Death of C. A. Mundy.

Mr. EDITOR:—I had no intention to write
an obituary notice of our faithful African
friend, Caesar Augustus Mundy, who died in
Mt. Carmel, Ill., some two weeks since, at a
somewhat advanced age; waiting rather in the
expectation that some suitable and appropri
ate notice would issue from one of his spirit
ual brethren, a member of the Methodist
Church, of which he was for many years a
worthy and consistent associate.

To attempt more than a mere formal, sen
tence-long announcement of the demise of a
negro, the child of a race of people who as a
nation have been known in history for more
than eighteen centuries, as barbarous unenlightened and wholly destitute, until lately, of
the benign influences and exalting agencies of
the Christian religion, may by many be thought
small business, a sort of "love's labor lost."

Since, through political pressure ignoring
the higher and nobler instincts of our nature,
a very large class of people have unwittingly
imbibed the nation that black men are a mere
remove above the brute, "with no rights
which white men are bound to respect," it would seem that I invited the gibes and jeers
of even those who do not wholly indorse the
dictum of the highest tribunal of our land.

To speak kindly and honestly of a poor, despised, benighted, down-trodden and oppress
ed race, may be considered fool-hardy and with
out profit. This hatred of the African, this
denial of their humanity intellectually and
morally was not always so, and will not con
tinue always. Ethiopia was not always in the
lowest scale of mental darkness, and God
will yet raise her. She has had her Euclid
and her Father Augustine, names which are
bright with the accumulating testimonies of
ages, and whose names will endure as long as
science and religion have an abiding place in
the human breast. The embryotic greatness
of Africa is in the womb of the fugitive, await
ing development to a better and brighter destiny.

This hope of a despised people is not the
dream of an enthusiast, having no foundation
in truth or reason, but is based chiefly and
confidently on the scripture-injunction of "honor
all men," made binding by inscription.
When the "Apostles of the Gentiles" enunciated this glorious hope, this gospel to the
down trodden, he meant not white men alone.

In the common, Websterian acceptation of
the term honor, what do we understand by
"honor all men? Whom do we honor? Do
we "treat with respect and perform relative
duties to" a chattel, a saddle, a horse, a dog?
Are these things included in the promise,

"In thee shall all nations be blessed?" No!
verily not.

But to the subject of this brief and hastily
written communication: Caesar A. Mundy
was born in New Jersey about the year 1802,
a slave, the property of Phineas Mundy, and
at a subsequent period, transferred to his son,
Edward Mundy, who, in 1861, brought him to
this county as a bondman. Although he
could not be held in the capacity of a slave
in this State, he nevertheless performed faith
fully and with utmost fidelity the obiga
gation which he had entered into with Mr. Mun
dy preparatory to leaving New Jersey, that
of serving five years from the date of his em
igration. As an evidence that he scrupulous
ly observed this covenant with his masters
and that he proved himself worthy of his love,
Mr. Mundy authorized and urges Caesar, after
his term of service had expired, to go into
Kentucky and seek a mate from among the
slaves, and he would purchase her and free her.
Although he never enjoyed the advantages of
a school, he was by no means ignorant of
knowledge but, in that respect, could claim to
be the peer of many who are favored with a
paler skin, who need not encounter a blighting
and withering prejudice in the acquisition of
knowledge, but for whom every possible incen
tive to knowledge is fostered. He could read
with much ease, and had a taste, which he
cultivated for reading useful and profitable
matter. Punctual in contributing his quota
to the church and ministry of his choice, and
without the aid of a mechanical pursuit, or the
profits of trade and traffic, he notwithstanding
accumulated, by honest and perservering efforts,
the handsome estate of near two thousand
dollars, which in this money-making are
might be considered, in the case of one of us
white folks, the measure of judgement and abil
ity. Leaving several brothers behind him, he
manifested singular and commendable wisdom
in the disposition of his estate. He placed
implicit trust in but one of them, whose long
tried integrity and fidelity has retained him
an honorable trust in the "Tract-house," New
York. To him he bequeathed his effects,
with the request that he should distribute
their several portions to his other brothers, at
such times and in such amounts as he judged
best. In his child-like, retiting and "hewing
of-wood" deportment, he had won himself
many friends in this community. On all fes
tal occasions, Caesar's ebony was present,
wreathed with joyous smiles. Scarce a mar
riage festival could be celebrated without as
signing to him the post of Ganymede.
Many is the debt of gratitude which more
than a few of love-sick swains and lassies owe
to Caesar for the messages of love which he
was wont to convey from the one to the other.
He had installed himself worthily in the office
of Love's Hermes. Well do I remember
with what emotions of joy I received from

his hands the first missive of the kind; how
his eyes danced delight in a consciousness of
its contents. His walk through life was sin
gularly unexceptionable; and as a worthy and
consistent churchman, the testimony of his
brethren will bear me witness in ascribing to
him a reasonable if not full measure of the
honest requirements of a Christian. By no
means a bright illustration of what black men
are capable, his mental, moral, and religious
capacities were not contemptible. Free and
enlightened America known not yet what
state and degree of advancement and culture
the descendants of Misraim and Put are sus
ceptibel of. At present they may be spirit
less, cowardly, brutal and improvident, We
have not yet known them long enough to
measure their worth, though we meet with
isolated examples where true greatness has
sprung out of the galling chains of bondage
notwithstanding.

Prior to the Christian year 1,000, our forefathers began to emerge from a state of
barbarism, heathen ignorance and serfdom
more galling and degrading than the slavery
of the South. Why did they continue as
or slaves for a period of five hundred
years? Were they capable of self-govern
ment? If so, why show so little spirit and
wear the yoke for generations? Who losed
their manacles? Did they do it themselves?
Who, in our own century, strangled the despot
in San Domingo?—the enslaved themselves,
the only example upon record where an en
slaved race, by their own sword, cut asunder
the gordian know of wicked bondage. This
present generation many not see the sons of
Africa advance much in the arts and sciences,
in the fruits of civilization and Christianiza
tion. Their civil pentecost is at hand, the
signs whereof are becoming more and more
manifest every day, and may be understood
and appreciated by every thoughtful student
of the affairs of mankind.

J. J. L.