or in any age or
country. In the show of this receptive capacity, it declares its
eternal fitness to live and thrive under the blaze of the most
searching civilization in the history of the world.

Take moreover, the many worthy bodies founded in the last quarter of a
century for moral, mental and social elevation. All these have been
inspired by the thought that if the race would hold its own, it must
emulate the spirit of the country and age in which it lives.

Truly, if our coming to this land was involuntary, the genius of our
being has built a home which can only be abandoned at our own will.

THE END.

I am admonished that this paper must come to a close. I am compelled
to omit even by mere mention many of the exemplary virtues of the
race. I have, however, touched on just enough to furnish the enquiring
mind with deductions. Even the pessimist is constrained to admit that,
under the circumstances, as a whole, the race has made a remarkable
record, and that chiefly, because of the qualities with which he is
endowed. Many historic races who have dominated mankind, made less
rapid progress than we, at the point we have reached. This remarkable
advancement may be ascribed in the main to the superior attributes
which give us a flexible and well balanced temperament.

The hardships the race undergoes in this period of development
constitute the necessary training school and the virtues which spring
thence are intended as much for the betterment of the other race as
for our own. We are to soften their stern qualities, while our life is
to take on some of the iron of their soul.

That our nature will be largely modified by the necessities of our
growth must be an accepted fact, but our merit, worth and fitness in
American life will substantially be the product of our qualities as
they are to-day. The past gives us assurance of glorious possibilities
to come. Just how far and to what extent we are to realize the
fruition of our cherished dreams of rising to the full height of
honorable manhood vests chiefly with us. God has endowed us with the
capacity to suffer and undergo the trials incident to race
development. If we can recognize the need for this training, severe
though it be, if we do not chafe and fume and fret and get angry
because our deliverance has not come, we may well be comforted in the
meanwhile that any device of man to deny us a share in the government
of a common heritage in this land consecrate