Various

“ Thoughtful men at the South now have no rose-colored views about the Negro problem. They fear the impending conflict. With them the supremacy of the white race is the settled point, but they see in the growing numbers, intelligence and restlessness of the Negroes an increasing danger that will only be aggravated by delay. Why should not the North and South alike manfully face the question of a war of races? What will it mean? What will be its end? If the whites and the blacks of the South alone engage in it, the blacks will be exterminated. Nothing less will meet the case. ”

“ Those who are not Christians cannot obey what Confucius taught. Before I became a Christian I was swearing and I speak evil words, but since I believe in Jesus, these things I was entirely stopped of. I remember Confucius has written in his book, teaching us to be honest, and also say, vice things we must not look at, the vice way we must not walk, the vice word we must neither speak nor hear. How rarely I hear of a man who believes Confucius and does what he taught. They are swearing all the time, speak the evil word all the time, go among the bad women all the time. ”

“ But we all come to one conclusion, that all the trouble arising from race prejudice will pass away as the negro rises. When he is able to intelligently exercise all his rights, then the white man will have to acknowledge them. This result is in the distance, and while due attention is given to the older ones, yet the destiny of the colored race is wrapt up in the rising generation. They are terribly endangered, but they must be saved if the race is saved. A new generation, who knew nothing of slavery but much of the dangers of freedom, are taking hold upon manhood. ”

“ Going, not as "carpet-baggers," but as citizens, to be identified with the moral reconstruction of the South, they translate there the real spirit of the North, and represent the spiritual side of the new life which is going into that fair portion of our own dear country. By the peculiar people to whom they especially go, and who prove to have a natural affinity for Puritan ideas and institutions, they are doing more than any others to set up, not a New England in the South, but a New South, wherein shall be rejuviant the principles of that civilization which was planted at Plymouth Rock. ”

“ True, instances are occurring of outbreaks of color-prejudice among the Catholics, but the policy of the church is openly and boldly against discrimination of whatever sort among its members. The fear of "social equality," that shadow of a something that never did, and never can, exist, that bug-bear of illiberal minds and narrow culture, does not stand guard at the doors of this church to drive away the colored worshipper or compel him to sit at the second table at the Lord's feast. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the colored people are flocking to the Catholic fold? ”

“ The end justifies the means when "Negro rule" is to be prevented, and to protest against this bold subversion of the great principles of citizenship in the Republic, is to "wave the bloody shirt." We will admit that it is by no means desirable that a mass of illiterate people should hold sway, but we claim that the Southern white people can break the "color line" if they will, by admitting frankly the rights of the Negro, and by encouraging him to aspire to an intelligent and worthy manhood. ”

“ Mission work is not preaching grand sermons, or witnessing marvellous baptisms; it is a patient Christ-like life, day by day, far from external help, far from those we love; a quiet sowing of tiny seeds, which may take long years to show above the ground, combined with a steady bearing of loneliness, discomfort and petty persecution. ”

“ It is generally found that when people are of no use at home, they are of no use in the mission field. The bright, brave, earnest spirit, ready to face difficulties at home, is the right spirit for the work abroad. A patient, persevering, plodding spirit, attempting great things for God, and expecting great things from God, is absolutely essential to success in missionary efforts. Those will not make the best missionaries who are easily daunted by the first difficulty or opposition, but those whose strength is equal to waiting upon God, and who fight through all obstacles by prayer and faith. ”

“ Once we do like the same, but since we found Jesus and believe he is our Saviour, we stop to speak the bad word, stopped to gamble and smoke opium. Very seldom I hear or see those who study Confucius do as the Jesus men, for these are they that obey Confucius doctrine and keep his word. Why cannot those disciples of Confucius be better men? Ah, Confucius only a good man, he can only tell you the way how to be good man, but he has no power to change your heart, and Jesus can if we trust in him. ”

“ There, after all this rambling, I have reached the one idea which I believe ought to stick in the mind of every A.M.A. worker and every A.M.A. supporter—the children! If we can only teach them, save them, the African in America and in Africa is saved. It seems to me this is the solution of the problem. ”

“ Names and places being changed, it is coming to appear that the whole of this can be said of the Christian workers from the North among the colored people of the South. Besides all of their work that can be told by statistics, and besides all of that in building up character among the Negroes and awakening their intellect and their aspiration for thrift in every sense, they have exerted a profound unconscious influence upon the white people of that Southland. They, too, have built up among the whites a confidence in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. ”

“ The work demands of every worker very real and manifest self-sacrifice and acts of faith. It aims at, and ought to be satisfied with, nothing less than the conversion of the people to God. Not witness-bearing merely, but fruit-bearing is the end in view. Anything short of the salvation of souls is failure. ”

“ Of such stuff men are made, citizens, Christians; men who can use the ballot, who own property that must be protected by the ballot; men who have homes that must be refined and pure, churches where God is worshipped intelligently and where a practical morality is taught and attained. Such a people will be safe, for they will be bone and muscle of the South, they will be needed in its wide expanse of fertile soil, needed in its practical trades, needed for the accumulated wealth, intelligence and cultivated piety they will bring into all the walks and avocations of life. ”

“ As Christ aimed not so much at once to tear down or build up the outer, but to reach the inner springs of the soul, so these workers aim to make character, intelligent, pure, active, and thus to impel to all that is noble and honest in life, that stimulates to industry, economy, thrift—to making the home pure and all outer things prosperous and right. ”

“ Young colored men are now in Rome and in the Catholic schools and colleges of the United States, preparing for work among their people in America, and Africa as well, while to-day missionaries are everywhere busy, sowing the seeds of Catholic belief and worship. These teachings are eagerly accepted by the colored people. The cause of this success among them is not far to seek. The Catholic Church, of all which are ruled by whites on this continent, is the only one offering the Negro communion on terms of equality. ”

“ My good friend, who labors to-day in Beaufort, N.C., having helped me through college and seen me launch upon life's tide, seemed to say, "My boy, do not drift, but steer straight for heaven's port, and do unto others as I have done unto you." ”

“ What for we come to this school.—We come for to intelligent about the civilization ways, and we want to American write, we want to American home, and we want friendly each other with the white people. We are commence learning discretion and we are works our own hands. My conscience has cried because our Indian they can not do nothing with their hands and when I look back our old Indian ways I am great sorry, but when I looked future I have examined with careful attention, and I very great pleasure. ”

“ They must be taught to read, to think, to work, to save and to love goodness for its own sake. If all this can be brought about I believe the Negro question will be settled. This must be done. I trust that not all of the 1,500 who have lately signified a willingness to enter the mission field will suppose that all of the ignorant and needy millions are on the other side of the globe. ”

“ But the true animus of the Crittenden County affair, I think, is found in the current declaration which is used at Marion on the part of the brave men who drove out these exiles, viz.: "We don't want any educated niggers, and won't have 'em here, not even to teach school."
It should not be overlooked, that in this instance there is fully revealed that singular idea which so widely prevails at the South, viz.: A Negro is in his place only and always as a subordinate. It is assumed that to educate him unfits him for his mission in life, unless that education looks simply to some hand service. ”

“ With a Negro population six or seven times as large as the white, it is not strange that the County Court Judge, the County Clerk and his deputy should be Negroes, nor that they should aspire to other places in public life. ”

“ From the bluff at Memphis we look across the river, where along the western shore stretch the forests of Crittenden County, Arkansas, and Marion, about fourteen miles from Memphis, is the county-seat. The story of the recent banishment of fifteen prominent colored office-holders, professional men and farmers has gone to the world.
The whites, well armed, took their game by surprise, bagged and shipped it without bloodshed. Now the "empire is peace" they say, although for a time terror reigned among the startled colored people. ”

“ If the colored people at Marion are divided into factions, then the whites could the more easily combine forces against the officials in question, or any political ring which may have existed. But there was a general Negro uprising threatened, and in order to save their own lives the whites made haste to get into the field first. This is the avowed excuse. But it is certain that no one believes there was serious danger of a Negro uprising. ”

“ When the pupils become teachers, they go into the smaller towns, they go into the rural districts, on the small farms, everywhere instructing, encouraging and stimulating the people, leading them to more intelligent industries, to economy, to the purchase of land, the erection of better houses, to a higher aim in life, and to the formation of a right character. ”

“ They feel as though they have no character to lose, consequently intemperance takes possession of them.
This evil of intemperence is said by some to be the greatest of all evils. It is the cause of the ruin of some of our fathers and brothers, and I am sorry to say it ruins some of the mothers. When we, the temperance girls and boys, ask them to leave off their habit of drinking, they tell us that it does them good. When cold it makes them warm, when warm it makes [pg 285] them cold. When troubled, it cheers them. When weak, it strengthens them. It is certainly killing them by degrees. ”

“ The spasmodic worker, frantic in zeal one month, and at freezing-point another, will be weary long before the station has been reached: while in the strength of Christ the weakest of us need not draw back, nor say, "I am not fit," yet nothing less than burning love to Christ, and in Him to perishing souls, will survive and overleap the difficulties and disappointments of the work. ”