Keep in the Race, Don’t Give Up
The Holy Bible tells you, and man’s experience has always demonstrated it, that “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
You are fearful that you will not win. Why? Is it not because you are looking backward instead of forward?
You have had much to contend with, let us say; very well, are you going to lie down now that you can see daylight ahead?
We are living in the present, acquiring strength for the future, the past is dead and should be buried. The man who looks back is useless for present needs.
Get away from the downtrodden notion, the servant idea, and be a man with an intelligent brain aspiring to higher things.
Every man is what he thinks himself to be, and if you have no aspirations beyond your present occupation, then you will remain in that occupation and nobody can pull you out of it.
On the contrary, a man who thinks he is fitted for some better occupation than the one he is engaged in, will soon find that other occupation; he will soon be his own master.
No man is kept out of a thing unless he wants to stay out. It is true there are sometimes many difficulties, and in the case of our Colored Americans, they have been appalling and discouraging. But the light is breaking, the black clouds are disappearing, and soon, if you keep in the race, you will find the land of sunshine and happiness.
Don’t give up the ship as long as there is a timber to float on.