Have the courage to pay a debt when you need the money for something else. Have the courage to be polite, though your character may be assailed. Have the courage to speak the truth, remembering the command: "Thou shalt not lie." Have the courage to own that you are poor, and thus disarm poverty of its sharpest sting. Have the courage to own that you are wrong, when convinced that such is the case. Have the courage to be good and true, and you will always find work to do. Have the courage to say your prayers, though you may be ridiculed by man. Have the courage to tell a man why you will not lend him money instead of whipping the devil around the stump by telling him that you haven't a cent "in the world," calling one of your pockets "the world." Have the courage of your convictions. "According to a man's faith, so be it unto him." This is true on every plane of life, from the lowest to the highest. A man's power in everything is measured by his convictions. The statesman who has the profoundest convictions is surest of bringing others to see as he sees on any question which he discusses before the public. The minister who can most completely identify himself with his people, [Pg 74]if he has the courage of his convictions, is the one who is most likely to be successful. (Afro-American Encyclopedia.) [Pg 74] THE SOUTH GIVEN THE PREFERENCE "It is a poor charity that closes its doors to honest labor on the one hand and opens its almshouses on the other." Such is the comment of a writer who recently compared the relations in the North and South, as regards their efforts to care for the poor, and especially the distresses of the needy among the colored people. While the North has an apparent balance in her favor in the matter of formal expenditures for charity among the colored people, yet the South has the advantage in true charity. It gives the helpless an opportunity to help themselves. Charity is wisest in her ministrations when the object of her beneficence is not deprived of the means of self-support and independence. In the North nearly all departments of labor are governed by trades unions, and the unfortunate Negroes, proscribed as they nearly always are, are forced to
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