unheard of.

There was a time when policy or political expediency had no effect
upon the prejudices of the Southern whites, but the educational
process inaugurated by the North is elevating a class of colored
people to a plane where they are respected as never before. No State
or Federal aid can do for us what the A.M.A. is doing. Such aid as the
Blair Bill proposed would meet a certain need, and enable the men that
are educated by the A.M.A. to get at the masses; but the peculiar work
of preparing honest and devout Christian leaders must be otherwise
provided for. The complete regeneration of the South is a thing of the
future. The A.M.A. must remain among us to hasten on "the harvest of
the golden year."

That the Christianization of the Negro must come from without his own
institutions, will be clearly seen by looking at his present religious
condition. The new life that is developing cannot be crowded into the
narrow limits of his church. The moral element is almost entirely
wanting in his creed and doctrine. Such is the condition of the church
that moral and spiritual growth are impossible. He must be educated
away from the institutions that attended his enslavement; as far from
them as Canaan is from Egypt. Again, the pulpit, with comparatively
few honorable exceptions, {132} is filled with adventurers and impure
ministers. To a great extent this is true. But signs of a spiritual
and moral exodus are everywhere manifest. The judgment of God rests
heavily upon the Negro's temple-worship and the structure tumbles to
the ground. Within the last two years I have seen six of the largest
colored churches in Tennessee split on moral grounds, and the
discontent with what is bad, grows among them. The old associations
are losing their power over the rising generation. Intelligent men are