CHAPTER 19.
Benefits Wrought by Hardships.
The word “Offence” is a general and somewhat indefinite term. As defined by the various dictionaries, it means an attack, an assault, aggression, injustice, oppression, transgression of a law, misdemeanor, trespass, crime and persecution. In all of these definitions there is implied an act considered as disagreeable if not harmful to the recipient.
Of the various nations of the earth, those that are most powerful and that have accomplished most good are those which have endured and have survived the most offences. They have grown by reason of the obstacles which they have overcome. It is singular, yet it is true, that offences have never destroyed a nation. Those nations which have been destroyed have been destroyed not by attack from without, but by their own internal weakness.
Societies that are accomplishing the most good for the uplift of humanity today are those against whom the most offences have been committed. Take the Christian Church, the greatest of all societies. Who can enumerate the offences which have been committed against the church? Herod tried to behead it, but could not; Pilate tried to crucify it, but instead sanctified it; Paul persecuted it and it redeemed him; poor drunken and debauched Nero poured forth the fury of his wrath against it in every conceivable, wicked way. He deliberately set fire to the city of Rome and accused the Christians of the deed. He gave feasts in his garden and the bodies of the Christians were burned as torches in the evenings. Their groans and agonies constituted the music for their dance and carousal. Other Christians were fed to half-starved lions. But through it all the church has become more powerful and more glorious than before; while Nero’s name will forever be a stench to the nations of the earth. In this particular case the prophecy of Christ “That offences must need be but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh” is fulfilled. As with the church, so with all other societies and institutions that are doing good in the community, they endure their offences.
The history of the growth and rise of the various races will show that they, too, have had their bitter as well as their sweet. In fact, they have fought for every inch of territory which they now possess.
Let us consider some of the benefits which have been derived from our hardships. That the enslavement of my people was a serious offence there is no doubt. I should be the last one to apologize for slavery; but, after all, we brought more out of slavery than we carried into it. We went into it heathens, with no language, and no God; we came out American citizens, speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue, and serving the God of all the earth.
Under the leadership of old Richard Allen and other noted colored divines, the Negro church was set up under a bush harbor, but today they own church property in this country valued at more than $26,000,000. As a result of the educational offences committed against the Negro, today he has 35,000 Negro teachers and more than seventeen million dollars’ worth of school property in this country. The Negro has been disfranchised, but he is more capable of the ballot today than ever before. Though the disfranchisement of the Negro has wrought great harm to our Democratic form of government, it has increased in the Negro the spirit of patience, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and, in fact, it has enhanced in him all of those virtues which make for true manhood and womanhood.