The American Missionary | Page 4

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.
These are royal words, and we believe that our teachers and
missionaries engaged in this most glorious work of saving needy souls
will take with them this spirit, and be blessed in the communication of
their blessing to others.
* * * * *
IMMIGRANTS AND NEGROES.
The Immigrant question challenges attention. Shall immigrants be
welcomed, restricted or prohibited? In the early days of the Republic,
when the revolutionary war had welded the people together and our

boundless territory begged for occupancy, we welcomed the oppressed
of all nations. Later, the welcome has been responded to by such a
rushing, heterogeneous and even dangerous mass that we are compelled
to pause. Restriction is talked of, but the line of discrimination is hard
to be fixed. No committee at Castle Garden can detect anarchists,
criminals, or even the poor, if that line should be chosen.
Prohibition--exclusion is talked of--nay, is enacted stringently against
the Chinese. If need be, it may extend to all. So there is a way of
averting this evil.
But the Negro question cannot be put away. The Negroes are here.
They outnumber the immigrants that have come to our shores in the last
thirty years, and have a foothold upon the soil as valid as the Aryan
race, whether we consider the date of their coming or the labor they
have put upon the land.
There is a strange disposition to shrink from the Negro question. Some
avoid it by flippantly denying the danger; others turn from it because
they are appalled by it. Thus an able writer on Immigration in a recent
number of the Century passes the topic with this awe-stricken remark:
"This problem (of the Negro) cannot be touched practically; ancient
wrongs bind the nation hand and foot, and its outcome must be awaited
as we await the gathering of the tempest--powerless to avert, and
trembling over the steady approach" (The italics are ours.) This is not
wise; it is not manly. Why try to avert the evils of immigration, or any
other, if we are meanwhile only to await tremblingly the doom that is to
come on us from the conflict with the Negro?
There is a strong disposition to gather hope from the newly-developed
manufacturing interests in the South. But this is delusive. The South is
essentially a rural population; the new industries will necessarily be
confined to a few localities, and will reach but slightly the wide
agricultural region, and will scarcely touch the Negroes. And more than
all this, these industries will only be importing into the South the
struggle between labor and capital, which so vexes us at the North.
Instead, therefore, of solving the old difficulties at the South, they will
add a new one.

The danger of a war of races is scouted at the North; it is not at the
South. This is natural. The North is not in immediate contact with the
danger; the South is. When the war of the rebellion was impending, the
North refused to believe in its coming; and when it came, one of the
wisest statesmen of the North, Mr. Seward, predicted that it would "not
last sixty days." No such delusion prevailed in the South. Many of the
best men there, nay, nearly all the border States, dreaded its coming and
held back as long as possible, but they were swept into the flood they
foresaw and could not avert.
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. If the North mingle in the struggle, it
must be to help the whites or the blacks. If to help the whites, that will
mean the more rapid defeat and slaughter of the blacks; if the North
help the blacks and save them from destruction, then we shall be worse
off than we are now, the two races will be together with enmities
aroused a thousand fold!
But why not face the more hopeful