Is it not evident, first of all, that the Church of Christ is _the_ great and divinely ordained instrument for establishing the Kingdom of God? Schools are undoubtedly instruments. But their place is to supplement, not supplant, the Church. In that long line of Christian work which, beginning at Jerusalem, has well-nigh encircled the world, has not the Church of Christ been the chief machinery through which the good seed of the Gospel has been sown and the crop harvested, through which Christ’s servants have done his work, through which a goodly influence has been exerted, and through which Christian institutions have been founded and preserved? We are seeking the civilization of a down-trodden race, but what force was ever such a civilizer as the Christian Church? Church work is necessary if we are to retain and conserve the results of school work. Let secular education train a man, and he becomes more polished and better equipped for life and work. He has greater power, but it may be a power for sin and selfishness, as truly as for God and righteousness. Let Christian education work upon him as it does in the schools of this Association, he is still more polished, he has a spiritual life. Not when in school, but when the school is left, is the Church most necessary. The influence of the college cannot be about a man in his home, the influence of the Church can. The help of a teacher is transient, the help of a pastor and the associations of a church are permanent. To expect these to retain the best fruits of that Christian education which this Association is so widely diffusing, unless churches take up, and carry on what the schools have begun, is to expect more of the colored race, with its inheritance of degradation, and slavery and little training, than we expect of the white race with its inheritance of Christianity and freedom, and abundant training. Closely allied to this is the need of church work to withstand the evils that are incident to awakened thought and increased knowledge. The air is laden with a sentiment of irreligion. Educating a freedman is breaking up the hard sod of ignorance in which such seeds of evil fall without taking root, providing instead a soil that is very receptive.