nst all the opposing forces
that would hinder his growth and relegate him to the lowest stratum of
mankind, he is forcing his way up the stream. His spiritual and moral
nature is beating under the animal nature which for so long a time
held him as a slave. He now does right for right's sake, and loves the
pure and good. He honors the women of his race and is raising her to
nobler plains in his thoughts and life.

The Negro woman is asserting herself also and is building for herself
a character that rests upon a foundation of personal purity. This she
is doing not only for herself, but for others. The building up of pure
homes is her chief concern and in them she reigns with womanly
queenliness.

Social reform receives her attention, and in these walks she may be
found teaching the young the single standard of purity for both sexes.
Her way is the roughest, her path most closely beset with snares, but
her works show for themselves.

If there had been no advancement along moral lines, the Negro's
material and intellectual attainments would count for very little in
the world of affairs, for he would degenerate to a mere mechanical
factor in human society and become a tool in every case in the hands
of a stronger race. But he has added to his material and intellectual
strength a greater and higher force, viz., that of moral worth, which
at once raises him to higher planes in the social and civil world, and
brings him into contact with his enemies and oppressors.

The Negro has met and overcome the great barriers to his progress one
by one. Despite the snares that are all about his path, and their
hidden evils that seek to hold him in thralldom, yet he bursts his
chains and marches forward with renewed purpose and greater zeal.

Yes, the young Negro is embodying nobler ideas in his nature and
reaching forward after higher ideals because of his superior
advantages. He is to face a future pregnant with struggles of a higher
order and of a more diverse character, than the struggles of an
earlier day. He enters into competition, not with one race only, but
with all the races of mankind. As the knowledge of the fierceness of
the battle comes to him, he raises himself from his lethargy and in
the strength of his manhood he goes forward.

He who doubts not the Negro's growth and development along
intellectual and financial lines cannot gainsay his steady and sturdy
growth in moral and social power.

TOPIC XVI.

THE