Here is the large door that God has opened for us, and through which we are reaching this people, and in a still larger degree may carry the truths of the Kingdom of God to them.  What they need most of all is light.  Give them that and the question of rights will take care of itself.  When I was in New Orleans last May, President Hitchcock, of Straight University, pointed out to me in his office a pile of letters, which, he said, were applications for teachers for these public schools, and those which he showed me represented the number of applications which he was not able to fill.  And yet he is compelled every term to turn away scores of young men and young women seeking to fit themselves for just this work, because there is not room for them and because there are not funds to care for them.

As to this new movement in the South, I do not conclude that more than the first step has been taken, exceedingly important as that step is.  Many of the schools as yet are in a wretched condition.  The buildings in the rural districts are small and rudely built, and many of them are positively unfit to be used as school houses.  There are neither maps, nor charts or other appliances for the teacher’s use in his work, and in fact everything about these school houses is of the most primitive type.  The school year often does not exceed four months, and many of these teachers are altogether unfit for their tasks.

Are we to think the time has come to withhold our support and our prayers from this great work?  Was there ever such an opportunity offered to any land as this which is presented to the Christian philanthropy of our own?

I might tell of the needs of the cabin home life as I have seen them in these States, how the scholars from Christian schools are the leaven that is slowly transforming this, the greatest of all human institutions; how while from one-quarter to one-half of the colored population is progressing, gaining in education, property and character, there is another large part of the race that is either stationary or sinking into more miserable conditions.  Are we seeking for paganism to battle with?  Here it is in our own proud land.  Do we want the opportunity of Christianizing a nation?  Here it is; and with possibilities just as marked as those of any people that ever ascended the scale of intelligence and Christian morality.

The problem of the New South is not merely one of successful railroads, of busy factories or of paying plantations, but much more is it one of upright, wise, Christian manhood and womanhood.  This is the work to which we are most truly called of the Eternal Father. {100}

Nobly has the American Missionary Association entered into these labors; but believe me, there is a larger work before it than it has yet accomplished.

* * * * *

  THE SOUTH.

LETTER FROM AN EVANGELIST.