been annually elected President of
the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. In 1894 he was
elected President of the National Baptist Convention, whose
constituency numbers about a million and a half, and has
been elected every year since to the same position. Under
his leadership, this society has been firmly unified and has
enjoyed the greatest prosperity in its history. It was his
address before this Convention at Washington, in 1893, that
inspired an indomitable and uncompromising determination in
the minds of the colored Baptists to begin publishing
interests of their own. It was his active brain that
conceived the idea of the National Baptist Young People's
Union Board, which Board is located at Nashville. And so his
progressive acts have multiplied as he has advanced in age
and responsibility. Dr. Morris is an acknowledged adviser of
the colored people of his community, in all matters relating
to their general uplift. He is a friend to humanity and a
lover of his race. He is a possessor and advocate of
wholeheartedness and sincerity, being charitable to a
difference or a fault. His influence begins at home and
spreads abroad, and all distinctions that he bears are borne
with gentlemanly modesty, believing leadership to him a duty
rather than an honor.

The subject of this article is a very important and delicate one;
important because it forms the base from which all the advancement
made by the race for the last past thirty-six years must be measured,
and delicate because it makes comparison between father and son. If
there has been no improvement in the race, morally, since its
emancipation from slavery, then no real advancement has been made; and
to say that the Negro has made no advancement would be sufficient to
call forth universal derision.

It must be admitted in the beginning that to do full justice to the
subject, much study and space is required. In the absence of
comprehensive statistics on the subject and the time in which to
compile the same, several standpoints of reasoning must be assumed,
and these will be taken up in no regular order, one being important as
the others. I do not attempt to go upon or set up a system of
scientific theories either, but simply to state and connect obvious
facts. The past and present moral status of the race is involved, but
I shall not go beyond that period