Among the many favorable impressions made by this book are those that relate to Livingstone’s superb faith. This was quite discoverable in his early life. Talking with his father—“They agreed that the time would come when rich men and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries instead of spending their money on hounds and horses.” When he became great and moderately rich, he illustrated his own faith by his gifts for missions, and his devotion to the success of the laborers who went forth at his instance. All this flowed naturally from his life-long purpose. “I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of Christ.”
Upon this followed his exquisite trust for Divine protection. “If God has accepted my service, then my life is charmed till my work is done.” But his faith and works were rounded out by all that was needful to make them complete. “It was in front and not in the rear that he expected to find the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire,” and it was unto the Lord of Hosts he looked for victory, and unto Him his prayer ascended unceasingly: “O, Almighty God, help and leave not this wicked people to the slave-dealer and Satan!”
He not only kept at work answering his own prayer, but was given to see, as he thought, how all things were working together for the wished-for consummation. “Viewed in relation to my calling,” he says, “the end of the geographical feat is only the beginning of the enterprise. We are all engaged in very much the same cause—geographers, astronomers and mechanicians laboring to make men better acquainted with each other—promoters of Niger expeditions, soldiers fighting for right against oppression, and sailors rescuing captives in deadly climes, as well as missionaries, are all aiding in hastening on a glorious consummation to all God’s dealings with our race. In the hope that I may yet be honored to do some good to this poor long down-trodden Africa, the gentlemen over whom you have the honor to preside, will, I believe, cordially join.”
That the millions who are interested in the negro race may “cordially join” in the endeavors promoted by this man for “poor down-trodden Africa,” is our most earnest wish, and, with this in view, we heartily welcome and commend Dr. Blaikie’s book.
WHAT THE SOUTHERNERS ARE BEGINNING TO THINK.
The following extracts taken from an editorial which appeared in the Memphis Daily Appeal, March 18th, contain so much true appreciation of what ought to be done for the Negro under the circumstances, that we are glad to give them a place in our columns. We believe they indicate that the South is on the eve of a great revolution of sentiment respecting the importance of popular education, and that if the friends of the A. M. A. will assist us in pushing forward with our present and proposed work, the time will come speedily when the recognition of the vital importance of our principles and institutions will be well nigh universal.
After commenting upon an article which appeared in the North American Review from the pen of Chief Justice Chalmers, quoting from him the assertion that the negroes’ “right to vote as a race is as fixed and irreversible as their freedom,” and that “the ballot box must speak the unbiased verdict of all lawful electors,” the editor says: “No sane man doubts it; there is but one thing left for the people of the South to do, and that is to throw themselves into the work of educating the negro, of lifting him out of the deplorable condition of brutality which slavery left him in, and elevating him to a plane where he can not only stand alone and see for himself, but where he can not be reached by the arts of demagogues, of which, unfortunately for the country, there are too many in all parties. In this work, a man of culture, like Judge Chalmers, can do a great deal. He can by personal example induce the leading men of his State to come to the front as eager defenders of a thorough system of public education. They have, as most of those of the other Southern States have done, too long stood aloof and allowed the stranger to do for the negro what they should have done themselves as willing workers, instead of making mouths at a fate which after fifteen years of effort they find is superior to anything they can put forward against it.
“Thirteen years ago the Jackson Clarion warned the people of Mississippi, as the leading papers of the South everywhere did, that ‘there was but one way out of the wilderness, and that was as plain as the road to market. It was to recognize the rights the Federal Government had bestowed upon the negro; to treat him kindly, and to point him the way he should go.’ This plan was not generally pursued. But it is never too late to mend. We can begin now the work that should have been done in 1867. We can rescue the negro from the ignorance that threatens him and us by establishing good public schools—not grudgingly, as if we were conferring an unwilling charity—but in a broad, cheerful, earnest and good neighborly spirit, as if we were performing a duty—a paramount and most important duty. Under God this is the only remedy for negro suffrage. It is a waste of time to talk of abridging it. Revolutions never go backward. The best answer to that sort of talk is that the United States never were so strong or so prosperous as they are at this moment, when public sentiment is in all the States demanding the most absolute assertion of democratic life and living. Instead of looking back, we must look forward; nay, we must go forward, and we must take the negro by the hand and make him feel that he is a part of the great column of the people; that his destiny is interlaced with ours; that we must not stand apart, isolated and at enmity, but go forward, each doing what he can to strengthen the community at all points, moral and physical, to uphold and defend our democratic form of government and perpetuate unsullied the liberties which have survived the chaos of civil war and reconstruction.”