Various

“ The American Missionary Association, then, is giving to the colored race its best and only permanent protection. It helps the black man to develop his inward power, so that his defence shall be in himself. And its work is the nation’s safeguard, for by promoting intelligence, integrity and moral power throughout the South, it increases the elements that alone make a Republic safe. Every motive of philanthropy and patriotism urges us to push forward its work more earnestly. ”

“ Developed intellectual power, the higher education, success in industrial pursuits, the acquirement of wealth and culture and character, will cause them to disappear as the sun does the heavy, chilly, obscuring mists which night generates in the valleys. ”

“ But no one who knows the negro race in America can doubt, that with time on their side, and patience and justice toward them on the part of others, they will rise to the full measure of their opportunities, and, with their capacity for work, their docility, their kindliness, their adaptivity, their mirthfulness, their religious faith, will form as good a part as any in the social system of the future. Time, patience, justice, will cause the friction of races to disappear in the working of the American system of harmonized humanity. ”

“ There has been nothing finer done in the way of immediately urgent but far-reaching influence, by the Christian women of America, either before or since. Every one rejoices in the helpfulness of the Woman’s Boards, creating and fostering as they do a mighty interest on behalf of their benighted sisters in heathen lands, and we will not believe the Christian women in our American churches incapable of again inaugurating some similar work, equally worthy of them, toward meeting the inexpressibly urgent moral necessities of their sadly darkened and depressed sisters nearer home. ”

“ But harder still it is to have the burden of care for 1,200 savages, bowed down by superstition and sin, through whom the rough ploughshare of the most degraded and vile white civilization has been driven for the last fifty years. With the prejudice of Indians against all agents to overcome, the strife arising from the desire to make money, in conflict with the desire to promote the highest and best welfare of the Indian, in our very midst, the underground whiskey traffic, with the vilest of all whites to encounter—these were barriers requiring time and pluck to overcome. ”

“ The black race should be taught that they are to depend upon themselves. Having freedom, schools, the rights of citizens guaranteed by law, and the inducement to self-culture presented by opportunities of political action, they should be made to feel that their future is in their own hands; that, if they would rise to a position of respect and of responsibility as men, they must show themselves to be men. There is no other way for any race. ”

“ The great mistake most people make, in regard to the education of the negro, is that too much is expected in a short time. Education in its broad sense is by no means confined to the study of text-books, however well these may be learned. It takes a generation to correct evil tendencies and predilections, and the fruits of a systematic course of instruction do not appear at once. It takes time to do this; and not only is this true of the negro race, but of all other races as well. ”

“ There is no portion of the whole which those who work through us are willing to have dropped. Among the Indians, what little we have done we must continue to do, until some Providence as plain as that which gave it to our hands shall discharge us from the duty. We cannot withdraw our help from the churches on the Pacific Coast, in their endeavors to lead the Chinaman through the knowledge of the English language to the God of the English-speaking people. We cannot close the Normal school, for the intelligent Christian teacher is yet the greatest want of the Southern Freedmen. ”

“ So when the colored man shows by his deeds that he is able to do all that a white man can do, he will hold his footing of equality secure. The race is to be tested by results.
The political safety and social elevation of the negro race depend on the resolution, patience and enterprise with which it takes up this work of self-development. And the only way the friends of the black man can permanently protect him, is to help him gain this inward power. ”

“ The only permanent safety for the blacks is in their intellectual and religious education. A weak race, helpless in its ignorance and corrupted by immorality, will always be kept down. The ambitious and intense desires of those who are wiser and stronger will take advantage of its weakness, and will crowd it to the wall. No legislation can prevent the working of this natural law in the struggle for prosperity. But a strong race, with vigorous, well-disciplined minds, balanced with virtue, will always hold its own in the world. ”

“ As “there is no royal road to learning” to suit dullards of kingly birth, so no peculiar and accommodating pathway to wealth and power, to civilization and culture, opens before those of African descent. Their own expectations, and the efforts of those who would assist them, must be based simply on their manhood. It is only as this shall be developed and brought to bear upon life’s duties and opportunities, that progress can be made in outward condition and in the estimation of mankind. There are no sudden results to be secured by artificial means. ”

“ Race conflicts and class feuds are likely to arise, and sectional hatreds are ready to break out again, with new danger to the whole country.
How can the nation protect itself against such dangers? Only by this method of self-development. The South must become homogeneous in itself, and harmonious [21] with the North by the spread of intelligence and right principles. Education and a reasonable religion will bring all up to a higher level, break down walls of difference, give broader and better ideas. ”

“ To the young men who desire to preach Christ Jesus and Him crucified to their own people, we cannot deny the instruction in the word of God and in the truths of religion which they ask of us. All these, which are distinctively departments of Christian effort, must be kept up, and, especially, this work among the negro youth of the great South.
What we should be glad to make the great and characteristic work of the new year, is the Southern church work. ”

“ The wisdom of our statesmen has been taxed to the utmost to avert calamities continually impending. But although time, and the steady purpose of the North to have equal rights for all recognized and enforced everywhere, and the new policy of pacification, have done much to change the perilous condition of things, and bring quiet, the danger is by no means gone. ”

“ Neither special legislation, nor military protection, nor favor extended by those in power, nor the peculiar regard and effort of philanthropists, will, of themselves, avail to procure the abolition of caste-feeling, and the elevation of the colored people to an entire equality with the whites. The effects of ages of slavery are not to be removed in a day, by a mere legislative vote. ”

“ To those engaged in the work, every week gives fresh proof of the power of the simple truths of the Bible to reach the heart, and elevate and purify the life. They say, ‘I hear about God’s love for us all—how Jesus came to die to save us—that is something new. Then when I hear He with us all the time, ready to hear and help us, I think it much better to pray to Him than to idols ”

“ The only certain corrective for this evil is general and special education, which shall raise the average intelligence of the masses, so as to make them more capable and independent in their judgments of men and measures, and which shall also provide appropriate leaders, worthy of their confidence, from among themselves. These leaders must be such as naturally come to the front in organized and cultivated society—the men in all professions and pursuits who to native talent add superior education. ”

“ Pond will not need to be reminded that more than a hundred in our schools alone are now giving convincing evidence that they are Christian men, and that not simply in name, but in deed and in truth; and that a large number have united to establish and maintain a Christian home for the expressed purpose of adopting Christian manners and habits of life. We are regretfully compelled to doubt the familiarity of California Senators with the progress of Christian missions in their own State. ”

“ Meanwhile, the question of emigration is being, of necessity, investigated. Among intelligent colored men, some press their right to the country in which they have been born, and for which they have shed their blood; others suggest that the wealthy inhabitants of the rich Republic of Liberia send over vessels to transport them there, so proving their ability; others, less wise and prudent, have sold out everything and gone to Charleston, expecting to find speedy transportation, and have returned chagrined and disappointed. ”

“ I think it may be a matter of interest to you and the readers of the Missionary to know that, last winter, an organization was formed here called the State Teachers’ Institute. Its object is the promotion of education, and especially that of the colored people in Tennessee and adjoining territory. It embraces in its membership all those engaged in the work of colored education who may choose to join it. It unites all the forces so engaged in a general educational effort for lifting up the common schools, by improving those who teach them. ”

“ A lady in one of the Western States, who has been for years known as an indefatigable worker for Christian missions, has had the elevation and salvation of the colored women of our country on her heart and mind for years. She has made herself thoroughly acquainted with the fact that if anything is done, it must be in addition to what the ordinary receipts of the American Missionary Association would warrant. ”

“ The prejudices of the whites, descending through generations, imbibed by individuals in infancy, and strengthened by universal sentiment, practice, and association of ideas, cannot be easily and soon overcome, and are not, so far as feeling is concerned, wholly within the power of volition, so as to be annihilated at will. They will vanish gradually in the presence of increasing evidence of a noble manhood. ”

“ Geikie’s ‘Life and Words of Christ’ cannot fail to win the approval and admiration of an intelligent Christian public. The more widely it shall circulate, the more it will be regarded as a most valuable addition to a branch of sacred literature which ought in every age to absorb the best fruits of sacred scholarship, and to command the highest gifts of human genius. ”

“ Let no one think that money thus given does not tell upon the work. It does tell: not this year alone, but every year it puts money in our purse to be expended in the directest furtherance of our mission to carry the Gospel of light and love to the poor and neglected races. ”

“ God braces the oak against the storms, not by outward props, but by growth of inward strength. He gives a man successful life, not by providing a nurse to carry and feed him half a century, but by teaching him the art of self-development, which makes him capable and masterly. ”

“ TO CHRISTIAN FAMILIES.
I respectfully invite the patronage of families for the New York Weekly Witness, a paper specially adapted to interest them. It has a very full synopsis of the news of the week, with the daily comments thereon of the leading New York Dailies. It has also very full and reliable market and financial reports, got up for it with great care. It has many columns of family reading of the most interesting character; and a Home Department, containing three columns of letters from its lady readers, and one column of letters from the children. ”

“ WOMAN’S WORK FOR WOMAN.
Specific missionary work by devoted women, among the colored women and girls in the South, is one of the many interesting departments of our enterprise. “Woman’s work for woman” has not been neglected, although it has not been made prominent before the public by the Association. It is enough to say that more than three-fourths of our missionaries have been women, and the majority of our church members and pupils, females, to make it evident that much work of this kind must have been done ”

“ No one is obliged to argue in its behalf. It speaks for itself. Having intrinsic value and the added stamp of the national mint, it represents so many grains of precious metal and their equivalent in whatever money will buy. ”

“ We sustain two prayer meetings every week, at the church Wednesday evening, and from house to house Monday evening; and I have begun a young people’s meeting Sunday evening half an hour before regular service, which opens with good promise. The Lord has given us one soul as a pledge of His readiness to bless. A bright, promising young girl has been seeking Christ for a long [13] time, but has been hindered by the general superstitious notion that she must have a vision or tangible evidence of God having heard her prayers. ”

“ The conditions of admission to citizenship are that the Indian shall belong to some organized tribe or nation having treaty relations with the United States, and that he shall appear in a United States Circuit or District Court and make proof to its satisfaction that he is sufficiently intelligent and prudent to control his own affairs and interests, that he has adopted the habits of civilized life, and has for the last five years been able to support himself and family, and that he shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ The United States Government has issued a report of the condition of Liberia, showing the dangers of the sea shore climate to the health of immigrants; that Liberia [8] has never produced sufficient food for her own consumption, and that provisions are very high; that while the interior is fine and healthy, it is almost inaccessible, and thoroughly inhospitable from the jealousy of the petty kings. ”