With this charter as a missionary society for schools and churches, we present to the Negro race continually the personal hope of souls not only, but the hope of the race. When they think that the progress is slow we tell them that Christianity is sure. When they tell us that they can not wait, but must organize and retaliate, we tell them to wait upon God. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." We ask them to remember that a quarter of a century, or a century, is a short time in the history of a people. We point to a million--a round million--of Negro children in the schools to-day. We are teaching them to be men. We are saving them to be Christians. We teach them not to remain down and not to be put down. Being men, they are to stand like men, but like Christian men, to conquer prejudices by worthiness, to meet race hatred with only a stronger purpose to command respect, not to render evil for evil, but contrariwise, blessing; not blow for blow, but to go on upbuilding themselves, deserving their rights, and remembering that a great element in the solution of this problem must be an intelligent faith in God. With this missionary view we stand firm. We have learned that the Southerners of our own race, even when they hold their prejudices against our principles, respect those who stand in a Christian way for their principles; and that these principles will never be accepted in the South by our holding them loosely, or in suspense, or in any sort of abeyance. They respect us when we teach our people that they have all the rights of manhood and womanhood; that they are to respect themselves and to be worthy of self-respect; that they are not to consent in their own minds to any assertion of superiority based upon the tint of the skin, and that they are never to feel guilty for being black. We are teaching the colored people to hold honor with themselves. What this Association and other missionary forces have done and are doing--this Association more than others--will be the balance of power to prevent the dreaded conflict of races; _the balance of power_ to settle the question; How can the two races live in the same section with mutual respect for each other's civil and Christian rights? This may take time. Christianity takes time. It is ours to take Christianity to teach that the beginning of Christianity was the death blow to wrong principles and evil practices of men, however well intrenched and fortified these forces may be. It is this which gives us courage to grapple with centuries of wrong and to undertake the slow reduction of these evils. When Christianity came, the era of conscience came, and in His gospel is the power of intelligence and moral determination that shall not be overcome of evil, but shall overcome evil with good. "Men bound with right are strong: Right bound with right in Christian faith Will conquer a world of wrong."