4. Last, but not least. The battle against caste must be fought, and the victory won, in America. As the last battle against slavery was fought and won here for the world, so we must fight the battle of caste here for India as well as for America. Fifty years ago very wise and good brethren said: “You Abolitionists are right theoretically, slavery is wrong and ought to be abolished immediately; but practically you are a set of visionaries. Slavery is a local institution, and if you wish to push your denominational interests in the South, you must establish your churches there and let the question of slavery alone.” We have lived long enough to hear these brethren confess their mistake. There are wise and good brethren now that say: “Theoretically, caste is all wrong, but it exists and can’t be overthrown, and if you wish to press your denominational work in the South, you must ignore that question and plant your churches on the color line.” Somebody will live to hear those who take this position confessing their mistake. The American Missionary Association stands now on the caste question just where it once stood in regard to slavery. It will neither dodge nor compromise, and will plant schools and churches in the South, if at all, openly and avowedly disregarding class distinctions. It makes no effort to bring the races together, yet any man, woman or child, otherwise qualified, will be welcomed to its schools and churches, even if God has made him black. In waging this warfare in America, it is doing a Christian missionary work against caste in heathen nations of the old world.
SCHOOL ECHOES.
Question.—“When and how long did Solomon reign?”
Answer.—“10,000 years before Christ. He rained forty days and forty nights.”
Question.—“Susy, can you tell me what I read to you about yesterday?”
Answer.—“Christ and the twelve opossums.”
In Mississippi, one of our teachers taught her class faithfully the golden text, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” The next Sunday, only one girl could remember it, and she recited it thus: “Moses, Moses, take off them shoes.”
The colored preachers of the old time, in selecting their illustrations from Bible characters, are wont to give them a strongly imaginative turn; as for instance when one, in a long story of Abraham’s trial in offering up Isaac, represented him as “going along, holding on and not making any fuss during the journey by day, but at night when Isaac was not by, as praying and crying all night.”