Various

“ To make an iron steamer in England, transport it in pieces across the ocean, have it carried, piece by piece, on men's shoulders, through jungle and forest, into the very heart of the Dark Continent, have it set up and launched upon the great lake whose waters and shores and inhabitants the story of Stanley and Livingstone has made of such thrilling interest to the Christian world, is surely an achievement that challenges our admiration. ”

“ An organization rooted in such prolific soil, and cultured with such husbandry, and so full of vital sap, that in less than forty years its growths branch so widely that millions refresh themselves in their shade, whose vigor is so forth-putting that it has flowered into colleges and universities and institutes whose names and fame are known wherever English speech has gone; that organization has passed out of and beyond the realm of criticism as to its value, and needs no runners to advertise it to the people among whom it is planted. ”

“ Even the better class in society have a secret feeling that somehow they have been wronged, and that better class is fringed with a large and lawless class who vent their bitterness in outrage and violence, and so keep alive old animosities. Under all the circumstances, simple justice on the part of the people of the South means more than large generosity on the part of the people of the North, and simple justice is far from being a universal thing. ”

“ Seeing that the heading is an appeal to American citizens, to their love of country and liberty, I feel that my countrymen and myself are honored in being thus appealed to as citizens in the cause of liberty. But the word liberty makes me think of the fact that this country is the land of liberty for men of all nations except the Chinese. I consider it as an insult to us Chinese to call on us to contribute toward building in this land a pedestal for a statue of Liberty. ”

“ The "boy" to whom he gave two trades, although by no means rich, is in better circumstances than any of the sons whose education was paid for by the sweat of dusky brows mingled with countless tears and bitter heart-burnings.
That humorous philosopher, Josh Billings, says, "You never saw a self-made man but what was mighty proud of his job." If any self-made man has a right to be proud, it is he who, having been held as a chattel, has compelled all who know him to admit that he possesses honesty, good sense, moral courage and everything that goes to make up a true man. ”

“ It was one thing for the old States of the North to gradually develop their systems of popular instruction, through a century in which they, with all their imperfections, led the world in the general intelligence of their people. It was a much easier problem for the new West, out of munificent public endowments of land and a constant stream of private beneficence from the East, with a flood of the most vigorous young people setting in from the whole world, to establish, in one generation, the splendid arrangements for schooling the masses of which they are so justly proud. ”

“ The native Southern stock of white people is good. The colored people show by the advancement made that they "are in nowise a discouraging material for the schoolmaster." Southern young women, daughters of the best families, are becoming school teachers. He sees in these facts omens of good.
But he feels that the problem is too great for the South to solve alone. The North must help, and now more than ever is the time. He says:
I have no words to waste on any man or party holding off in this emergency, on the pitiful plea that the Southern people should be left to do this work alone. ”

“ If there be a Chinaman who came to this country when a lad, who has passed through an American institution of learning of the highest grade, who has so fallen in love with American manners and ideas that he desires to make his home in this land, and who, seeing that his countrymen demand one of their own number to be their legal adviser, representative, advocate and protector, desires to study law, can he be a lawyer? ”

“ The work, and how best to do it, are both things which are fully known. The management of this Association understands the Southern question better than the Administration at Washington. It would be a fool's policy in either patriot or Christian to dismiss from service, or limit in efficiency by shrinkage of funds or lessening of interest, an organization with such an illustrious record, which has been so honored of God and man, and which has such capacity for manifolding its successes and pushing on the growth already reached to consummate blossom and needful and opulent fruitage. ”

“ The African must demonstrate his right to manhood and civil equality before either will be allowed him, except under the compulsion of the law, and allowance of that limited and enforced nature counts for but very little. There never was a time when not righteousness alone, but the prosperity of the nation as well, demanded more earnest, persistent, well-considered endeavor for the instruction and uplifting and complete regeneration of the millions of the African race on this continent. ”

“ Speaking in the Literary Society on the relative merits of trades and the learned professions, he said, "Everybody ought to work with his hands that can't work with his head. Now, some try to work with their heads when they'd be doing a good deal better for themselves and everybody else if they'd just go to work with their hands. Now, I couldn't make a living by headwork if I wanted to. I don't know how it would have been if I'd had a chance for an education when I was young. I never went to school a day in my life except Sunday-school. ”

“ White men say in the press, Neither race wants them, and the very mail that brings Mr. Cable the printed statement of white men brings him scores of letters from intelligent colored men, thanking him over and over again for the words he had written and the stand he had taken! The old habit of white men thinking for the slave, and planning for the slave and speaking for the slave has not yet been broken off. ”

“ A panoramic view of it would show us the dingy hovels where men herded like beasts, forms and depths of degradation that shame a Christian land, scenes of outrage and terror, examples of wonderful courage and self-sacrifice, and show us also sudden and almost incredible transformations, the swift transition from mere animalism to manhood and womanhood; the rise among the most unlikely surroundings of well-equipped industrial and educational institutions ”

“ I never read the Bible a minute in my life. I never went to church in my life. Oh, pray for me that my soul may not be lost." I sat down on the side of his bed and told him of man's fall, of God's loving kindness, of our redemption through Christ, and that whosoever believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and that whosoever will may come. ”

“ Numerals are for the most part bloodless and powerless to arouse emotion and carry conviction, and the table of statistics that lumbers the page of the Annual Report, to any but the accustomed eye, is like old chaos, "without form and void, and darkness on the face of the deep," and so while incidents and items and sum totals are at our disposal in abundance, it is a matter of congratulation that we need to make only scant use of them to-day. ”

“ If it were a thing essential, the limitations of the occasion would require that it be given either in the form of incidents or statistics, or both. There would be no poverty of material. Perhaps no other of the Christian crusades of the century could furnish so many occurrences which are a mixture of the tragic, the dramatic and the pathetic. The condition of the people among whom the work has been done, the methods of the work and the character of the workers have made the history of the enterprise anything but a common-place story. ”

“ Great publishing societies emasculated the tracts which they issued for the purpose of saving the souls of men, and tore out of them all reference to the iniquity which was destroying both soul and body. Foremost organizations that clamored for laborers and money to preach the glad tidings of deliverance to the swarthy dwellers on the banks of the Ganges, could not see as far as the banks of the Mississippi. Only one Christian organization in the broad land—this Association, dared to say, Slavery is an accursed thing. ”

“ It would be wildly unreasonable to expect that all who attend the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the American Board at Boston should also come to the Thirty-ninth Anniversary of the American Missionary Association at Madison. It is not unreasonable, however, for us to ask that all will come who can. There are two weeks between the meetings. It will cost in time and money, but the good to be reaped and wrought far surpasses the cost. The Jubilee Anniversary of the dear old Mother of us all cannot fail to be a meeting of great spiritual power. ”

“ With their old conviction, not yet wholly changed, of the divine right of slavery, every freedman in the streets represents so much property of which they have been despoiled by governmental authority. Unfamiliar with the adjustments of labor and capital in a free State, it is hard to suit themselves to the new order of things. ”

“ The vigor and amount of the demands made upon the Christian Church necessitate a balancing and weighing of the comparative importance of claims that are so persistently and so enthusiastically pressed, with the acknowledgment and answer of those which are evidently broad and just and the refusal of those which are petty and professional. And the final consequence is, that any cause, however good, is at a disadvantage, especially if it has outworn its novelty. ”

“ It certainly is not a misfortune that this Association is forced to measure itself with other benevolent enterprises in making its appeal for sympathy and support. It can afford to do so, for it risks nothing by the contrast. Without disparagement to any other form of Christian endeavor, it is not exaggeration to say that considering the work accomplished, or the largeness and importance of the work remaining to be done, and which it proposes to do, this organization is easily peer of the foremost. ”

“ It is better to strengthen a good institution already on the ground than experiment on new enterprises. Especially should our benevolent Northern people refuse to encourage the persistent effort of a large portion of the Southern colored clergy and a corresponding class among the white people to build up a church system of elementary schooling. Already thousands of dollars are virtually thrown away in the South by kindly people who give carelessly or yield to opportunity. ”

“ Many a millionaire finds less satisfaction in his palatial mansion than the proprietor of that little white cottage among the trees, as he gathers fruit from his own well-kept orchard, vegetables from his prolific garden, and corn from his own field. ”

“ Our philanthropic people owe it to themselves and the country not only to give, but to exercise the greatest discretion in their giving. An endowment to any school that has really succeeded and can show the right to exist, is always in order."
There are many peripatetic representatives, white and black, of schools for colored people going round among our churches, pleading for money to sustain enterprises that are simply personal ventures, and some of them actual frauds. ”

“ The modern Athenian, like his elder brother of Scriptural fame, delights in nothing so much as "either to tell or to hear some new thing," and this congregation is, or ought to be, already sufficiently familiar with the work which solicits a hearing. It is not an obscure enterprise thrust into the background by its unimportance, or hiding itself because of some questioning as to whether it has a right to be, and neither is it a project that has not yet passed the experimental stage, the conclusion as to its worth or worthlessness to be reached further on. ”

“ I'm an American, and I shall stay right here the balance of my days. If I couldn't make a living here, I should be striking out after work, but I don't need to go anywhere to hunt work; work is hunting for me all the time. ”

“ How much sweeter music is the cackling of hens to one who has brought them up from downy chickenhood! That and the robins' songs give more pleasure at the cottage than would the notes of imprisoned canaries. ”

“ And in answering that question emphatically in the negative, there is not necessarily any imputation cast upon the honest intentions of the white population of the South. But they labor under special difficulties. Trained for generations to regard the African as a servile and inferior race, it is not easy for them to rid themselves of the traditions and beliefs of centuries. In the nature of things they cannot all at once rise to the level of enthusiasm in the matter of the education and elevation of their former serfs. ”

“ No, no, brethren, the time has not yet come to remand the Association to inaction, and neither has the time come for the American church to omit one dollar of its givings, or one utterance of its prayers, or one impulse of its enthusiasm for the right and complete and final solution of the most immediate and pressing problem with which we are set face to face. ”

“ It would be an insult to the Christian intelligence of this congregation to assume that the work required commendation to them, and equally a vain thing to attempt to tell the assembled Athenians any new thing about it.
There is another difficulty. Centuries ago, a wise man referring to the conditions of his time, wrote: "Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh." ”

“ What little knowledge I have of reading and writing is just picked up. Because I've got along without an education, I don't think everybody else ought to do the same. I'd have got along better if I'd had more. ”