The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 133

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

133

increased skill, and habits of neatness. President
McCrory of Biddle University, Charlotte, N. C.,
emphasizes this when in the Afric-American he
says: “Newbern is the home of Lawyer R. W. Wil-
liamson, who is one of the most successful graduates
Biddle University has sent out. Settling in New-
bern shortly after graduating twenty-seven years
ago, he is now one of the wealthiest colored men of
North Carolina.” Our mission-schools ought to
teach, and I think they do teach, the Negro, to “owe
no man anything but love,” to work hard to secure
independence, to be able to provide a good home,
to give sons and daughters a good Christian edu-
cation, and generously to support the Church. The
more generally this is done, the more highly the
Negro will be respected. This is recognized by even
the enemies of the race, the large class of those who
oppose his rise and wish to keep him in perpetual
subservience; those who pay very low wages and
often do not even pay these (a condition the courts
will not remedy) or so arrange contracts that after
the harvest the Negro finds himself more deeply in
debt than before. Such methods arouse no sense
of wrong-doing. They are resorted to that “the
Negro may be kept in his place”! Every school or
institution that insists on industry, better labor,
skill of every kind, is doing much to free the Negro
from such dependence and to make him respected
and influential.

And, of course, Mr. Hayes would have assented
to the statement that the truest industry and the
finest elements in respect come-from a religious
character, a heart impelled by Christian motives.
Not all men of property or wealth are respected and
influential. The Negro, just as much as any other
man, needs a trained conscience and a Christian
ideal if his life is to be satisfactory and he is to
be “respected and influential.” To-do a great
wrong to a Negro (Othello), Iago bade his fellow-
rascal, “Put money in thy purse,” thinking “money
and wealth are all things.” But we want the Negro
to gain and save and accumulate in a spirit of de-
votion to God and his fellow-man, and nothing but
an earnest Christian training will do this.

The Negro shall reflect that the more he gains
in respect and influence, the more will he help to
right his wrongs. There is no doubt that he is still
compelled to suffer injuries. A business man in
Georgia, a native of that State and a member of
the Southern Presbyterian Church, remarked:
“There is no law for the Negro in Georgia. I have
lived here all my life, and I know the Negro cannot

depend upon the laws of this State. And many
whites will not pay what they owe to the Negro, and
the Negro cannot collect.’ The intelligent, edu-
cated Negro is not allowed to vote. Other rights
are withheld. Such conditions ought to be reme-
died. And one of the best ways for the Negro to
remedy them is to go on proving his worthiness,
making himself, by industry, property, refinement,
self-restraint, and Christian uprightness, a type of
what the Negro can be, a proof of what he is when
given the right chance. His is not an easy task,
but he may well believe there are many hundreds
of thousands of the best people in this country who
not only sympathize with him, but regard him as
the victim of evil men. Under our system of gov-
ernment, since the States are independent, outsiders
cannot right these wrongs. But a public opinion
can be created, a better and wiser spirit can be
aroused; the power and influence of the Southern
prejudiced masses can be weakened, and the better
and nobler people of those States can be helped to
the supremacy where right and justice shall prevail.

Meanwhile our Lutheran Church will go on
giving the Negro the Gospel and a truly Christian
education in its mission-schools and help him to
win the respect of even his enemies.

Lutheran Church of Our Savior,
Buffalo, N. Y.

Events are moving forward slowly, but surely
in the field of our missionary work among the col-
ored people of our Cold Springs section. It has
now definitely been decided to purchase the property
on Northland Avenue, to erect a suitable chapel on
this property, and to remodel the cottage to serve
as a residence for the missionary in charge of this
work. The final wrinkles are now being ironed out
of the sales agreement with the owners of this prop-
erty, and within a few weeks, we hope and pray,
work on the new chapel will have been started.

A wonderful spirit of cooperation and enthu-
siasm is prevailing among all our churches and in
the ranks of the Church Extension Society of Buf-
falo, which is in charge of this building project.

Special gifts for the support of this work have
been very generous, and we hope that all congre-
gations in Buffalo and in the surrounding territory
will continue to remember this missionary work in
their prayers and with their offerings.

H. F. Wrnp.