OUR GREAT NEED.
We have vast opportunities. Our schools are overflowing with the best selected material we have ever had. The fields are white for the harvest, much of which must rot ungathered, unless a large number of laborers are sent into the field; and these are not wanting. The day of romance in negro teaching is past, and there is nothing in it that appeals to the mere sentimentalist. The day of danger is past, and martyrs are not called for; but there is a demand for honest, earnest Christian educators, who find ample field for all their best gifts, and there is no difficulty in procuring these of the very first order. There is, also, much intelligent appreciation of the vital importance of this work, in its relations both to the life of our nation and the kingdom of Christ. What is needed now, and most pressingly, is a clear apprehension on the part of churches and individuals of the relation which their gifts bear to these civil and spiritual results. It is largely a question of money given, or money withheld. “Prayers are needed?” Certainly! Prayer, not to move the Lord so that He shall favor the work, and prosper the efforts of those engaged in it, but prayer that shall shake selfish plans of expenditure which are so large that nothing is left over for this work; prayer that shall confirm, and give definite shape to vague desires that the means shall be provided; prayer that selfishness may not throttle benevolence. When this prayer has become fervent and effectual, the result will be money, which, we assert again, is our present great need.
The Association was urged forward, by the zeal of the churches at the last Annual Meeting, to enlarged plans for the year, requiring enlarged gifts from the churches. This enlargement on our part has been made; it is necessary that yours shall now correspond, or disaster will follow.
Owing to the fact that our schools close in the month of June, and our accounts with our workers must be settled, our need is specially great at this time. The long spell of dry weather has affected our collections in the country churches; and there is danger that we shall suffer, as our benevolent societies do in the presidential year, from absorption of public interest in political affairs; and so we must urge again upon our friends the fact that our great and most pressing need is “money.”