“No, it will gradually increase it. Industrial training gives power. If the Negro ever becomes a serious competitor of the white labourer in the industries of the South, the white man will kill him, just as your labour Unions do in the North now where the conditions of life are hard, and men fight with tooth and nail for bread. If you train the negroes to be scientific farmers they will become a race of aristocrats, and when five generations removed from the memory of slavery, a war of races will be inevitable, unless the Anglo-Saxon grant this trained and wealthy African equal social rights. The Anglo-Saxon can not do this without suicide. One drop of Negro blood makes a negro.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Doctor, that I can’t persuade you to become our pastor. But I can understand since this talk something of the larger views of your duty.”
The deacon sought Mrs. Durham that evening and laid siege to her resolutely.
“Ah! deacon, you’re shrewd—you are going to flatter me, but I can’t let you. I’m an old fogy and out of date. I’m not orthodox on the Negro from Boston’s point of view.”
“Nonsense!” growled the deacon. “We don’t care what you or the Doctor either thinks about the Negro, or the Jap, or the Chinaman. We want a preacher imbued with the power of the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel of Christ.”
“Well, you have quite captured me since you have been here. You are a revelation to me of what a deacon might be to a pastor and his wife. To be frank with you, I am on your side. I am tired of the Negro. I don’t want to solve him. He is an impossible job from my point of view. I should be delighted to go to Boston now and begin life over again. But I do not figure in the decision. Dr. Durham settles such questions for himself. And I respect him more for it.”
Encouraged by this decision of his wife the deacon renewed his efforts to change the Preacher’s mind next day in vain. He stayed over Sunday, heard him preach two sermons, and sorrowfully bade him good-bye on Monday. He carried back to Boston his final word declining this call.
As the deacon stepped on the train, he warmly pressed his hand and said, “God bless you, Doctor. If you ever need a friend, you know my name and address.”