The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry / The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13

In the discussion of this subject I fully recognize the opportunity men have to serve God in any honorable vocation. The Christian lawyer or physician is called of God as truly as a minister. Such men are putting the emphasis on service and not on getting. The condition confronting us is alarming and this warrants the earnest plea in this paper for a greater number of efficient ministers.
This is probably the most important question confronting the colored people to-day. After all, a race or a nation is measured by its religion, and the greatest fact about a people is its religion. The efficiency of a nation depends in a large degree upon the character of its religious principles. When the good Queen Victoria was asked what made her realm so great, it was expected that she might point to her well-equipped navy or her efficient army, but she modestly held up a little book, called the Bible, and said: “By adhering to the principles contained in this Book, greatness has come to Great Britain.” China is what she is to-day because she adheres to certain principles taught by her religious teachers, and Africa is still in darkness because led by blind, superstitious, religious teachers.
In a larger sense than many people are willing to give credit the Negro minister has been responsible for the progress of our race and is also responsible for much that cannot be counted as progress, for no other single class of individuals has had, and still has, so large and far-reaching an influence as our ministers. You have only to go to a community where there is a well-trained, honorable, upright, and efficient minister to see the marked improvement among the people along every line. On the other hand, when you find a community where there is an immoral, ignorant minister, wielding a large influence, you will find a community that is full of despair.
It is pleasant to read the short story written by Paul Laurence Dunbar some years ago, entitled “The Ordeal at Mt. Hope.” This story possibly gives one of the most vivid pictures of real, genuine service rendered by a man of splendid parts in a needy section of the South, bearing out the practical demonstration of the power the minister has over a community.