of steel, we conquer with the sword of the Spirit. We conquer by giving
gifts unto men, the four gifts of law, land, letters and religion. We
have given law to the African and the European with citizenship and the
ballot; we have given land to the African and the European, and, thanks
to Christian statesmanship, we will soon give it to the Indian in
severalty; and to all will we give letters and religion.

It is the peculiar glory of this Association that it deals more directly
than any other agency with the gravest and most urgent of these
problems, the education of the colored race, so that while the
Government gives the Negro citizenship, and permits him to own land,
this society undertakes the work of fitting him for the ownership of
land and for the responsibility of citizenship. And it is doing this in
the genuine way, through the gospel of Christ, and education as the
handmaid and helper of the gospel--that helper without which
Christianity would be falsely conceived, and erroneously applied, and
without which a failure would result in the ethical training of the
colored race. The Association, by its educational work, is thus
fulfilling the divine purpose in the call made to us as a Christian
nation.

The report of the committee also suggests the heroic element in our
work. It brings to mind the obstacles and difficulties which we are
called upon to overcome. The illiteracy of the colored people is a fact
immense in extent and dark in its prophetic significance. Your hearts
were rejoiced, I know, by the statements of the changes going on in the
education of the colored children in several States through free
schools. The need of this movement will be appreciated when we remember
the figures which bring before us the present illiterate condition of
the people. I present the outline of a report made in January, 1885,
based on reports of Albion Tourgee, and on articles in the _North
American Review_. According to that report, seventy-three per cent. of
the colored population of the South cannot read and write. In the eight
Gulf and Atlantic States, seventy-eight per cent. are in the same
condition. Over two millions of colored people in these eight States
cannot read and write. But this is not all. We must take into account
the rapid increase of the negroes. In three States of the South they
already outnumber the whites. In eight States, they are about one-half
the population. In all the Southern States they increa