l civilization is the family. Despoil the
idea of family, assail rudely its elements, its framework, and its
essential principles, and nothing but degradation and barbarism can
come to any people. If you will think but for a moment of all that is
included in this word "family," you will see at once that it is the
root idea of all civility, of all the humanities, of all organized
society. In the family are included all the loves, the cares, the
sympathies, the solicitudes of parents and wives and husbands; all the
active industries, the prudent economies, and the painful
self-sacrifices of households; all the sweet memories, the gentle
refinements, the pure speech, and the godly anxieties of womanhood;
all the endurance, the courage, and the hardy toil of men; all these
have their roots in the family.

Alas! how widely have these traits and qualities been lost to our race
in this land! How numerous are the households where they have never
been known or recognized! The beginning of all organized society is in
the family. The school, the college, the professions, suffrage, civil
office, are all valuable things; but what are they compared to the
family? Here, then, where we have suffered the greatest, is a
world-wide field for our intellectual anxieties and our most
intelligent effort.

Secondly we will consider

THE CONDITIONS OF LABOR.

I refer to the industrial conditions of our race. No topic is exciting
more interest and anxiety than the labor question. Almost an angry
contest is going on upon the relations of capital to labor. Into this
topic all the other kindred questions of wages, hours of labor,
co-operation, distribution of wealth--all are canvassed in behalf of
the labor element of the country, but all, I may say exclusively, for
the white labor of this great nation. The white labor is organized
labor; it is intelligent labor; it is skilled labor; it is protected
labor. It is labor nourished, guarded, shielded, rooted in national
institutions, propped up by the suffrage of the laboring population,
and needs no extraordinary succors. But, my friends, just look at the
black labor of this country, and consider its sad conditions, its
disorganized and rude characteristics, its almost servile status.

What gives labor, in any land, dignity and healthiness? It is the
qualities of skill and enlightenment. It is only by these qualities
that men can work in the best manner, with the least waste, and for
the larg