You see how it is with regard to his industries. Men say he is lazy: why does he go to work as soon as he leaves the land which induces laziness? The reports come from Kansas that he is thrifty, that he is putting his hand to the plow, that he is doing the work he is given there to do. Individuals taken as types of the race are declaring their capacity for strong industrial development. You know his record in matters of education; you know he is beginning to make himself, so far as he has the chance anywhere, a power in citizenship. I believe that this question of morality will settle itself, that the negro can at least show, under right training, an average development in the morals of religion.
One question then remains: What is the true way of approach to this religious question of the South? Something has already been done through the strong, patient work, known as the church work of this Association—taking the products of the school, young men and women as trained in the schools, and organizing them into churches, for the churches are merely the outgrowth of the schools. The old churches of the South are not fit to be transferred into the churches of this Association. We are all the weaker for any church that might be allowed to come in in that way. The greater approach—and that which I believe the Association, so soon as it has the means, will endeavor to carry out—is in the larger training of leaders, to meet what will be within ten or twenty years the enormous demand for Christian leadership through the South. In other words, give to the millions of the colored race at the South a sufficient number of trained, educated, common-sense ministers, and they will make that people in half a century the joy and the pride of our land.
We need to do this to save the bright, strong men among the negroes from going elsewhere. A young man of good parts came to his church five years ago, and said to them, “Take my name off the church-roll; I am going into politics.” His brethren said to him, “Wait a little; you do not want your name off the church-roll if you are going into politics. But must you go there?” They showed him the more excellent way, and to-day he is one of the most effective ministers in the South. We want to lay our hands, while we can, while we have the material, on the very pride of the youth of the colored race, and secure them to the ministry. We want hundreds of men—the best men, who have the instinct of leadership about them—men who have that strong, organizing, executive force, as well as the sympathetic power, by which they can build up churches in the name of the Redeemer throughout that country.
What is the furnishing for this at present? Here are four schools: Howard commands the north-eastern section, situated at Washington; Fisk, in Tennessee; Talladega, in Alabama; and Straight in New Orleans; and nearly a hundred men from these departments are in the process of studying for the Christian ministry. We want to enlarge, and that speedily; for, as I have suggested, the ratio of increase through the educational work within ten years will be enormous. We want to enlarge greatly this productive power for the ministry; and to that end I believe, as the report has stated, we need substantial endowment for permanent work of this nature. It has been suggested in the report that we need men for more than home affairs. England, with generous look, is ready to enter into Africa and do large work there for Christ. What she wants is men. Fisk University has consecrated itself largely to the work of supplying Africa with missionaries. We want to respond to England, with her generous means, by the gift of men, sending out worthy men, by which the two nations shall go hand in hand in bringing light into the dark continent.
Meanwhile, I say as I sit down, that, with regard to this whole question touching the South, there seems to me to be two aspects of it; the one of which will give us at present only discouragement, the other giving us the largest hope and joy.
When Henry J. Raymond was editor of the New York Times, some of you may remember, after one of his stirring editorials, some one at the South sent him this laconic letter: “Henry J. Raymond. Sir: Come down South, and we will tar and feather you.” To which Mr. Raymond replied in equally laconic fashion: “Sir: I think I will wait; the inducements are not sufficient.” Capital, looking South, says, “The inducements are not yet sufficient.” Society, looking South, says, seeing the ostracism there, “I think I will wait; the inducements are not sufficient.” The North, ready to pour in its own civilization there so far as it might be accepted, has come to say to itself, “I will wait; time on this continent is on the side of the Puritan.” But the American Missionary Association, touching the conscience and the heart of many strong souls at the North, said, long ago, “I wait no longer; the inducements are sufficient.” Knowing the ostracism, knowing the persecution, knowing the difficulties, the inducements for Christian work, for education, prevailed upon that heart; and to-day we have the result of what that spirit has been that has looked the South in the face, that has taken the Freedman by the hand, that is pushing the glorious work of reformation and reconstruction; not in the name of a party, hardly in the name of the country, but in that ever-blessed name above party—even greater than country—the Crucified.