ement of their best
into the higher class, swelling that slowly into the majority; the
second, by the stern sloughing off of their worst by the diseases which
spring from idleness, self-indulgence, filth, and immorality.

What we white men of the North and South ought to do to encourage and
help this better class of negroes is, in brief phrases, this: First, to
keep our faces as flint against all social intermingling that looks
toward amalgamation. Then, across this chasm, which both races frankly
accept, to join hands with those trying to lift and better themselves,
cheering, encouraging, and helping them. We must give them full
protection in their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; we must give
them even handed justice in law and in politics; we must give them
equality of opportunity in earning their bread, in making their homes,
in educating their children; we must give them every chance and all
cheer and sympathy in seeking the fulfillment of the aspirations of the
human heart among their own people. And, my friends, I want to tell you
here in Chicago to-night that we men of the South are largely doing all
of these things now, and we are going to do them more and more
completely. We are coming to see more and more clearly that it will not
do to have forty per cent. of the people of our Southern land sullen and
suspicious, discontented and hopeless; but that we can only go forward
at our best pace towards a happy and noble civilization, with both races
cheerful and hopeful, sympathizing with each other in their peculiar
perplexities, trusting their brother man on earth and their Father God
in Heaven.

Keeping clearly in mind these conditions, what ought we Christians in
the Church of God to do to help and strengthen this smaller, higher
class and to persuade many of the larger, lower class to join this
higher? In the first place, we must frankly acknowledge the hard _facts_
of the case, and, as far as possible, put to one side _theories_. We are
confronted by a condition, as far as I read and study, absolutely new in
the history of mankind, where we have no exact precedent to guide us.
The underlying practical fact is this: there must be _separation_ not
_from_ but _in_ the Church between the two races, for the growth of the
Church among white men and black men, and for the development of
Christian manhood among the black men. Having settled and agreed on that
fact, how are we to effect that separation so as to