homes rested in peace. Unmarshalled, the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the "big house to hear the news from marster," though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humbie and kindly. The body-guard of the helpless. The rough companion of the

little ones. The observant friend. The silent sentry in his lowly cabin. The shrewd counsellor. And when the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern army, but not one was lighted. When the master, going to a war in which slavery was involved, said to his slave, "I leave my home and loved ones in your charge," the tenderness between man and master stood disclosed.

The Northern man, dealing with casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how the negro stood in slavery days, open-hearted and sympathetic, full of gossip and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, frolic, furrow, and home, contented in the kindly dependence that had been a habit of his blood, and never lifting his eyes beyond the narrow horizon that shut him in with his neighbors and friends. But this relation did exist in the days of slavery. It was the rule of that régime. It has survived war, and strife, and political campaigns in which the drum-beat inspired and Federal bayonets fortified. It will never die until the last slaveholder and slave has been gathered to rest. It is the glory of our past in the South. It is the answer to abuse and slander. It is the hope of our future.

Ante-bellum Civilization.-The relations of the races in slavery must be clearly understood to understand what has followed, and to judge of what is yet to come. Not less important is it to have some clear idea the civilization of that period.

That was a peculiar society. Almost feudal in its splendor, it was almost patriarchal in its simplicity. Leisure and wealth gave it exquisite culture. Its wives and mothers,

exempt from drudgery, and almost from care, gave to their sons, through patient and constant training, something of their own grace and gentler.ess and to their homes beauty and light. Its people, homogeneous by necessity, held straight and simple faith, and were religious to a marked degree along the old lines of Christian belief. This same homogeneity bred a hospitality that was as kinsmen to kinsmen, and that wasted at the threshold of every home what the more frugal people of the North conserved and invested in public charities,

The code duello furnished the highest appeal in dispute. An affront to a lad was answered at the pistol's mouth. The sense of quick responsibility tempered the tongues of even the most violent, and the newspapers of South Carolina for eight years, it is said, did not contain one abusive word. The ownership of slaves, even more than of realty, held familes steadfast on their estates, and everywhere prevailed the sociability of established neighborhoods. Money counted least in making the social status, and constantly ambitious and brilliant youngsters from no estate married into the families of the planter princes. Meanwhile the one character utterly condemned and ostracized was the man who was mean to his slaves. Even the coward was pitied and might have been liked. For the cruel master there was no toleration.

The ante-bellum society had immense force. Working under the slavery which brought the suspicion or hostility of the world, and which practically beleaguered it within walls, it yet accomplished good things. For the first sixtyfour years of the republic it furnished the president for fifty-two years. Its statesmen demanded the war of 1812, opened it with but five Northern senators supporting it, and its general, Jackson, won the decisive battle of New Or