Meanwhile, the husband lived a Christian life before her, and she herself was willing to receive instruction from Mrs. Carrington and others. It is not improbable that she saw the difference between a home even half Christian, like her own, and those where heathen customs made of a husband less a protector than a lord. Doubtless she thought much in silence before coming to the decision which changed the current of her life. It is singular that the crisis came in consequence of her observing at a marriage of Chinese persons making no profession of Christian faith, the absence of the rites which had been, in her view, the only safeguards against evil. This brought her to decision. With her own hands she removed the shrine she had erected, and then declared her purpose to worship her husband's God. Those who know her—both Chinese and Americans—see in her the tokens of a real and radical change; and it was with great joy that I heard, some weeks ago, that she had been baptized and welcomed to the Congregational Church in Sacramento, to which her husband has belonged these many years.
WM. C. POND.
The Future Of The Negro In Our Country.
Address at the Annual Meeting in Chicago,
By The Rev. C.H. Richards, D.D.
Deeper than the question, what shall we do with the Negro, lies the more fundamental question: What does God mean to do with the Negro in our country? Many a so-called solution of the "race problem" has been a foredoomed failure, because it ran counter to the Providential plan. Some have hoped that time would settle the burning question; if people would only stop talking about it, especially meddlesome people far away from the real pinch of the trouble, they fancy that somehow the mere flight of years would adjust differences and secure to all their rights. Others think the short way to peace is by force, keeping the Negro down with a strong hand, and keeping the Anglo Saxon on top by any vigorous means that may be needed. Others, again, think there never can be any solution of the problem so long as the two races occupy the same territory, and they propose some mammoth scheme of colonization to take the blacks away to some quarter of the world where they can be by themselves. But these and other remedies are utterly futile, because they are in collision with God's plan, as indicated by certain manifest facts. Meantime, while men are so busy trying to get around the difficulty instead of solving it in a straightforward way, the problem gets a little bigger every year. The caste question agitates our great religious assemblies. The spoliation of the civil rights of the Negro is one of the most menacing features in our politics. Bitter race prejudices keep Southern cities in a ferment, and even break out in dreadful massacres. This race problem will continue to be one of the most momentous and disturbing questions in American public life, until somehow we learn how to get into line with Providence, and find some solution that harmonizes with the great movements that have the hand of God in them.
It is time to ask then, with searching inquiry, What is the divine plan with regard to the Negro here, or, in other words, What is to be the future of the Negro in America? In certain significant facts and tendencies of his past and present, we may see the finger of Providence pointing on to that future. Let us look at some of these facts and their bearings.