American Missionary | Page 4

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post as Secretary of the Peabody Fund, utters himself in this forcible language:
"I want to say to you, in perfect frankness, that the man who thinks the Negro problem has been settled is either a fanatic or a fool. I stand aghast at the problem. I don't believe civilization ever encountered one of greater magnitude. It casts a dark shadow over your churches, your government of the future. It is a great problem which will tax your energies. Your ancestors and mine a few years ago were cannibals and pagans. They have become what they are, not by virtue of white skin, but by improving government and good laws. You let the Negro children get an education where yours do not, let the Negro be superior to you in culture and property, and you will have a black man's government. Improvement, cultivation, education is the secret, the condition and guarantee of race supremacy. I will astonish you, perhaps, by saying that if the Negro develops and becomes in culture, property and civilization, superior to the white man, the Negro ought to rule. You see to it that he does not become so. The responsibility rests with you."
Rev. A.G. Haygood, D.D., Secretary of the Slater Fund, closes a review of Senator Eustis's recent paper in these earnest words:
Whatever political theory men form or oppose; whatever their speculative opinions about the origin of races; whatever their notions concerning color or caste; whatever their relations heretofore to slavery and what went along with it, this is absolutely certain: no question involving the rights and wrongs of men, civilized or savage, white or black, was ever yet settled so that it would stay settled by any system of mere repression. And to those who believe in Jesus Christ it is equally certain that nothing can be rightly settled that is not settled in harmony with the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. If there be a Divine Providence no good man need be afraid to do right to-day; nay, he will fear only doing wrong.
* * * * *
THE TRAINING OF COLORED STUDENTS FOR THE EPISCOPAL MINISTRY.
A very interesting discussion occurred in the Missionary Council of the Episcopal Church, held in Washington, D.C., November 13th and 14th, in regard to the education of colored students for the ministry in the Episcopal Church. The motive for not educating them in the existing Episcopal Seminaries appeared to be simply the caste-prejudice, and some marked utterances and facts were given on that subject, which we wish to preserve.
The Bishop of Kentucky, whose generous feelings toward the colored race we have had occasion to notice heretofore, quoted from another, and endorsed for himself, the declaration: "The white man is not fit to study for the ministry who is not ready to have his black brother sit by him in the class room," and he subsequently added: "I believe I can speak for my brothers, and I say out of my heart I would just as soon sit by the side of a black man if he were in the House of Bishops, as one of my white brothers." But yet the Bishop suggested and endorsed the plan for the separate education of colored students, for two reasons: (1) "The power of heredity is not to be overthrown in a day nor an hour... This subtle spirit of caste is perhaps the demon hardest to cast out of the human spirit, the one that requires the most prayer and fasting, without which it will not go out," and (2) "It is certainly true that the colored men themselves do not want to go there. It is just as true that the white men do not want to have them there."
As to the first point, it is to be regretted that the good Bishop did not give himself to fasting and prayer to cast out this malignant demon, rather than to yield to it, and that he did not heed the words which Jesus uttered when his disciples could not cast out a demon, "_Bring him hither to me._" If bishops and churches will only bring this demon of caste to Jesus, the work will be done.
The Bishop's second point, that the colored people desired the separation, was pointedly answered by Dr. Crummell (rector of St. Luke's Colored Church, Washington,) who was invited to speak on the subject. Dr. Crummell said: "I do not think that any man in this country has seen any statement by any number of black men or black students that they wanted to be by themselves. I do not think such an utterance can be found among the race. I myself never heard such a thing, and wherever they have had entrance to other schools they have gone to them."
The decision reached by the
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