he impress and the
moulding of the highest arts. But how much more so for the realizing of
a true and lofty _race_ of men. What is true of a man is deeply true of
a people. The special need in such a case is the force and application
of the highest arts; not mere mechanism; not mere machinery; not mere
handicraft; not the mere grasp on material things; not mere temporal
ambitions. These are but incidents; important indeed, but pertaining
mainly to man's material needs, and to the feeding of the body. And the
incidental in life is incapable of feeding the living soul. For "man
cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God." And civilization is the _secondary_ word of God, given
for the nourishment of humanity.

To make _men_ you need civilization; and what I mean by civilization is
the action of exalted forces, both of God and man. For manhood is the
most majestic thing in God's creation; and hence the demand for the very
highest art in the shaping and moulding of human souls.

What is the great difficulty with the black race, in this era, in this
land? It is that both within their ranks, and external to themselves, by
large schools of thought interested in them, material ideas in divers
forms are made prominent, as the master-need of the race, and as the
surest way to success. Men are constantly dogmatizing theories of sense
and matter as the salvable hope of the race. Some of our leaders and
teachers boldly declare, now, that _property_ is the source of power;
and then, that _money_ is the thing which commands respect. At one time
it is _official position_ which is the masterful influence in the
elevation of the race; at another, men are disposed to fall back upon
_blood_ and _lineage_, as the root (source) of power and progress.

Blind men! For they fail to see that neither property, nor money, nor
station, nor office, nor lineage, are fixed factors, in so large a thing
as the destiny of man; that they are not vitalizing qualities in the
changeless hopes of humanity. The greatness of peoples springs from
their ability to grasp the grand conceptions of being. It is the
absorption of a people, of a nation, of a race, in large majestic and
abiding things which lifts them up to the skies. These once apprehended,
all the minor details of life follow in their proper places, and spread
abroad in the details and the comfort of practicality. But until these
gifts of a lofty civilizatio