Negro unto God; and He
heard him! A few have arisen far above the masses, and are by their
noble examples beckoning the others to come on. The general response
is, "We are coming," up out of the cesspool of darkness, ignorance and
immorality to the higher plane of virtue, knowledge, purity, and true
righteousness which exalteth nations.

That there are dark sides to the picture of the Negro's career since
his emergency from that dreary school of bondage, must be admitted,
but many of his defects are directly traceable to his imitative
propensity. To his own sorrow, he imitates the BAD, as well as the
good.

Like the Indian, the fire-water which he has learned to imbibe has
divested him of his manhood, and robbed him of his virtue, and it is
a sad truth that he is encouraged in this personal debasement of
himself by his brother in white, who is still, in many instances,
taking advantages of his weak traits, offering him every inducement to
continue in his course of self-degradation.

Thirty-six years of light and privilege have wrought wonders for the
Negro, but these are scarcely a day, when compared with the long night
of over two hundred years of bondage; it is impossible for him in this
short period to have totally eradicated the evils for which he was not
wholly responsible, but which were entailed upon him at his birth.

Those deflections in the Negro's practice of his code of good morals,
which are so often exhibited as an argument against the entire race,
are but the results of the development of his weaknesses, by the
methods of former years, which he now, finds it so hard to overcome.
But those who transgress the general rule of uplifting are the
exceptions. To God be the glory for the present Negro, measured, not
by the few, who have overlooked their most sacred rights and
privileges, but by the many who are daily demonstrating, by honest
toil and labor, that they have the highest regard for all that is
pure, ennobling, and virtuous.

The Negro's inspiration for poetry, music and the fine arts, proves
conclusively that there dwells within him a higher and better nature,
which needs only to be developed to its fullest capacity to convince
the world beyond the possibility of a successful contradiction that
his standard of good morals is as elevated as that of mankind in
general. As it is impossible for any fountain to pour forth pure and
impure water at the same time, so is it impossible for total depravit