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One of the impressive thoughts which a visit to an institution like Fisk University is sure to excite, is the relation of all this work to the future.  Apropos of this, the Rev. J.O.A.  Clark, D.D., LL.D., of Macon, Ga., has just written a little tract of fifty pages on “The Future of the Races.”  He does not vote in New England, nor is he a Yankee; but he is a good and true witness.  He says, that the Races are running races along the paths of knowledge and up the hills of science.  These are his words (pages 19 and 20):  “Have they” [the colored people] “availed themselves of the educational facilities?  Have they profited by them?  We answer that they have been incalculably benefited.  They have shown not only that they can receive education, but education of a high order.  Their improvement has been so astonishing as to silence doubt and caviling.  Our Southern eyes have been opened to see it.  Southern candor is free to admit it.  There are none who do not admit it but the hopelessly prejudiced.  I am persuaded that the average examinations in the colored schools are better than the average in the white schools, for teachableness is the basis of all education, and this universally distinguishes the negro.”  Dr. Clark is not saying that the white boy may not learn more easily and master more rapidly, but rather is telling how the hare came out second in the race with his competitor not so fleet of foot, but which had the gift of patient continuance in well-doing.  Still he accentuates the fact that “their improvement is astonishing.”  I am sure that no one can visit Fisk University without having all his doubts dispersed as to the future of the negro race.  It is to have a future.

This leads me to quote the closing words of Dr. Clark’s significant pamphlet (page 52):  “All Africa stretches out her hands to God; to the work of delivering her fatherland from heathenism.  God is calling the blacks of these Southern States.  They are to be the chief instruments in giving the Gospel of Christ to the benighted land of their fathers.  Wherefore, let the work of Christian, and so sanctified, education go on.”

All this is true, and it means that in our American Missionary Association the ministerial education must now be made more prominent.  When white missionaries can say, as one whose bones are in the soil of the Dark Continent did say, “Let a thousand fall before Africa shall be given up,” the children of Africa must respond, “Africa shall be evangelized by Africans.”  That is, we must have more and better theological schools for the Negro people.  The demand for educated Negro ministers, who know what religion is, and what purity is, will be greater and greater.