The Christian pulpit has ever been acknowledged to be a great power for good among all people. Coming as it does divinely commissioned and bearing to man a divine message, it has a claim upon the attention and the acceptation of mankind. Its claim to be heard is founded on the fact that it has something to say--some truth to communicate about God, His character, His purpose concerning man, His unbounded goodness and infinite love--about man, his duty and his destiny, and the great salvation offered to him. The Christian pulpit is peculiarly and inseparably interwoven in the social life, moral deportment and religious growth of the people. In its character it is to be the representation of the highest standard of ethical deportment and the best example of religious life. From it the people are to receive their inspiration for that which is pure, exalted and ennobling. To the Christian pulpit the people look for the loftiest ideals of life. In this respect the Negro more than any other people has been largely dependent upon the pulpit. Emerging as he did more than a quarter of a century ago from a thraldom which fettered his body and imprisoned his intellect and buried him in ignorance, it was the Christian pulpit represented at that time by the good old fathers of those dark and trying days--to whom the good and lamented Bishop Haygood paid high compliment in one of his addresses--they it was who saved their people from conditions which would have been vastly more deplorable but for such moral and religious instruction as they were able to impart. As a race we have moved an amazing distance from that period. Schools, seminaries and universities have sprung up as if by magic. Educated young men and young women have gone forth from these institutions determined to do their best for God and humanity. The Negro press has also arisen and swayed a mighty influence for moral and religious good, but neither the school nor the press has been recognized as an efficient substitute for the pulpit. What was true as regards the place and power of the pulpit to uplift the people in the dark days of the past is equally true now in these days of light and knowledge. The educated and Christian pulpit is an indispensable factor in the elevation of the race to-day.