y. He deliberately set fire to the
city of Rome and accused the Christians of the deed. He gave feasts in
his garden and the bodies of the Christians were burned as torches in
the evenings. Their groans and agonies constituted the music for their
dance and carousal. Other Christians were fed to half-starved lions. But
through it all the church has become more powerful and more glorious
than before; while Nero's name will forever be a stench to the nations
of the earth. In this particular case the prophecy of Christ "That
offences must need be but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh"
is fulfilled. As with the church, so with all other societies and
institutions that are doing good in the community, they endure their
offences.

The history of the growth and rise of the various races will show that
they, too, have had their bitter as well as their sweet. In fact, they
have fought for every inch of territory which they now possess.

Let us consider some of the benefits which have been derived from our
hardships. That the enslavement of my people was a serious offence there
is no doubt. I should be the last one to apologize for slavery; but,
after all, we brought more out of slavery than we carried into it. We
went into it heathens, with no language, and no God; we came out
American citizens, speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue, and serving
the God of all the earth.

Under the leadership of old Richard Allen and other noted colored
divines, the Negro church was set up under a bush harbor, but today they
own church property in this country valued at more than $26,000,000. As
a result of the educational offences committed against the Negro, today
he has 35,000 Negro teachers and more than seventeen million dollars'
worth of school property in this country. The Negro has been
disfranchised, but he is more capable of the ballot today than ever
before. Though the disfranchisement of the Negro has wrought great harm
to our Democratic form of government, it has increased in the Negro the
spirit of patience, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and, in fact, it has
enhanced in him all of those virtues which make for true manhood and
womanhood.

In the business world there has been less offence committed against the
Negro than in any other way. What little there has been was rather
slight and it has been only in recent years that the Negro has began to
detect it, and establish business of his own. He has not so many stores
a