ess of
the Ku-Klux) that Minnie has only lived and died in my imagination, may
I not modestly ask that the lesson of Minnie shall have its place among
the educational ideas for the advancement of our race?

The greatest want of our people, if I understand our wants aright, is
not simply wealth, nor genius, nor mere intelligence, but live men, and
earnest, lovely women, whose lives shall represent not a "stagnant mass,
but a living force."

We have wealth among us, but how much of it is ever spent in building up
the future of the race? in encouraging talent, and developing genius? We
have intelligence, but how much do we add to the reservoir of the
world's thought? We have genius among us, but how much can it rely upon
the colored race for support?

Take even the _Christian Recorder_; where are the graduates from
colleges and high school whose pens and brains lend beauty, strength,
grace and culture to its pages?

If, when their school days are over, the last composition shall have
been given at the examination, will not the disused faculties revenge
themselves by rusting? If I could say it without being officious and
intrusive, I would say to some who are about to graduate this year, do
not feel that your education is finished, when the diploma of your
institution is in your hands. Look upon the knowledge you have gained
only as a stepping stone to a future, which you are determined shall
grandly contrast with the past.

While some of the authors of the present day have been weaving their
stories about white men marrying beautiful quadroon girls, who, in so
doing were lost to us socially, I conceived of one of that same class to
whom I gave a higher, holier destiny; a life of lofty self-sacrifice and
beautiful self-consecration, finished at the post of duty, and rounded
off with the fiery crown of martyrdom, a circlet which ever changes into
a diadem of glory.

The lesson of Minnie's sacrifice is this, that it is braver to suffer
with one's own branch of the human race,--to feel, that the weaker and
the more despised they are, the closer we will cling to them, for the
sake of helping them, than to attempt to creep out of all identity with
them in their feebleness, for the sake of mere personal advantages, and
to do this at the expense of self-respect, and a true manhood, and a
truly dignified womanhood, that with whatever gifts we possess, whether
they be genius, culture, wealth or social position, we can best se