What do we propose to do about it?  What do we propose to do with more than two millions for whom Christ died, American citizens, in the very heart of our Nation, around whom the currents of commerce and industry swirl every day?  Shall the greatest tidal wave of all time pass them by, and they not feel it for a moment?  More than all, shall the great gospel of God, which is life, and hope, and peace, and home, for us, be nothing for them?

I am happy to say that it is not all dark by any manner of means.  Your committee is hopeful, the members of this Association are hopeful, our brethren on the frontier are hopeful.  There are very many favorable things, and one of the most favorable is their increasing numbers.  Do we stop to estimate what two millions of souls means?  More than thirty thousand cradles filled in a single year.

These men respect the Bible.  They feel a superstitious regard for it; they are not infidel people.  They have a simple, childlike faith, and the Bible word is to them final.  Many things that many of us have to contend with, the brethren there do not meet I mean in the field of infidelity.

They have great respect for woman if she respects herself.  I have the statement of one of our workers in the South that a woman can go even among these men when they are drunk, and if she respects herself and has maintained her character she is perfectly safe in their midst.

This same writer tells me of a young man who went out from one of their schools, and kept school in a certain place during the winter, When he returned, he said:  “Nothing would tempt me to go back there again.”  Not so with the young ladies.  It is one of the most astonishing signs of the times that really into the feeble hand of womanhood is given the key of the situation.  They respect these girls, they reverence them and give them a place of dignity in their hearts.  That makes it possible for these women to do a large and splendid work in the South.

Once let these girls that come under the influence of our Christian Northern women who go there as teachers, and the graduates of these various colleges and schools that we have planted, and are about to plant in the South; once let common womanhood in the South that has been so much under the heel of this oppression; once let girlhood feel the power that has come go girlhood, that to them as young women in the cradle of these hills, under this fair sky is given the power to turn over in not less than thirty or forty years this whole country for God and humanity, for enlightenment and for Christian peace;—­once let that idea get into the minds of these girls, and we have not the same problem that we have to-day.

There is good blood there as well.  There is a man in Congress to-day, honoring himself and his district and his nation, who went to school there, and I know not for how many years wore but one garment.  I call that pretty good blood when from such circumstances a man can come up to such a large place.