Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/37

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
There was a problem when proofreading this page.

35

2d. That hundreds more can be obtained for the same service at any time.

3d. That hundreds more besides these are preparing in schools, academies, and colleges for a life service as teachers among their race; and there is no likelihood of a lack of supply of colored teachers in the farthest future.

4th. That an indigenous agency in the evangelization of a people is a universal principle. Negroes are no exception to this principle; and the man or the organization which attempts the training of the black race by ignoring this principle may surely expect these two inevitable results:

1st. They will doubtless get a certain following of people; but their gatherings, save in the rarest exceptional cases, will be nothing more nor less than useless "snobberies," to be perpetually petted or paid for their allegiance, and everlastingly deficient in strength and manliness. And,

2d. They will find the masses about them will resist all their inducements, and, under the racial impulse, will go off to any standard lifted up by a man of their own blood.

The true leaders of a race are men of that race; and any attempt to carry on missions opposed to this principle is sure to meet disastrous failure!




The Negro race is a living, not a dead race—alive in the several respects of industry, acquisitiveness, education, and religious aspiration. Not entirely divorced as yet from the sore diseases of the Egypt from which they have only recently been delivered, they are, nevertheless, making mighty efforts for cure and healing by both the appliances of education and the Blood of the Lamb. It is a race (illegible text) in every section with hope and aspiration. All the springs of action are moving in it. Its leaders, everywhere, conscious, indeed, of deep, radical defects within,