the state of
domestic service. Many Negroes often look upon menial labor as
degrading and only enter it from utter necessity, and then as a
temporary make-shift. This state of affairs is annoying to employers
who find an increasing number of careless and impudent young people
who neglect their work, and in some cases show vicious tendencies.

The low schedule for such work is due to two causes: One is, that from
custom many Southern families hire help for which they cannot afford
to pay much; another reason is that they do not consider the service
rendered worth any more. This may not be the open conscious thought of
the better elements of such laborers, but it is the unconscious
tendency of the present situation, which makes one species of
honorable and necessary labor difficult to buy or sell without loss of
self-respect on one side or the other.

_Day Service._--A large number of single women and housewives work out
regularly in families, or take washing into their homes; and, like
house servants, are paid by the week, or if they work by the day from
30 to 50 cents a day. This absence of mothers from home not only
occasions a neglect of their household duties but also of their
children, especially of girls. Aside from house servants and
washerwomen, many of the women are seamstresses and readily find
employment in white families. Some do a remunerative business in their
own homes. The Negro woman is especially successful as a trained
nurse, and a considerable number of the brightest and most intelligent
among the young women are entering upon that calling.
_Conclusion._--The closing years of the nineteenth century indicate
remarkable advancement on the part of the Negro in all industrial
lines; but the twentieth century will doubtless furnish opportunities
which will enable him to carry these beginnings to their legitimate
fruition.

TOPIC XX.

THE NEGRO AS A CHRISTIAN.

BY REV. WILLIAM E. PARTEE, D. D.

[Illustration: W. E. Partee, D. D.]

WILLIAM E. PARTEE, D. D.

Rev. William E. Partee, D. D., was born at Concord, N. C.,
of Christian parents in the year 1860 and at an early age
placed in the common schools of his native town. He was left
an orphan at the age of ten, but by determination and the
help of friends he gained an education. When but sixteen
years of age he taught a country school. He was graduated
from the collegiate and theological