The Church of the future will urge the starting of savings accounts with the youth, and the organization of savings banks among our people in all sections, and the opening, incidentally, of opportunities for our boys and girls to get in close touch with business life and business habits. We will thus make the Church an influence, as it has been in the past, in paving the way for the future financial and substantial importance of the race. The Negro Church of the future will be less fettered by denominational lines and possessed of a broader Christian spirit, recognizing denominational names of course, but laying greater stress on Christianity, than on any church allegiance. Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, and Episcopalians will interchange pulpits and preach one Gospel in the name of our common Lord, Who is in all, and through all and over all. There will be inter-denominational Sunday-school unions, Church conventions and conferences, and the ministers and congregations will be in closer union, praying for the same spiritual power, the same common blessings, and the removal of the same great evils. Judah will not vex Ephraim, and Ephraim will not vex Judah. Under the mighty influence of this commingling and oneness of heart and purpose
"Error will decay and Truth grow strong
And right shall rule supreme and conquer wrong."
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To Thee! God of our fathers, we render praise and thanksgiving for such abundant evidence of Thy guiding presence during these fifty years of freedom and civil liberty. We predict for the future on the basis of our achievement during the past; and since the Negro Church has been a great factor in lifting us up and enabling us to see the new light, in spite of many obstacles, we are confident that by following the same Omnipotent Hand, that never errs and never fails, we will, in the coming years, prove that no sacrifice, either in war or in peace, made in our behalf has been made in vain, and no service rendered us has been without its subsequent reward. We rejoice, and are glad in our gladness and rich in our wealth. In the midst of it all, the Negro Church survives and is steadily moving on.
THE NEGRO LAWYER; HIS OPPORTUNITY, HIS DUTY[52]
By W. Ashbie Hawkins
Of the Baltimore Bar
Gentlemen:
The legal profession is without doubt in the lead. Its devotees outrank all others in service to the government and they come the closest in personal contact to the individual. This is denied of course, and always will be denied by men of all other professions, but when the roster of the world's lawyers who have faithfully and efficiently served humanity in every conceivable way is pitted against that of the others, the question is relieved of all doubt. The Negro lawyer is no longer an experiment. He has been severely tried from within and without, and he has proved his worth. His place in our economy is fixed. He has demonstrated his capacity to serve, and to serve well, and for all of this both the lawyer and the race he is helping to advance are under lasting obligations to Howard University. She has to her credit more men who are actively and successfully pursuing their calling than any other institution of learning in this land.
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