ications may arise. The principles of socialism and anarchy
are not unlikely to pervade the South, and if the masses of blacks are
ever exploited by a central, unknown and irresponsible committee of
agitators, the results must be a new reign of terror. The labor
agitators are moving southward. It has been said that colored people
have no tendencies toward socialism and anarchy. I am no prophet, but
I will hazard the prediction that it will not be long before the
socialistic agitator will stir up a commotion at the South that will
make employers of labor and people of wealth tremble.

The sentiment has sometimes been whispered, that the work of this
Association, and those akin to it, was about accomplished. That
sentiment has selfishness or ignorance at the bottom of it. How long
must this work be kept up? Until all that mass of darkness which fills
the Southern horizon be shot through and through with shafts of light.
How long must it be kept up? Until the last trace of prejudice that
separates brother from brother shall have been removed. How long will
this thing be kept up? Until the black man feels that he is a man;
until he can vote intelligently, and live wisely, and until he has the
ability and the will to discriminate carefully in matters of morals.
How long must it be kept up? Until no man can plead ignorance, or want
of opportunity, for rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. The Eastern
question has been a live question in European politics for more than
four centuries. It is no more puzzling than the Southern question is
with us. There is an experiment in physics that is typical of this
work. An iron bar is suspended in the air and then a tiny cork, hung
from a string, is thrown against it. At first no impression is made,
but the blows are repeated, until, by and by, the bar begins to
tremble, then to vibrate, then to swing to and fro. The repeated
impacts of the little cork at last move the mass. It will not be by
any great rush that the Southern problem will be solved. It will yield
at last to the constancy, and fidelity, of the great multitude of
those who love their brother because they love their Lord; who are
content to work in secret, {129} and many of whom already rest in
unmarked graves. That mass of ignorance, wretchedness and wrong will
swing and disappear at last before the multitudinous strokes of
individual gifts and individual prayers.

All the problems which are vexing the older nations are essentia