The problem set for our solution by Almighty God is just this—as stated in this missionary view of it: How, being free, two races as dissimilar as are the white and black races, now equal before the law, can live side by side under the same government and live in prosperity and peace. This problem must be solved, and it must be solved aright. And we may be sure that the ultimate solution of blessing for both races does not, and can not, lie in any retrograde movement toward the old darkness and bondage, but forward in the direction of the larger light and truer liberty of Christ. If the colored race, as a race, seems to have reached a point when "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," its hope and ours lie not in a return to ignorance and degradation, but in pressing on to that larger knowledge and truer wisdom, the beginning of which is the fear of God, and the fullness of which is a hearty recognition and cordial acceptance and discharge of the obligations and trusts of a Christian manhood and Christian citizenship. The condition of the colored race, indeed, is but a necessary stage in its upward and onward march. It is no other than we have always had reason to expect would be reached. That the mile-stone of to-day marks so great progress is cause for profound gratitude. The new features of the situation and the fresh difficulties are those, and those only, which are incident to progress.
There is but one solution for the Southern problem, and that is the solution for which this Association has labored from the beginning, and which this paper urges. Christianity in its highest forms, an intelligent Christian manhood, is that solution. It is an impressive thought that it is the mission of this Association, more than all other institutions and agencies, to develop that Christian sentiment among the colored people, and indirectly among the whites, which shall create a balance of power which shall save the races and the nation from that conflict which without it seems inevitable. This fact is a trumpet call to us to press the work of the Association in its schools and colleges and churches with renewed vigor and devotion.
And we would especially emphasize the necessity of preserving the unity of the educational and religious work of the Association to this end. Every teacher must be a missionary as truly as every preacher. And this unity of purpose and effort must be felt. Church and school, as in the past, must continue to stand together in the minds and labors of the people that there may be no exaltation of education at the expense of religion. In the dark days of slavery, it was faith in God that sustained the Negro, that inspired his songs, and that made him strong to endure and patient to wait. And it was by the power of God that he was at last set free. Never did the colored man need that faith in God, and in an overruling and guiding Providence, more than now, when the goal of liberty and equality is so nearly attained, and yet strangely delayed. Nobly do the leaders of the race realize that faith, and seek to lead their brethren into it.
It belongs to this Association, by all the agencies at its command, to teach this people to be patient and to wait upon the Lord, to endure hardship, to leave vengeance with the Lord, and, accepting the responsibilities of liberty and citizenship, to gird themselves to meet them in the spirit and in the strength of a grand Christian manhood. This the history of this people warrants us in expecting from them. To this manhood, struggle and work we welcome them, and in it we pledge them our Christian support.
Let this be the temper of those who hold the balance of power between the races in the South, and in no long time the slumbering conscience of the Southern white will respond. The noble utterances of the Southerners, who already demand that the Golden Rule shall be applied to the race problem, prove that it is already waking to life and power. It will be felt then that it cannot be safe to sin against God, to despise even the least of his children; that it must be safe to follow in the way where he leads, to do his bidding, and to give equal rights to all, and to treat all men as brethren. And thus the missionary view prevailing, and the missionary solution accepted, the perils and conflicts of to-day will disappear as the storm-cloud passes, and the difficulties of race relations now anticipated will adjust themselves in God's way, and in God's time—the way of Christian manhood and brotherhood, of righteousness and of peace.