Our survey takes in questions that are painful; disturbing questions that are not in the North, nor in the West.  They are difficult to meet.  They are near, and the troubles which the questions hold are near.  They come close to the heart of Christianity.  They are close to the life of the churches.  They are close to the first principles of human rights.  They are questions that can have only one final solution, which may be so remote that fearful dangers will culminate in terrible disasters before the only remedy can do its work.  There are now nearly eight millions of a Negro population, from four millions twenty years ago.  There are more than two millions of mountain people in the South, one-half of whom cannot read.  These benighted people live where there has never been a public-school system even for the more highly favored race, and where this more highly favored race deliberately assigns those who are not of its color to a permanent inferiority.  The laws of caste are to be inflexibly enforced against all people of color who would rise from their low-down conditions.  This is our Southern mission field, which God has committed to us, according to our faith and opportunity.

Those of our own race in the South could not do this work, which is upon our consciences and hearts, if they would.  They do not see what we see.  They would not if they could.  They do not feel what we feel.

We are sent, not as philanthropists who hear the cry of the poor and needy, nor as patriots who realize the perils that overhang the State, but as missionaries of Jesus Christ who believe that salvation takes in the whole man, including philanthropy and statesmanship, and whatever builds up man for time and for eternity.

We have, however, no other charter for our work than that of missions.  We have no other errand than that of the messengers of Christ.  Only as we go in his name and with his spirit do we ask the churches to listen and hear with us, and with us to look and see.

 OUR SCHOOLS.

Our missionary work has been largely in schools.  It was God’s providence.  But these were always missionary centres.

Their number at the present time is ninety-three; seventeen of these in the Southern States are Normal Schools from which a large proportion of the pupils go forth as teachers.  It is computed that of the 15,000 Negro teachers in the South instructing 800,000 pupils, 13,500 became teachers from missionary schools, and that a great army of more than 7,000 of these teachers received their education in the institutions of the American Missionary Association.  Thus the faith of the churches multiplies and accelerates itself.