Well, we have in Selma University an educational foundation. The Marion Academy, worth about $2,000, begins academies.
(c) Educated Men and Women.—Over one hundred young people have received diplomas from Selma University. Graduates have come to Alabama from other States. Baptists have graduated from other schools in this State—schools like Talladega and Tuskegee, the school at Huntsville, and the school at Montgomery. This statement of facts is calculated to turn our minds toward a possibility and prophecy of the near approach—even on the part of the masses—of that state of mind which lives and moves in the higher pleasures and to the more sacred ends of life.
(d) Homes.—The wandering life which characterized the masses of the people in 1865, is fast giving place to settled home life. We have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in town lots and farm lands, where we are quietly and contentedly rearing our loved ones, studying the good of our community, and arranging for the prosperity of the house of God. In other words, we are fixtures in the country and fixtures in the cities and towns. We have attained to affairs—to the possession of money and other forms of material value—so that we have power in the world of exchange. Prof. B. T. Washington is a wonder among men as the builder and manager of the greatest school in Alabama, and his friend, Mr. Logan, proves that the colored men can manage great money schemes, while Mr. B. H. Hudson and others, of Birmingham, establish the Negro as a banker.
(e) Organizations.—We are now together—acquainted, organized. In the beginning of 1865, the minister in one part of the State did not know the minister in the other part. There was no union, no plan of agreement. Now there are about 800 churches, all organized into associations. Each church may be reached and affected through its association, with regard to any line of work. We have created a strong sentiment in favor of education and a strong sentiment against intemperance, so that the masses of the people may be easily led in right directions. The day of pioneering lies behind us, and most of the pioneers are gone to their long home. We are now at the point for action on new lines. As individual Christians we need to turn our attention more directly upon the one aim of human life, namely, God-like character building in ourselves and in them with whom we have to do. As churches, we need to see to it not only that we win souls, but that we train them in Christian work also. All other points being equal, the trained soldier is the man to trust with the battle. The Sunday school work and the young people’s unions are very available as training institutions. May God put it into the hearts of the leaders of this new day and new chapter in our history to see to it that these organizations shall serve the ends for which they are so well suited. May their hearts wholly enter into the possibilities and purposes of every sacred organization!
I take courage, and there arises in my mind glorious prospects coming down the future, as I see the faith and push of our Sunday school and our women’s conventions. If our present Sunday school leaders should succeed in wrapping their mantles about men who will be as faithful under the midday light as they have been in the dawning, the future must find an ever broadening compass of Bible influence, and an ever-increasing beauty in our words and lives.
THE WOMEN’S CONVENTION—A HIGH POINT.
The Women’s State Convention organized in 1886, marks a new era in the history of our denomination. The present brick building on our school grounds owes its existence chiefly to this organization. They came into the field in a dark time, and at a time when the wheels of the school dragged heavily. The circumstances which sent Miss S. A. Stone before the people of the State seemed a providence. The time, the conditions, needed the heart of a woman to control them. And the Women’s Convention conquered the hardness of heart and the division of opinion, prevailing among the people, by sending Miss Stone among them. Most grandly did she conquer. Well, what is the lesson here? It is this: let the women still be encouraged, let them continue to operate. We need all our forces in line.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Mesdames G. J. Brooks, R. T. Pollard, C. J. Hardy, A. A. Bowie, W. R. Pettiford, A. J. Gray, M. Tyler, S. H. Wright, E. W. Armstead, J. A. Craig and the other noble women associated with them, for the services they have rendered the state in the support they have given their Convention. The times demand that this work shall still be faithfully continued. I am glad that we are up in our ideas of woman, and the fact that we are argues progress on our part.
It is a praiseworthy fact that we colored Baptists occupy advanced ground with regard to the questions which involve the powers and rights of women. I remember that upon one occasion just after the close of the war, my mother returned from church rather disgusted because a woman had been called upon to lead in public prayer. Now, too, the singing, the reading and the praying in our congregations, are assuming forms suited to our advanced or advancing state of mind. The song is suited to the text and fewer stanzas are sung. The music is not so slow and is rendered with more harmony and life. In the sermon, the preacher aims to give his audience thoughts rather than feelings, and longs to make his hearers wiser rather than happier. He who reads the Bible to others, whether he reads in family or church, reads by paragraphs—taking in a single thought or fact at the time—in place of the old custom of reading a whole chapter in connection with which no one idea was raised into prominence. In short our gospel reformers seem now to realize that saving faith in the truth is that exercise of soul regarding truth that satisfies the intellect, impresses the sensibilities and bows the will beneath the gospel forms and gospel spirit. Of course this is not true of all our teachers, but it is true of many of them; and the tendency upon the part of the whole people is in this direction. Individual human essence leavened with the Divine essence, is the goal in the eye of the representative leader of our people. Largely we have attained to the confidence of our white brethren. In the union conference of the white and the colored ministers of Birmingham, recently held, I plainly saw that the white Baptist ministers were more at ease with the colored brethren than the white ministers of other denominations, except perhaps, the Presbyterian brethren. And I think they were not so much disturbed about the social question. I call attention to this fact in order to say that their joint work with us has enabled them to see our good qualities and concede to us the claims which belong to intellectual and moral culture. And as our Christian culture shall widen its radius and deepen its impressions upon all who may be touched by us, the prejudice and barriers incident to our color must retire behind the curtains of the past.
“Were I so tall to reach the pole,