INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT ETC.                467

islators; to the general government, congressmen, business
men, professors, and thousands of common school teachers
have been trained at her altars.
              "On every hand in this fair land,
             Proud Ethiope's swarthy children stand
             Beside their fairer neighbor;
              The forests flee, before that stroke,
              The hammers ring, their forges smoke-
              They stir in honest labor.

              They tread the fields where honor calls;
              Their voices sound through senate halls
              In majesty and power.
              To right they cling, the hymns they sing
              Up to the skies in beauty ring,
              And bolder grow each hour."
  What a glorious record! what surprising results! The
special attention which was given to education from the
start has given us great advantage, and as a result we excel
all other Negro denominations in mental worth. An Abys-
sinian prince, visiting England and awed by the splendor of
what he saw, asked Queen Victoria: "What is the secret
of your success?" The good queen took a Bible and holding
it up said: "Noble prince this is the secret of my great-
ness." If one of the Oriental potentates on visiting this
country and beholding our magnificent churches, schools, and
colleges, noting our church of a million members, the great
men that we have produced and the books they have written,
our bishops of great moral earnestness and of impeccable
character, our adventurous and courageous missionary
spirit and were to ask me what is the secret of all this
splendid achievement in so short a time, I would take the
Holy Bible in one hand and the spelling book in the other
and say, "Sir these are the sills upon which we have built
and therefore they are the secret of our success."
   As a Negro organization, in education we lead the world;
yet we have merely touched the rim of our educational work.
There are places which are calling loudly for the blessing of




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911