"But as a faithful watch-dog stands and guards with jealous eye, He cared for master's wife and child, and at the door would lie, To shed his blood in their defense, 'gainst traitors, thieves, and knaves, Altho' those masters went to fight to keep them helpless slaves." Some have claimed that, instead of putting so much money in churches, the Negro, after the war, should have built mills and factories, and thus would have advanced more rapidly in civilization; but I rejoice that he did build churches, and to-day can say that of the three hundred millions he has accumulated, more than forty millions are in church property in the sixteen Southern States. This shows his fidelity and gratitude to God, and that by intuition he had grasped the fundamental fact that faith and love and morality are greater bulwarks for the perpetuity of a nation than material wealth; that somehow he was in accord with God's holy mandate that "man does not live by bread alone." Guided by a superior wisdom, he first sought the kingdom of heaven, and it does seem that "all these things" are slowly being added to him. Education and wealth, unsanctified by the grace of God, are after all, curses rather than a blessing. We are to rise, not by our strong bodies, our intellectual powers, or material wealth, although these are necessary concomitants, but by the virtue, character, and honesty of our men and women. We are proud of our 30,000 teachers, 2,000 graduated doctors, 1,000 lawyers, 20,000 ordained ministers, 75,000 business men, 400 patentees, and 250,000 farms all paid for, as evidences of our possibilities, but proudest of the fact that nearly three millions of our almost ten millions of Negroes are professing Christians. It is true that the black man is not always the best kind of a Christian. He is often rather crude in worship, with a rather hazy idea of the connection between religion and morality. A colored man, on making a loud profession of religion, was asked if he were going to pay a certain debt he had contracted, remarked, "'Ligun is 'ligun, an' bisnes' is bisnes', an' I aint gwy mix um," yet I am afraid ours is not the only race that fails to "mix um," and he does not have to go far to find others with advantages far superior to his, who have not reached the delectable mountain. We, like others, are seeking higher ground, and some have almost reached it. Thank God we can point to thousands of Negro Christians whose faith is as strong as that of the prophets of old, and whose lives are as pure and sweet as the morning dew. Our greatest curse to-day is the rum-shop, kept far too often by men of the developed and forward race to filch from us our hard earnings, and give us shame and misery in return. And a man who would deliberately debauch and hinder a backward race, struggling for the light, would "rob the dead, steal the orphan's bread, pillage the palace of the King of Kings, and clip the angels' pinions while they sing."