y institutions. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation, and our youth, constantly learning it, have in large
numbers been made to feel its power. Their lives having thus been
purified and ennobled, beautiful and strong Christian characters have
resulted.

3. Many young Negroes have been thoroughly trained for the ministry,
who have led strictly upright lives and have taught others to do the
same; and many others, not ministers, have enjoyed systematic training
in ethics. Is it conceivable that the combined work of this class of
our young people has accomplished nothing in the moral uplifting of
the race? Such work must and does count powerfully on the right side,
or else the gospel is a failure. Just as heathen nations have been
redeemed and regenerated, having put away their savage life and
accepted civilization and Christ because the gospel was preached to
them, even so has our race been saved; and just as no other people
ever received the gospel without being immeasurably blessed and lifted
up, so also is that true of the Negro. And it is further true of all
men that the more gospel privileges they enjoy, the better will be
their condition. For the kingdom of evil is sure to be overthrown, and
the kingdom of Christ established on the earth. And thus the young
Negro cannot help being a better man morally than his father.

4. The young Negro is living in an age of higher morals and
necessarily partakes of its superior advantages. The age of brute
force is fast passing away. When after our great civil war the
adjustment of our troubles with England was arranged by arbitration
rather than settled by war, an immense stride in civilization, men
say, was made. Very true, but why not say that the men in control of
the two great nations involved were moved to act as they did because
of their strong ethical principles? And from that time until now the
moral advance of the world has been rapid and steady. The new Negro is
living in this higher and better age, and his moral constitution has
been built up and made strong because of it. The principles of
international comity are fast spreading among the nations. And just as
the economic principles of the trust are being applied to religious
organizations, even so the stronger ethical principles that are moving
the nations are inducing Christian white men to come nearer to their
brethren in black, and to treat them more as _men_, _brethren_, than
has ever been done before.