Moreover, it is not necessary that the races should be separated in order to settle the difficulty that now disturbs us.  All the Negro asks is to be treated with justice and equity, and to be given a fair chance in life.  We have simply to apply the elementary principles of our common Christianity to the problem and deal with the Negro in the spirit of the Golden Rule and the whole difficulty vanishes.  It looks as though God had made this a polychromatic country—­red, black, white and yellow—­on purpose that we might give a gospel illustration of the essential unity of all races, and show how these rainbow tints are to be blended in the white light of Christian brotherhood.

Nor is it desirable that the black man should leave us, even if he wanted to.  It would impoverish us in no small degree and cripple us in our advancement.  He is the natural laborer of the South, and has added, as we shall see, immensely to its prosperity since the war, and he is to be one of the chief factors in securing the future wealth of the country.  These reasons combine with overwhelming force to show that an exodus is undesirable and impossible, and that the Negro is here to stay.

And he is to be here in greatly increased numbers.  The fecundity of the race is remarkable.  The 4,000,000 blacks that were freed by the emancipation proclamation are 8,000,000 now.  They multiply by births alone 7 per cent. faster than the whites by births and immigration combined.  It is estimated that they are increasing at the rate of 500 a day and that their numbers are now doubling every twenty years.  This may be a little exaggerated, but it is not far out of the way.  If they are increasing and continue to increase at this rate, in twenty years they will be 16,000,000 strong, or nearly as many as the entire population of the whole country in 1840; by 1930, they will number 32,000,000, or more than we had of all races here at the outbreak of our Civil War; by the middle of the next century they will number 64,000,000, or more than our present population within the borders of the Republic.  Discount this estimate as much as you please, the increase in the colored race is sure to be tremendous, and it is plain that the race problem will increase in difficulty and in momentous consequences to the Nation until it is settled on Christian principles.  And the work of settling it admits of no delay.

The Negro is to be a very important factor in promoting the future prosperity of the country.  Already it is manifest that his value to the South as a freed man is far greater than the price formerly set upon him as a chattel.  The unrequited toil of the slave is seen in the light of history to be the dearest kind of labor.  It was frequently said after the war that the emancipated Negro would be worthless as a laborer; that he was naturally lazy, shiftless, and a shirk, and that he would relapse into a vagabond.  But, as a matter of fact, far more good work has been