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Call for Colored Laborers
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do if you will humble yourself before God. Trusting in Him, you
will find peace and comfort, but following your own way and your
own will, you will find thorns and thistles, and you will lose the
reward.
Time is short, and what you do must be done quickly. Resolve to
redeem the time. Seek not your own pleasure. Rouse yourself! Take
hold of the work with a new purpose of heart. The Lord will open
the way before you. Make every possible effort to work in Christ’s
lines, in meekness and lowliness, relying upon Him for strength.
Understand the work the Lord gives you to do, and, trusting in God,
you will be enabled to go on from strength to strength, from grace
to grace. You will be enabled to work diligently, perseveringly, for
your people while the day lasts; for the night cometh in which no
man shall work.
There is the greatest need for all kinds of missionary work in the
South. Without delay, workers must be prepared for this field. Our
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people should provide a fund for the education of men and women
in the Southern States who, being accustomed to the climate, can
work there without endangering their health.
Promising young men and young women should be educated
to become teachers. They should have the very best advantages.
Schoolhouses and meetinghouses should be built in different places,
and teachers employed.
Those who for years have been working to help the colored
people are well fitted to give counsel in regard to the opening of
such schools. So far as possible these schools should be established
outside the cities. But in the cities there are many children who
could not attend schools away from the cities; and for the benefit
of these, schools should be opened in the cities as well as in the
country.
The children and youth in these schools are to be taught some-
thing more than merely how to read. Industrial lines of work are to
be carried forward. The students are to be provided with facilities
for learning trades that will enable them to support themselves.
Our churches in the North, as well as in the South, should do what
they can to help support the school work for the colored children.
The schools already established should be faithfully maintained. The
establishment of new schools will require additional funds. Let all