POWER OF RIGHT PRINCIPLES.
From the beginning this Association was wedded to right principles. It recognized their latent power. It took it for granted that right was expedient—that right would triumph. It did not ask if right thinking and right doing was the way of the multitude, even of the multitude of professing Christians. Its inquiry was simply for the way of righteousness. That way it strove to tread. It was called narrow—captious. Its leaders were sometimes stigmatized as men of one idea—disturbers of the people—fanatics. They were not time-servers, however. They had the martyr spirit and toiled on, waiting for the morning; and the morning came. What was once questioned if not ridiculed, is now accepted and honored.
The elements that entered into their early labors are needful still. They had courage. They dared to do right in the face of opposition. If mobbed and mobbed again, the oppression only served to fill the country with the fragrance of their good deeds. It was but the torch that kindled the incense. They were never drawn from a righteous purpose. God was present in the shadows, keeping watch above his own. They had the spirit of sacrifice. They were ready to go to the lost sheep—to the despised. They passed not by him who fell among thieves. They achieved distinction by their readiness to endure hardness—to submit to insult—to be counted among the few—to toil with but little appreciation and for meagre rewards. They also bore about with them a rich and beautiful charity, first pure, then peaceable, full of mercy and good fruits. It was the combination of these elements in active operation for a score of years that served largely to revolutionize public sentiment, and especially the sentiment in our churches, until the principles of this Association are accepted and acceptable. The change was wrought by the power of pure motives applied to aggressive religious work in behalf of a needy and wronged people.
This change is sure to come in every quarter of our land, by sufficient application of the power of right principles. Every mission station of this Association is a centre from which a pure light radiates. Every graduate from our schools is a torch-bearer flaming this light over the land. It is a question of time—of a score of years perhaps—and there will be no ostracism experienced by our teachers South. If they can be sustained in the field, toiling in righteousness; if their numbers can be multiplied to meet the demand; if the churches will make it possible to continue the work; the victory of right principles South will be as certain and speedy as it was at the North, and much more may be hoped for. North and South will clap their hands together in hearty co-operation, shouting their choruses in one grand anthem, and entering in company upon the enlarged work of carrying right principles to the domain of final victory—the Freedmen’s fatherland. To gird ourselves for that to-day is the duty which calls the servants of the Master, East, West, North and South.