create an enthusiasm and desire for learning, but they are turning the money acquired and the material prosperity attained by our colored brethren into those higher influences which effect the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. That is what these colleges are for.

It is impossible now to amplify the thought, but I wish in connection with it to name three particulars. And first, it is entirely possible for us, in heeding the Scripture admonition to preach the gospel to every creature, to neglect those great and overwhelming forces in new communities which are sweeping the youth away. I read in a Providence paper last Saturday evening that there are no infidel books published in the Welsh language. I know those Welsh people well. This statement may be true; but meanwhile, forces outside of them which they cannot control are threatening to sweep their youth away into the gulf of materialism and atheism in the new communities. The children speak English, and are thus led into the outside drift.

The second point is this: It is wise to put our directive force where the power is. It is utterly impossible to build institutions in the State of Massachusetts or in New England that will answer the purpose for the South. The children of this world build their water-wheel where their water-power is. The children of light sometimes build their water-wheel where the power is not, or where it has already been appropriated. We must put healthy, strong institutions into the South. They are worth even more than the local churches we are planting. They stand in need of support. The local churches give them character.

Third, I think we have need of a larger Christian sagacity in the distribution of funds for this purpose. In my appeals for educational work, no one has heard me say I would have less money given for older institutions, I believe there can be a wiser distribution of money with reference to the kingdom of God. Any one looking upon this field will tell you that one dollar put into an institution of learning in the Southern field—conditions being as they are, these forces being yet undirected—one dollar in one of these institutions will often accomplish more than one hundred in an old one. I have told people frequently—and I believe those who have studied this problem will assent to it—that one dollar for a Christian college in the Western field, will accomplish more than ten put into some of the older institutions. What I say then is, that if we wish to have a larger sagacity, if we wish to give our money with wiser heed to results, we shall put more into those institutions on the Southern field which are to determine what the South shall be; we shall put more into those institutions in the great Mississippi valley which are to determine what the Mississippi valley shall be, and which, two generations hence, are to determine what this continent shall be. Let not less be given to the old; but, my friends, the most economical giving is the money given to your higher institutions in the South and in all our new communities.

PURITANISM AND THE DESPISED RACES.

Address at the Annual Meeting.

BY REV. C. M. SOUTHGATE, DEDHAM, MASS.

What I have to say will be upon this point: Why Puritanism is especially fitted to elevate the despised races. I say Puritanism; I might say Congregationalism; but that word sometimes means a polity, while this means something higher—clear thinking, strong believing, pure living, solemn and earnest acting; that spiritual life, in a word, which expresses itself in Congregationalism, not anything developed by its machinery.

(1). It has peculiar power and fitness to elevate the despised races. First, because we know so little of the capacity of either of these races. In the geographies of twenty years ago the centre of Africa was marked "Unexplored Region." The race that dwells there is still unexplored. When we say Persia, Greece, Rome, the word represents not only a people but an idea. Each of these nations has flashed forth before the world and left its mark upon it. But of Africa we have heard nothing; it has not displayed itself or impressed itself upon the world outside. It has given nothing of civilization or religion. And so of the Indians. Of their predecessors we learn much from the mounds they built; of themselves we know little. We know more of the former from their graves, than of the latter from their lives. The Chinese we have called our antipodes, in spirit as well as locality, and let them go at that, with this meager record, that grown men spend their lives in carving toys and find their pleasure in smoking opium. To lift up these races we want that power which conquered the conquerors of Rome, and put the destiny of the world into the hands of the Anglo-Saxon. We want the power which shall convince them of manhood within and God above, and bring them face to face with the Almighty.

(2). We want Puritanism brought to these despised races, because there is in them such a tendency to degradation. This is seen abundantly in all of them; let us speak of it especially among the Freedmen. The Association has no feelings of mere romance in doing its work. Those who have been engaged in it for years look with open eyes on depths of degradation which you at a distance can hardly comprehend. In the cities, the colored people are influenced by the civilization around them. In some cases they have made excellent progress by themselves, as in the old Dorchester settlement in Liberty County, Georgia. But as a rule, when left alone, there is a terrible settling downwards. It is seen in Louisiana on remote sugar plantations, where their cabins, if before the war like cattle-pens, are now pest-houses; in Mississippi swamps, where their worship is fetichism and their lives savagery. Slavery was a great leveler; it leveled many down, but it also leveled many up in physical condition. I sat one memorable week, day after day, in company with teachers who had spent eight or ten years in hard work with these people. As they gave their accounts of those outside their influence, it seemed like standing on a jutting crag at night, an inky sky above, an inky sea below, and wave after wave rolling in, black, with scarce a gleam of brightness. No ecclesiastical polity, no scenic shows, can do anything for a people sinking like this. We need a faith which grasps with intense reality the fact that sin leads to remediless destruction; that it needed the Son of God to die for its victims, and believes the Son of God did die for them; and with these convictions is not afraid of any darkness He bids it enlighten, or any devils He bids it cast out.

(3). We want, again, the power of Puritanism for these despised races, because it has done so much for them. We heard words of hearty praise this afternoon telling of the success of the work. They told hardly enough. But these efforts should be redoubled. We want more institutions like those at Atlanta, New Orleans, Charleston, and the other large Southern cities, where high culture and intelligence rule. The scholarship can be compared without fear with similar grades at the North. I never heard in our boasted common schools such recitations as I have heard from boys as black as the blackest. I know what Yale and Harvard and Dartmouth can show; but in Greek and Latin those colored students can rival their excellence. The culture in morals and manners is at least not inferior, nor the religious instruction less fruitful. The report from the churches shows as large and as healthy success as we can show here. The young men and women in these institutions have an intense longing to be at work for the Master. The desperate condition of their race rests upon them like a pall. God is making them His prophets and speaking through them, and sending redemption. It is Puritanism which has done this.

It seems to have been put upon us to