But need this education be _Christian_ education? I answer emphatically, yes. The world undoubtedly is making great progress in thought, in discovery, in invention. More and more the dominion of nature is being conquered and her methods understood. Education is not the same as it was a century ago. Even religion is not to us quite the same that it was to our fathers. But whatever discoveries may be made or whatever progress attained, there are some things which the world can never advance so far as to be able to do without, and I but voice the sentiment of this audience when I say that one of these is Christianity. And now who are these that in our Southern States are stretching forth their hands and begging us to come over and help them? They are those whose minds and hearts are not pre-occupied, but like those of children, receptive, ready for the seed which may be sown, and promising, if good seed is sown, a bountiful harvest at no distant day. They are placed, in the providence of God, at our very door, and are made a part of the governing force of this great republic. For them Christian education cannot be secured through the family, for there is little Christian family life; the father and the mother are as ignorant as the child; all are children. It cannot be secured through the State, for the State has no business to teach religion as these millions need to have it taught. It can be secured only through organized charity—by the help of such agencies as the American Missionary Association. What the fathers and mothers of New England have done for the Christian education of their children, the American Missionary Association must do for the South. I have emphasized the word Christian as I have spoken of Christian education. Let me not in any less degree emphasize _education_. Matthew Arnold is not far wrong when he says that the object of religion is conduct, and that conduct is three-fourths of life. It is simply doing what we ought. But one of the things which a man ought to do is to make the most of himself as a power for good in the world, and that he cannot do without education. Man, without education, is a clumsy machine. The educated man is force which drives machines. This force, if uncontrolled, becomes destructive. The educated man, without principles, is more dangerous than the uneducated. The latter may become at the worst a brute; it takes the former to be a demon. But we do not on this account think less of education; we only insist that the force it generates shall be controlled by Christian principle. Thus controlled it is always beneficent, like fire and water and air, which, nevertheless, when uncontrolled, may become agents of the most fearful destruction.