May we not take this bright history as a harbinger of good—as a spur to more and more activity to the pupils’ foster-mother, the American Missionary Association—as a call to individual duty on the part of us who make up its membership—yea, as in some degree an offset to the grievous evils that afflict our land? Ah, may we not, resolving to be better and do better ourselves, look steadily forward, and, like your own poet, say:
“I have not seen, and may not see,
My hopes for man take form in fact;
But God will give the victory
In due time; in that faith I act”?
—Gen. O. O. Howard.
Elevation of the Degraded.—When I received an invitation to speak at this meeting, I had arranged my business engagements for the week, and I sent word back that I could not come; but I was asked to reconsider it, and so I have canceled two of my engagements for the purpose of being here, not that I am to interest you with a speech, but to show my earnest love for the great movement carried on by this society.
When a man steps out from his own specialty, he generally makes a failure of it; and I don’t know but I shall make a failure in attempting to speak to you on this theme to-night.
But this meeting and all these meetings are a grand contradiction to the infidel utterance, that those who love God the best love their fellow-men the least. We give such a sentence as that the flat contradiction as an abominable and outrageous falsehood. What is it that prompts men to endeavor to ameliorate the condition of their fellow-men? There is no benevolence worth anything that does not come from the New Testament Christianity. Love for Christ, it is that which induces us to bring those who are straying away into the fold. And this is the idea of this society, if I understand it.
Now you know as well as I do that a reformed drunkard can operate upon a drunkard better than a man who never was an intemperate man; and a converted thief will do more good among thieves than a man who has always been honest; and one who has been converted from the lowest grade of sin can go down into the very depths to lift up those who are as debased as he or she was.
With regard to educating the colored people, I have heard people say: “O, there is no use trying to educate them.” I have heard the remark that they are “a stupid lot.” No, they are not! If you know anything about them, you know they are not stupid. They will say wonderful things. I grant you a good many of them are ignorant; but I tell you, although they may be ignorant, utterly ignorant, yet you will hear brighter, smarter things from them than you will hear from the ignorant in the North, as a general thing. Why, what do you think of the negro who, when asked why he didn’t fight in the time of the war, said, “Because I don’t want to fight.” “Well, but they are fighting for the negro.” “I know they are; but did you ever see two dogs fighting for a bone?” “Yes.” “Well, did you ever see the bone fight?”
There is something, I say, in the education of the colored man—though why they call him “colored,” I don’t know. A man was once asked if he was colored; he said no, he was “born so”—something to build on in themselves. And then there is their desire for education. We here in the North can hardly conceive the earnest desire of those people to learn. When Straight University was burned, I received a letter asking me for some books; and I had the privilege of sending some two or three hundred volumes to them. I was told in the letter that on the very morning after the fire the scholars assembled, and, standing among the ruins, they sang, “Hold the Fort,” and then formed themselves into classes all around about the ruins that they might not lose their lessons.