These facts all point to the greatness of the work undertaken by this Association. Christian education is the only education for a race having before it such a future. The illiteracy which we deplore must be overcome, but something more than that; that change must be provided for, when the Negro in large numbers will pass from the quiet and peaceful pursuits of agriculture to be massed together in mine and factory and the work of the mechanic arts, but something more than that; intelligence for the burden of citizenship must be given, but something more than that; incentives to the accumulation of property and the building of homes for themselves and their families must be encouraged, but something more than that must be done. If we were simply patriots, we would educate these people; if we were only philanthropists, or wise statesmen, or political economists, we would still feel bound to educate them. But we are more than these, we are Christians, and so there is one other thing we must do besides these I have mentioned, something which includes all these and so is greater than they all--and that thing is to make them Christian. Education is a part of the means to be used, and not the total end and aim. For what is education? Not the mere accumulation of knowledge, nor the mere training of the powers of the mind, but the building of manhood. You have tempered your Damascus blade, but who is going to hold it--the patriot, or the rebel? You have your educated man with his printing press, but what is he going to print--the Police Gazette or the Gospel of St. John? You have built your college and found your young man, and trained him up to the very highest point of mental excellence and power, but what is he going to do with his mind? The mind is only an instrument under the direction of the man. The great thing is the ethical man who is going to use this mind. If there is any thing the American people need to learn, it is that there is one thing greater than talent, and that is character--the love and regard for righteousness. It is here that this Association does its work in the genuine way, regarding education as necessary for the colored race and for all races, not as an end in itself, but as an instrument in the hands of a man ethically and Christianly trained. The gospel must go with the school, so that we may train not only the hand and the brain, but also the conscience and the heart. When I think of the future of the Negro race in America, of the possibilities of that race already being revealed, of the immense political significance of its position to-day, of the certain increase of its numbers, of the inevitable collision of races by and by, unless there be a change in the spirit of the whites, I feel that no education is to be trusted but Christian education, an education based on the gospel of Christ.