From the Introduction: The purpose of this book is twofold, viz., to encourage the colored people generally to adopt a higher plane of living and thinking by setting before them for imitation the lives and heroic accomplishments of a number of eminently successful members of their race and, at the same time, to let people of other nationalities behold for themselves the truth that all Negroes are not illiterate and depraved, as some may think, but that on the contrary, there are many saints and otherwise distinguished persons among them.