INTRODUCTION.
The rapid progress which our people have made in the
preparation and publication of books is one of the indisputable
evidences of culture and refinement Twenty-five
years ago, comparatively speaking, we were in total literary
darkness, but now there are thousands and thousands of
cultured men and women in all sections of our country
striving earnestly for the elevation of an oppressed race.
Our scholars are at work in all departments of human
knowledge. Many are teaching in our schools and colleges;
many attending the sick and dying with more than ordinary
medical skill; many with learning and eloquence,
pleading at the bar of Justice; many grappling with the
abstruse problems of the sciences; historians of marvellous
patience and prodigious research are bringing to the light
of this century the heroic deeds and wonderful achievements
of our ancestors, and the poet, with almost Divine
inspiration, has thrown his illuminating rays upon the
characters of our heroes, and, with the skill of an artistic
hand, has woven the threads into a tale of beauty and
melody, at once touching, inspiring and sublime. Parents
will do well to put these songs of the poet into the hands of
their children.
J. H. M. POLLARD, Rector of St. Mark's Church, Charleston, S. C. June 9th, 1890.
