4th. And lastly, we are devoutly thankful that the Holy Spirit has been so manifestly present in the labors of the year, and that revivals of religion have given evidence of God’s favor on the work, and promise of men and women for the great missionary work lying before the American Freedmen.
Your Committee feel constrained to urge the importance of the following measure:
1st. This Association should concentrate its efforts upon its work in the States, among the negro, the Indian and the Chinese, as offering its distinctive missionary field.
2d. The friends of the Association should redouble their efforts to put its schools upon a permanent endowed basis, and thoroughly equip them for giving a high Christian education to the Freedmen.
3d. In view of the vast educational structure to be built from the very foundations, the pressing importance of immediate education for millions of illiterate children, the poverty of the South, and the insufficiency of benevolent contributions from the North, the National Government should be urged to immediately inaugurate some additional and more adequate system of national aid.
C. T. Collins, Chairman.
ADDRESS OF REV. C. T. COLLINS.
On the staircase of the Berlin Museum, the great artist Kaulbach has represented the intensity of the battle of the Huns by picturing the spirits of the dead warriors rising up in a cloud above that battle-field and prolonging the contest in a spiritual war. It seems to me a type of all great moral strifes. After the roar of the cannon has died away, and the dead have been laid in their graves, the spirits and the principles involved in the battle grapple with one another for victory.