TO THE READER.

In the busy rush of life, the virtues of single individuals too often escape notice, or make but slight impression on the minds of their contemporaries. It is in after years, when the actors are dead and gone, that their virtues shine forth, and speak from the silence, through the pen of some one who catches them before it is too late.

No history is richer, or more beautiful, than that written of lives led by wisdom, and goodness.

The writing of this little book is inspired by a desire to perpetuate, as examples, the lives of such people. While the trend of my thoughts will center around one special family,—the Carrs—I shall not omit honorable mention of other colored citizens, who walked upright among their fellow men.

I shall also make mention of leading white people who befriended the colored race in its early struggles for religious liberty.

I write with the hope, that what I say, will have a tendency to deepen the sympathy, and kind feeling which should ever exist between the two races living together in the South.

The Author.