“Very hopeful, although at times I cannot help feeling anxious about their future.  I was delighted with my visits to various institutions of learning, and surprised at the desire manifested among the young people to obtain an education.  Where toil-worn mothers bent beneath their heavy burdens their more favored daughters are enjoying the privileges of education.  Young people are making recitations in Greek and Latin where it was once a crime to teach their parents to read.  I also became acquainted with colored professors and presidents of colleges.  Saw young ladies who had graduated as doctors.  Comfortable homes have succeeded old cabins of slavery.  Vast crops have been raised by free labor.  I read with interest and pleasure a number of papers edited by colored men.  I saw it estimated that two millions of our people had learned to read, and I feel deeply grateful to the people who have supplied us with teachers who have stood their ground so nobly among our people.”

“But,” asked Mr. Forest, “you expressed fears about the future of our race.  From whence do your fears arise?”

“From the unfortunate conditions which slavery has entailed upon that section of our country.  I dread the results of that racial feeling which ever and anon breaks out into restlessness and crime.  Also, I am concerned about the lack of home training for those for whom the discipline of the plantation has been exchanged for the penalties of prisons and chain-gangs.  I am sorry to see numbers of our young men growing away from the influence of the church and drifting into prisons.  I also fear that in some sections, as colored men increase in wealth and intelligence, there will be an increase of race rivalry and jealousy.  It is said that savages, by putting their ears to the ground, can hear a far-off tread.  So, to-day, I fear that there are savage elements in our civilization which hear the advancing tread of the negro and would retard his coming.  It is the incarnation of these elements that I dread.  It is their elimination I do so earnestly desire.  Whether it be outgrown or not is our unsolved problem.  Time alone will tell whether or not the virus of slavery and injustice has too fully permeated our Southern civilization for a complete recovery.  Nations, honey-combed by vice, have fallen beneath the weight of their iniquities.  Justice is always uncompromising in its claims and inexorable in its demands.  The laws of the universe are never repealed to accommodate our follies.”

“Surely,” said Bishop Tunster, “the negro has a higher mission than that of aimlessly drifting through life and patiently waiting for death.”

“We may not,” answered Rev. Carmicle, “have the same dash, courage, and aggressiveness of other races, accustomed to struggle, achievement, and dominion, but surely the world needs something better than the results of arrogance, aggressiveness, and indomitable power.  For the evils of society there are no solvents as potent as love and justice, and our greatest need is not more wealth and learning, but a religion replete with life and glowing with love.  Let this be the impelling force in the race and it cannot fail to rise in the scale of character and condition.”