Let our Roll of Honor be studied, and let its history and memory be made known among the churches. It is abundantly worthy, and in results will repay with rich reward.
“While practicing law a number of years ago,” says Judge Tourgee, “I had a peculiar will case. An old lady who was a slaveholder, dying, bequeathed her colored man, John, and her dusky maid, Jane, who sustained to each other the relation of husband and wife, to the trustees of the church, to be used as far as possible for the ‘glory of God.’ I was curious to know what course was taken, and upon investigation found that, after meditation and prayer, the pious trustees sold their living legacy at auction, and with the proceeds sent a missionary to China.”
The New England Society of New York celebrated Forefathers’ Day December 22d. There was one feature of this anniversary of special interest to the readers of the Missionary. It was a speech by Mr. H. W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Mr. Grady is a representative Southerner of the progressive type. His theme was The New South, and he handled it in such a way as to elicit the heartiest applause and the warmest commendation from those who heard him. Of course he could not speak on such a theme without having a good deal to say about the negro. We give the following extracts:
“But what is the sum of our work? We have found out that in the general summing up the free negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hill-top and made it free to white and black.”
“The relations of the Southern people with the negro are close and cordial. We remember with what fidelity for four years he guarded our defenseless women and children, whose husbands and fathers were fighting against his freedom. To his eternal credit be it said that whenever he struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that the shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against his helpless charges and worthy to be taken in loving grasp by every man who honors loyalty and devotion.”
“But have we solved the problem he presents or progressed in honor and equity towards its solution? Let the record speak to this point. No section shows a more prosperous laboring population than the negroes of the South, none in fuller sympathy with the employing and land-owning class. He shares our school fund, has the fullest protection of our laws and the friendship of our people. Self-interest as well as honor demand that he should have this. Our future, our very existence, depend upon our working out this problem in full and exact justice. We understand that when Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, your victory was assured, for he then committed you to the cause of human liberty against which the arms of man cannot prevail, while those of our statesmen who made slavery the corner-stone of the Confederacy, doomed us to defeat, committing us to a cause that reason could not defend or the sword maintain in the light of advancing civilization.”
“We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped, and in perfect frankness accepted as final the arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. The South found her jewel in a toad’s head. The shackles that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever when the shackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the old régime the negroes were slaves to the South, the South was a slave to the system. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chivalric oligarchy the substance that should have been diffused among the people, as the rich blood is gathered at the heart, filling that with affluent rapture, but leaving the body chill and colorless.”
When Mr. Grady said, “We have planted the school house on the hill-top and made it free to white and black,” he must have had in mind the Atlanta University, for he knows all about that school. The $8,000 a year appropriated from the State justly entitles the Georgians to regard Atlanta University as a State school. But whence comes the money necessary to supplement this appropriation, to meet current expenses? Whence came the $150,000, and more, that have gone into the fine grounds, buildings and equipments? From New Englanders and children of New Englanders in the West, through the American Missionary Association. Mr. Grady must have known these facts. He knew that New England brains conceived the school, that New England money planted it, that New Englanders have always been, and are, its teachers, what sacrifices they have made, what social ostracism endured, what splendid work they have done and are doing. He knows from personal inspection the superiority of that school, and that this superiority has frequently been spoken of in the columns of the able paper of which he is the editor. He knows that the munificent funds bearing the names of Slater and Peabody were given by New Englanders. All these things, and more in the same direction, Mr. Grady knows, and yet in the presence of New Englanders and in the city where are the headquarters of the American Missionary Association, he did not make the faintest reference in recognition. It is said his speech was extemporaneous. Nevertheless was it not unfortunate that upon such an occasion he failed to give honor to whom honor is due?