What is the great difficulty with the black race, in this era, in this land? It is that both within their ranks, and external to themselves, by large schools of thought interested in them, material ideas in divers forms are made prominent, as the master-need of the race, and as the surest way to success. Men are constantly dogmatizing theories of sense and matter as the salvable hope of the race. Some of our leaders and teachers boldly declare, now, that _property_ is the source of power; and then, that _money_ is the thing which commands respect. At one time it is _official position_ which is the masterful influence in the elevation of the race; at another, men are disposed to fall back upon _blood_ and _lineage_, as the root (source) of power and progress. Blind men! For they fail to see that neither property, nor money, nor station, nor office, nor lineage, are fixed factors, in so large a thing as the destiny of man; that they are not vitalizing qualities in the changeless hopes of humanity. The greatness of peoples springs from their ability to grasp the grand conceptions of being. It is the absorption of a people, of a nation, of a race, in large majestic and abiding things which lifts them up to the skies. These once apprehended, all the minor details of life follow in their proper places, and spread abroad in the details and the comfort of practicality. But until these gifts of a lofty civilization are secured, men are sure to remain low, debased and grovelling. It was the apprehension of this great truth which led Melancthon, 400 years ago, to declare--"Unless we have the scientific mind we shall surely revert again to barbarism." He was a scholar and a classic, a theologian and a philosopher. With probably the exception of Erasmus, he was the most erudite man of his age. He was the greatest Grecian of his day. He was rich "with the spoils of time." And so running down the annals of the ages, he discovered the majestic fact, which Coleridge has put in two simple lines:-- "We may not hope from outward things to win The passion and the life whose fountains are within;" which Wordsworth, in grand style, has declared, "By the soul only the nations shall be free."