Of late there has been an effort made to revive the spirit of patriotism among us by organizations and by recalling war incidents. But we need a re-laying or re-enforcing of first principles. American patriotism must be a Christian patriotism.
And while on this theme, we can hardly help referring to the false patriotism prevailing in a portion of our country where the colored people are still so generally proscribed. Were they not the loyal ones in the civil war? And yet they have few rights. This is their native land, yet they are denied suffrage. They are manfully trying for an education, but little encouragement do they get from those around them.
Among the truest patriots to-day in our land are those teachers and preachers who have gone among this race to help elevate them, but they are still, as for these two decades past, ostracised by the whites, some of whom are altogether their inferiors, and who, if they themselves are to be elevated, it must, it would seem, be accomplished largely through the elevation of these colored citizens, by these same despised Northern teachers!
No! A true American patriotism must not ignore these six millions for whose condition the whole people are, and have been, responsible. And if the Government cannot be induced in some form to give federal aid towards educating those needy millions, then surely the true patriot of to-day, whether North or South, will individually contribute to support such organizations as the American Missionary Association, whose object it is to help the poor and oppressed now among us, whether they be the freedmen, the Indians or the Chinese.
FROM A SERMON BY REV. E. N. ANDREWS, HARTFORD, WIS.
FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.