Now it would have been pleasant, to human ways of thinking, if we could have remained always thus homogeneous.  But God had a work for us to do.  We were not left to sit down amidst the vast resources which the land affords for material prosperity, and just watch and foster our own growing and expanding life, but God gave us four problems to solve.  These four problems came to us from the four quarters of the globe, the Indian of America on the North, the Chinaman of Asia on the West, the descendant of Africa on the South, and the emigrant of Europe on the East, who poured, in great masses, through our Eastern gates, the German unbeliever, the Irish Catholic, the Mormon convert, and representatives of every race of Europe.

The English race, which still represents the heart and brain of the nation, confronts these four problems.  The problem on the North and South we brought on ourselves, as results on the one hand of our neglect and injustice, and on the other of our cupidity and cruelty.  The troubles that come to us through our Eastern and Western ports, are drawn to us by the attractive influence of our free institutions and our material prosperity.

What are we to do with these alien elements?  Do as Rome did.  When Rome heard of a hostile nation on her borders, she conquered it, attached it to the Empire, and made it a new pillar of imperial power.  So are we to conquer every element of darkness and attach it to the kingdom of light, making it an element of strength in our American civilization and our American Christianity.  The difference in the method is the difference between paganism and Christianity, for while Rome conquered with a sword of steel, we conquer with the sword of the Spirit.  We conquer by giving gifts unto men, the four gifts of law, land, letters and religion.  We have given law to the African and the European with citizenship and the ballot; we have given land to the African and the European, and, thanks to Christian statesmanship, we will soon give it to the Indian in severalty; and to all will we give letters and religion.

It is the peculiar glory of this Association that it deals more directly than any other agency with the gravest and most urgent of these problems, the education of the colored race, so that while the Government gives the Negro citizenship, and permits him to own land, this society undertakes the work of fitting him for the ownership of land and for the responsibility of citizenship.  And it is doing this in the genuine way, through the gospel of Christ, and education as the handmaid and helper of the gospel—­that helper without which Christianity would be falsely conceived, and erroneously applied, and without which a failure would result in the ethical training of the colored race.  The Association, by its educational work, is thus fulfilling the divine purpose in the call made to us as a Christian nation.