dence
pointing on to that future. Let us look at some of these facts and their
bearings.

First of all, the Negro is here, and that not of his own consent. He has
not forced himself upon the country; he has been forced to make this his
home against his will. We of the white race are responsible for his
presence. We invited him here in the most pressing manner, and would not
take "no" for an answer.

And he is here to stay. All the ingenious schemes for settling this
troublesome question by taking up the black race bodily and dropping it
in some roomy region far away from all possible contact with white
people, are utterly delusive. The Negro does not want to go elsewhere.
Having been compelled to make his home here for two centuries, he is
domesticated here, and has as good a right to remain as the white man.
Moreover, he can see as well as any one that this is the best country in
the world to live in--the land offering greatest opportunity for
advancement, the poor man's Paradise. Brought by force, he will not
relinquish his rightful hold here except by force. And we may be sure
that our National Government will never undertake the chimerical
experiment of deporting him to some other land, and pay the enormous
expense of it out of the National Treasury. Having been brought by the
providence of God to expiate its former wrongs to the black man at such
immense cost of treasure and blood, the Nation will be slow to tax
itself enormously to do him another wrong.

Moreover, it is not necessary that the races should be separated in
order to settle the difficulty that now disturbs us. All the Negro asks
is to be treated with justice and equity, and to be given a fair chance
in life. We have simply to apply the elementary principles of our common
Christianity to the problem and deal with the Negro in the spirit of the
Golden Rule and the whole difficulty vanishes. It looks as though God
had made this a polychromatic country--red, black, white and yellow--on
purpose that we might give a gospel illustration of the essential unity
of all races, and show how these rainbow tints are to be blended in the
white light of Christian brotherhood.

Nor is it desirable that the black man should leave us, even if he
wanted to. It would impoverish us in no small degree and cripple us in
our advancement. He is the natural laborer of the South, and has added,
as we shall see, immensely to its prosperity since the war, and he is to
be one