But thus far we have not come upon any case where the difference was one not only of race but of color. Even here, however, we are not without scriptural instances to guide us. You remember that of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian. Jeremiah was, by the cruelty of his enemies, imprisoned in a dungeon or water tank, and was sunk in the mire at the bottom. Ebed-melech, learning his condition, went and informed King Zedekiah of the real state of the case, and obtained a command to take an escort of thirty men with him and deliver him from the dungeon lest he should die. So with great tenderness the Ethiopian threw down rags to put under the ropes which he let down, and by which he was to soften the pressures of the cords under his arms as they drew him up therewith from his filthy prison; and after they had thus delivered him there came to the prophet this message of God concerning him; "Go and speak to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord; and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee; because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord." Here we have a kindness done by a colored man to Jeremiah, and a message sent from God to the colored man acknowledging and rewarding that kindness; but O! how many debts of that sort owed by men among ourselves to the colored people have been forgotten or repudiated! In the agony of the war, colored people fought in the ranks of the Northern armies; and I have heard those who have belonged to the Confederate side declare with tears in their eyes that the faithful watch kept by their colored servants over their wives and families while they were absent with the troops was beyond all praise. And yet in these days we read every now and then of colored people shot down like dogs on the slightest provocation, and prevented on the merest pretext from exercising the rights of citizens of this free Republic, and men look on and do nothing. But God may say something by and by, and when he speaks men's ears shall tingle! We have another illustration of God's treatment of a colored man in the case of the Ethiopian treasurer. He was returning from Jerusalem, where he had been at one of the great annual Jewish feasts, and as he was riding in his chariot he was reading aloud to himself the book of the prophet Isaiah, when the evangelist Philip, specially sent thither for the purpose by God's Spirit, addressed him, and on being asked to come into the carriage with him expounded to him the meaning of the passage which he was reading, and preached the gospel from it unto him with such good effect that he was forthwith baptized on the confession of his faith, and afterward went on his way rejoicing to found that Ethiopian church which claims to this day to be one of the most ancient Christian churches in the world. He was a man, for he was moved by the truth as you and I have been, and he became a Christian--"the highest style of man"--to show us that, as Peter said, "In every nation they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted of him." That which is highest in any man is his appreciation and acceptance of the gospel! of Christ, and wherever we see that appreciation we have not only a fellow man but a brother Christian, to be treated by us as Paul requested Philemon to treat Onesimus--as "a brother beloved." Nor let any one suppose that there is a single race upon the earth that can not be so transformed and gladdened as this Ethiopian was. Even Charles Darwin declared that after the Patagonians it could not be said that any race is too degraded for the gospel to elevate, and so he gave new emphasis, unwittingly, perhaps, but, if so, all the more strongly, to the words addressed to Peter on the housetop: "What God hath cleansed that call not thou common;" or those of Paul in one of his epistles: "For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."