And in answering that question emphatically in the negative, there is not necessarily any imputation cast upon the honest intentions of the white population of the South. But they labor under special difficulties. Trained for generations to regard the African as a servile and inferior race, it is not easy for them to rid themselves of the traditions and beliefs of centuries. In the nature of things they cannot all at once rise to the level of enthusiasm in the matter of the education and elevation of their former serfs. With their old conviction, not yet wholly changed, of the divine right of slavery, every freedman in the streets represents so much property of which they have been despoiled by governmental authority. Unfamiliar with the adjustments of labor and capital in a free State, it is hard to suit themselves to the new order of things. Even the better class in society have a secret feeling that somehow they have been wronged, and that better class is fringed with a large and lawless class who vent their bitterness in outrage and violence, and so keep alive old animosities. Under all the circumstances, simple justice on the part of the people of the South means more than large generosity on the part of the people of the North, and simple justice is far from being a universal thing. The African must demonstrate his right to manhood and civil equality before either will be allowed him, except under the compulsion of the law, and allowance of that limited and enforced nature counts for but very little. There never was a time when not righteousness alone, but the prosperity of the nation as well, demanded more earnest, persistent, well-considered endeavor for the instruction and uplifting and complete regeneration of the millions of the African race on this continent.
But men say that is the business of the government. Government has emancipated them and enfranchised them, and now it must do the rest. Yes, if it could; but it is simply impossible. It is an utter misconception of the functions of government which would lay that burden on its shoulders. You cannot legislate righteousness. You cannot compel morality and religion by reënacting the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule at each session of Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment fourteen times amended and improved would secure nothing beyond the form of civil liberty and equality. Where alien races occupy the same soil, even justice and mutual consideration can only be established by working the temper of justice and the spirit of consideration into the very fibre of the popular feeling, and that is to be done, and it only can be done through the good offices of unselfish and impartial friends, by the elevation of the lower race to the level of the higher, by the agency of wise instruction and helpful sympathy and the culture of those moral and spiritual capacities which, when in full flower in either African or Caucasian, make a man confessedly a man, and the equal of any other of any race or blood.
And no existing organization can do that work better, not to say as well, as this Association. It has the advantage of acknowledged position. It is widely and affectionately known among the people for whom it labors. In the earlier days, when the wondering Negroes asked who sent these teachers and preachers among them, they were answered, "The Congregational churches;" but the lengthy adjective choked them, and they invented a title of their own, and called them "God's people," which, if we only deserved it, I submit, would be a more pleasing appellation even here in New England than our six-syllabled denominational name, "God's people." It is a significant and suggestive phrase. It voices the unquestioning faith and affection of the needy race in those who have hitherto helped them, and while other agencies can render efficient aid in completing the unfinished task, none so well as "God's people" can carry on the good work unto perfection.
Neither are we to leave out of account the fact that this Association has the advantage of experience. Its work at first was necessarily tentative. It had no pioneers and no precedents to guide it. It was compelled to originate methods and prove them by the test of time. It is high testimony to the wisdom of the fathers that they made so few and such slight mistakes. But slight and few as they were, they will not be repeated. There is no occasion for further experiment. The work, and how best to do it, are both things which are fully known. The management of this Association understands the Southern question better than the Administration at Washington. It would be a fool's policy in either patriot or Christian to dismiss from service, or limit in efficiency by shrinkage of funds or lessening of interest, an organization with such an illustrious record, which has been so honored of God and man, and which has such capacity for manifolding its successes and pushing on the growth already reached to consummate blossom and needful and opulent fruitage. No, no, brethren, the time has not yet come to remand the Association to inaction, and neither has the time come for the American church to omit one dollar of its givings, or one utterance of its prayers, or one impulse of its enthusiasm for the right and complete and final solution of the most immediate and pressing problem with which we are set face to face.
In December, 1620, a little vessel entered Plymouth harbor, having on board the devoted company of the Pilgrims. To human judgment she seemed of small account, as she lay there, crusted with spray and weather beaten with her wrestlings with the winter sea, and of hardly greater account apparently was the handful of shivering men and women who landed on the inhospitable shore. But the coming of the Pilgrim ship and the Pilgrim company to a port for which they had not sailed was the inauguration of a new era in government, ethics, social life and religion, and whatever is best and purest in our nationality to-day, traces its lineage back to that far past and seemingly insignificant event, and our largest hope for the future depends for its realization on the further and perfect development of the possibilities of which that event was the seed and prophecy. In June, 1839, another vessel, described in the journals of that day as "a long, low, black schooner," was seen lying off the coast of Connecticut. She proved to be the "Amistad," a Spanish craft, having on board some forty slaves, who had risen and overpowered their captors. Like her predecessor of Plymouth, through the treachery of the management, she had been steered to a port for which she was not bound. As the coming of the "Mayflower" opened one era in the history of the continent, so the arrival of the "Friendship" was the beginning of another. The Spanish Government claimed the slaves as their property, and the American Government arraigned them for murder on the high seas. Generous Christian men organized themselves into a committee for the defense of these unfortunates. John Quincy Adams broke the professional silence of more than thirty years, and volunteered to plead for them before the Supreme Court of the United States. "Little did I imagine," he said at the close of his masterly argument—"little did I imagine that I should ever again be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this Court. Yet such has been the dictate of my destiny, and I appear again to plead the cause of justice, and now of liberty and life, in behalf of many of my fellow-men, before that same Court which in a former age I had addressed in support of rights of property. I stand again, I trust for the last time, before the Court." It was the last time, and the glorious ending of an illustrious legal career, for the slaves were acquitted from all charges against liberty or life. That committee was the germ of the American Missionary Association, those slaves were the nucleus of the great work of the society on African soil, the efforts of the committee in their behalf were the beginnings of the always widening and ever blessed work which the society has done and is doing in our land. The "Mayflower" and the "Friendship"—they must always be equally historic vessels. The coming of each was a prophecy and a promise. They each reached a port for which neither was bound, and both were started on an undreamed-of, limitless voyage. "Mayflower" and "Friendship"—let them forever sail on abreast in our reverence and affection, the special and yet affiliated work which each was commissioned of God to do, acknowledged and accepted, and assiduously pressed, till the continent is clean from wrong and all its inhabitants are true and just to each other, and the imperial nation stands among the people of the earth in the purple of unquestioned supremacy, while the splendor of the Divine Favor covers it with glory and honor.
We clip from a colored religious paper, published in Georgia, the following extract from one of its correspondents. The style of the writer, and also his facts, are strong arguments for education at the South. The schoolmaster is evidently abroad:
We are trying to come out of darkness down here by the little at a time. In the great upheaval publicly, and religiously too, some of our churches and people are suffering much in these parts for the great need of consistent, Christ like living preachers, and also teachers. Some or half of our churches are warring about preachers, and yet we have so many that they are really in one another's way. A licentee preacher and exhorter preacher became enraged about setting some gate posts in Lee County a few days ago; it ended in a fight in which the licentee preacher had his under lip cut completely off for life. I am sorry to say that generally you can find in our community preacher against preacher and members against members of the church. We have four churches here and no conversions hardly at all in the four churches. Last year there were not a dozen baptized out of the four, and yet some think they have as good preaching as any community has. The trouble seems to be this that new wine cannot be retained in old bottles any longer.
The Mount Zion Church is trying to organize a preacher night school with some success.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
The above sex has suffered much in our community in the last three months and are not out of it yet, suffering at the expense of ignorance and intemperance, saying nothing about the kind of the men that one sees going heedlessly into the vortex. We saw a horrible death of a drunkard a few days ago right at our doors, leaving a smart young wife and six little children to mourn and grope their lives through an unfriendly world. Such we think ought to solemnly warn the people against living the life of intemperance though it seems at times that some one has not heeded at any manner of intemperance.