470                  A. M. E. REVIEW.

versal in scope, and in union with the Church of all ages.
Prejudice gave the opportunity, oppression made her a ne-
cessity, and religious liberty made her a reality. Her field
is the world, but on account of her peculiar fitness, God has
given her the special work of redeeming the Negro race;
no other race can interpret the Negro as the Negro
and can appreciate his worth, and has the patience to bear
with his shortcomings. In training him none can enter into
his peculiarities and can understand his idiosyncrasies, and
bring out what is best and noblest in him as those of his
own ethnic stock, hence the A. M. E. Church.
  Caucasians, the leaders of the world in religious ideas and
in civilization are an intellectual people; to know, to obtain,
and to rule is their chief characteristic. This desire dwarfs
and weakens their moral nature and exposes them to the
dreadful onslaughts of godlessness. Adversity is sending
more of them to an untimely grave than the frightful rav-
ages of tuberculosis; infidelity, insanity, heart-breaks, and
suicides, like the small-pox, disfigure their racial life. While
on the other hand the Negro's distinguishing merits lie in
the emotional side of his generous nature. It matters not
how heavy his burden, his native capacity has always
"glinted forth amidst the storm."
  A race that has been deeply poisoned by savagery, that
has powerfully touched a boasted superior race, has lifted
itself up from a revolting paganism and grasped the saving
points in an eternal religion is destined to be the religious
leaders of the world. Let us indulge in the pleasing hope,
when the world, under the attractive influence of a godless
civilization, has thrown down the altars of the true and liv-
ing God, has wandered away from righteousness, has re-
jected Jesus as the Saviour of the world; when atheism has
closed the eye of the soul, and the world is numbed by reason
of a cold  intellectualism; that the black race through the
harmonious development of its powers, redeemed, ennobled,
and with an ability to see things in their true relation will
rise up, clothed with love, faith and hope, shall lead back




			

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