Southern Journal_, whose Christian sentiments
of six months ago, just quoted, with another editor to-day, comes to us
with another deliverance, probably nearer to the heart of most of its
constituency, saying: "The Negro is not a fit subject for Northern
missionary effort. Northern money is not wanted to build him schools,
and Northern teachers and preachers are not wanted to improve his mind
nor to save his soul. He should be let alone. He is out in the water:
let him swim. He should be left alone to work out his own salvation."
The editor who says we must save him is an ex-Confederate officer who
has always lived in the South. The editor who says he should be left
alone is a Northern man who has gone South to live. The first writes,
_noblesse oblige_. The second does not understand the language. He,
doubtless, has the largest constituency.

The pulpit also creates and voices public opinion. Our work is coming to
get many a good word from the Southern pulpit. But a Southern white
bishop--Bishop Pearce--did not write to unwilling ears when he said: "In
my judgment higher education would be a calamity to the Negroes. It
would elevate Negro aspirations far above the station which the Negro
was created to fill. The whites can never tamely, and without protest
submit to the intrusion of colored people into places of trust, profit,
and responsibility." This, you will observe, is from a minister of
Christ. It is from a bishop of a church. It is from one who prays our
Lord's prayer, given alike to white and black. "After this manner,
therefore, pray ye." "Our Father." This is from one who believes in the
baptism at Pentecost, when devout men from every nation under heaven
received the impartial benedictions of God. This from one who read the
story of Peter and the sheet. "Alas, my brother."

All this, then, is the atmosphere of the situation. Some prophetic souls
are looking out upon a most perplexing and perilous problem with
profound solicitude, and extending to us their sympathy and prayers for
our work. More, many more, are teaching and preaching that God has
created the Negro race to fill forever a place of inferiority, and that
he must stay down in the bog or in some way be destroyed. It is not
surprising, therefore, that ignorant white people should give form and
substance to these hostile opinions in scenes of violence and cruelty.
They believe in the inherent inferiority of the blacks, and have a
mighty fear lest thi