's foot."

"I beg pardon. A snake bone or a rabbit's foot, did you say? I really
don't understand."

"Yes, threaten to conjure them. That might have fetched them."

"Ah, I see. Quite extraordinary, I assure you."

The priest began to talk, and with profound attention they turned to
him. He sat there with the mystery of the medieval ages about him, with
a great and silent authority behind him.

"Have you gentlemen ever considered the religious condition of the
negro? Have you not made his religion a joke? Is it not a popular belief
that he will shout at his mourners' bench until midnight and steal a
chicken before the dawn? He has been taught that religion is purely an
emotion and not a matter of duty. He does not know that it means a life
of inward humanity and outward obedience. I have come to teach him this,
to save him; for in our church lies his only salvation, not alone of his
soul, but of his body and of his rights as well as of his soul. I speak
boldly, for I am an American, the descendant of American patriots. And I
tell you that the Methodist negro and the Baptist negro and the
Presbyterian negro are mere local issues; but the Catholic negro is
international--he belongs to the great nervous system of Rome; and
whenever Rome reaches out and draws him in, he is that moment removed as
a turbulent element from politics. Although slavery was long ago
abolished, there existed and to some small extent still exists a bond
between the white man and the black man of the South--a sort of family
tie; but this tie is straining and will soon be broken; a new generation
is coming, and the negro and the white man will be two antagonistic
forces, holding in common no sunny past--one remembering that his father
was a master, the other that his father was a slave. When that time
comes, and it is almost at hand, there will be a serious trouble growing
out of a second readjustment. The Anglo-Saxon race cannot live on a
perfect equality with any other race; it must rule; it demands complete
obedience. And the negro will resent this demand, more and more as the
old family ties are weakened. He has seen that his support at the North
was merely a political sentiment, and must know that it will not sustain
him in his efforts against capital, for capital, in the eye of capital,
is always just, and labor, while unfortunate, is always wrong. And when
the negro realizes this, remembering all his other wrongs, he will
become desperate.