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“KEEP PEGGING AWAY.”

Abraham Lincoln packed into these homely words the expression of his heroic faith and indomitable perseverance.  When victory forsook our armies, when elections at the North pronounced against the administration, and when timid and disloyal people were clamoring for “peace at any price,” this great man, discerning clearly that only by arms could the rebellion be crushed, acted upon this motto.  He did not mean by this that a mere idle pretense of doing something should be kept up; he meant a steady pressure growing constantly more intense and effective; when volunteering flagged, he offered bounties; when bounties failed, he resorted to drafting.  The army must be kept up and it must be fully equipped, and never did a more splendid army tread the earth, and never was money poured out with so lavish a hand.  The end came, and it was worth all it cost.

The war settled two things—­the unity of the nation and the freedom of the slave.  One thing it did not settle—­the future of the Negro.  That question must be settled by his Christian education.  This is just as plain to thoughtful men as it was to Lincoln that military force only could save the nation.  But now as then, there are men who are discouraged and who say that this process of education will take a long time, and so, once more, the air is full of impracticable remedies—­to take the ballot from the Negro—­to transport him to Africa, to the West, to the North!  The cry is, “the white man’s supremacy” at any price.  Now, again, is the time for Lincoln’s motto, “keep pegging away,” and that not merely in a perfunctory way, but by pushing more and more vigorously.  In this moral warfare, volunteers must be encouraged.  There is no need of special bounties, nor of drafting; only furnish the means to meet the meagre salaries, and the recruits will crowd to the field in abundance, but their numbers must be greatly enlarged.  Hence the great need, as in the dark days of the war, of multiplying the means of equipment.  The money should be poured out with a lavish hand to sustain a vastly enlarged working force.  Money can never be spent at a better time, nor for a better purpose.

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$500,000.

This is the sum recommended for the use of this Association by the National Council, and by our own Annual Meeting.  These figures have not only these indorsements, but also the far greater one of the needs of the field.  Some of our schools are packed to overflowing and scholars are turned away because there is no room, places are opening for enlarged church work which we ought to have the means of entering, and industrial facilities should be increased.  The need for such enlargement is illustrated in part by the items which follow.

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CALLS FOR ENLARGEMENT.

Our schools, with scarcely an exception, are asking for more teachers for their over-crowded rooms, and two or three pulpits stand vacant because we have not suitable pastors for them.  We are able to report great enthusiasm along every line of our work and a spirit of uncommon consecration among all our teachers this year.  We are having a noble year of thorough work.