ro pulpit has remained steadfast
and redoubled its efforts.

As is indicated in the quotation from America's greatest orator,
Daniel Webster, the chief and first work of the pulpit is spiritual
instruction.

As an evidence of the success of the Negro pulpit along this line the
race may point to a larger percentage of Negro Christians according to
population than is true of any other people in this Christian land.
While it is true the Negro brought the Christian religion over from
slavery as the best heritage which that cruel system bequeathed to
him, it remained for the Negro pulpit to give shape, tone and organic
significance to Negro Christianity.

In organizing the Negro into separate and distinctly racial societies
for the conduct of religious worship and church government the Negro
pulpit did a work which has given the race greater prestige and more
clearly demonstrated its capabilities and possibilities than any other
work which has been done by or for the race toward uplifting it. When
the Negro proved his ability to organize and conduct successfully a
religious denomination of great size and strength, it proved its
capacity to develop and govern itself along any other line. Surely the
words of the prophet in which he speaks of a people "scattered and
peeled," "a nation meted out and trodden down," seem fittingly
applicable to the condition of the Negro just emerged from slavery.

It was this people, thus situated, that the Negro pulpit took hold of
and formed into church societies and religious denominations, which
now have followings which number up into the hundred thousands and
possess property valued at millions of dollars deeded to, and held by
and for the race.

Quickly seconding the work of organization followed the work of
education. Before the free school began the Negro preacher became a
teacher of his people to the full extent of his ability. Those who
were sufficiently qualified found employment as public school
teachers, while the more progressive and better qualified began to
plan for institutions of higher grade to better qualify themselves and
prepare teachers and leaders for the future weal of the race.

Whether we point to Wilberforce at Xenia, Ohio, secured to the A. M.
E. Church through the late lamented Bishop D. A. Payne, D. D.;
Livingstone College, over which that prince of American orators and
foremost of Negro educators, Dr. Joseph Chas. Price, presided, from
its permanent organi