And now, what is it that makes these races weaker, less prosperous, less independent than our own? It is the lack of education; it is the lack of developed intelligence, not of native ability. And what are the claims which ignorance may make upon intelligence? It may not claim a right to power; it may not claim a share in property; it may not claim an equal social position with intelligence; but it may claim an opportunity to fit itself for all these things. Suppose a man had been born and had lived his life at the bottom of a pit; and he cries out, as you listen to him at the brink, “Give me a voice in the control of your affairs up there. I am in the United States as truly as you are, if I am at the bottom of this hole. I want to vote and have a voice in the affairs of the nation.” You may properly suggest to him that until he has seen the lay of the land he can hardly decide which way the roads had better run, that until he has lived in the upper air he can hardly know what institutions for the general control of society are best and wisest. He cries out to you again from the bottom of the pit, “Give me some money; I have had no chance to earn any down here. Throw down some greenbacks.” And you remind him that greenbacks as a circulating medium from one pocket to another are not a particularly profitable investment, and that if deposited in the clay bank, in which his hole is dug, they would yield him no great return. He says to you, “At any rate, throw down a broadcloth suit; I want to dress as well as you.” You intimate again that even goodly raiment would not add greatly to his comfort in his present state. But if that much-to-be-pitied man is wise, he will cry out for one thing only: “Reach me down a ladder, by which I may climb up to where you are.” If he is wise, the one thing he will ask of you is not a share in the control you have, not a share in the possessions you have acquired, not a share in the social position you may have attained, but it is an opportunity to fit himself for the acquirement and use of all these things. It is our business, brethren and friends, and it is the work of this Association, to reach that ladder down. If you will but let our brother get his hands upon the lowest round, he will come up and stand with us in God’s sunshine, as we have already seen him do. If we forbear, if we refuse, we are more guilty than the priest and the Pharisee who went by on the other side; we are as guilty as were Joseph’s brethren who lowered their brother into the pit and left him there and went their way.