therefore, pray ye." "Our Father." This is from one who believes in the
baptism at Pentecost, when devout men from every nation under heaven
received the impartial benedictions of God. This from one who read the
story of Peter and the sheet. "Alas, my brother."

All this, then, is the atmosphere of the situation. Some prophetic souls
are looking out upon a most perplexing and perilous problem with
profound solicitude, and extending to us their sympathy and prayers for
our work. More, many more, are teaching and preaching that God has
created the Negro race to fill forever a place of inferiority, and that
he must stay down in the bog or in some way be destroyed. It is not
surprising, therefore, that ignorant white people should give form and
substance to these hostile opinions in scenes of violence and cruelty.
They believe in the inherent inferiority of the blacks, and have a
mighty fear lest this doctrine should prove to be untrue. The Negro,
twenty-five years ago in absolute poverty and illiteracy, has been
greedy for education, and has seriously thought of nothing but to rise
from his low condition.

The intelligent white man now, and to his great surprise, is all at once
confronted by the intelligent black man. They are not so numerous now as
to be an element to fear, but the whites are foreseeing the not distant
day when they can not be relegated to inferiority because of their
color. The calamity that Bishop Pearce deplores and would prevent is not
far away--educated Negroes with aspirations, in other words, men.

The general Negro illiteracy is gaining fast upon the white ignorance,
and the despised Negro is found to be living above many of his
illiterate white neighbors. This makes it easy work for designing men to
sharpen race prejudices, which by force and fear shall keep the Negro