at
shall bring them to manhood. And after the government, honoring
them as men summoned them to the field, when once they were
disciplined, and had learned the arts of war, they have proved
themselves to be not second to their white brethren in arms. And
when the roll of men that have shed their blood is called in the
other land, many and many a dusky face will rise, dark no more when
the light of eternal glory shall shine upon it from the throne of
God! 5. The industry of the Southern States is regenerated, and now
rests upon a basis that never fails to bring prosperity. Just now
industry is collapsed; but it is not dead; it sleepeth. It is vital
yet. It will spring like mown grass from the roots that need but
showers and heat and time to bring them forth. Though in many
districts not a generation will see wanton wastes of self-invoked
war repaired, and many portions may lapse again to wilderness, yet,
in our lifetime, we shall see States, as a whole, raised to a
prosperity, vital, wholesome, and immovable, 6. The destruction of
class interests, working with a religion which tends toward true
democracy, in proportion as it is pure and free, will create a new
era of prosperity for the common laboring people of the South, Upon
them have come the labor, the toil, and the loss of this war. They
have fought blindfolded. They have fought for a class that sought
their degradation, while they were made to believe that it was for
their own homes and altars. Their leaders meant a supremacy which
would not long have left them political liberty, save in name. But
their leaders are swept away. The sword has been hungry for the
ruling classes. It has sought them out with remorseless zeal. New
men are to rise up; new ideas are to bud and blossom; and there will
be men with different ambition and altered policy. 7, Meanwhile,
the South, no longer a land of plantations, but of farms; no longer
tilled by slaves, but by freedmen, will find no hindrance to the
spread of education. Schools will multiply. Books and papers will
spread. Churches will bless every hamlet. There is a good day
coming for the South. Through darkness and tears and blood she has
sought it. It has been an unconscious _via_ _dolorosa_. But in the
end it will be worth all that it has cost. Her institutions before
were deadly. She nourished death in her bosom. The greater her
secular prosperity, the more sure was her ruin. Every year of delay