an Ozama and a Kuroki to overwhelm in a succession of unprecedented victories the army of the enemy. And here God found three hundred men to do the work which he wanted done, and placed at their head a man who was worthy to lead them.

GIDEON’S BAND was organized for the purpose of fighting the Midianites—the enemies that were oppressing the Jews at that time. It is not of the Jews, however, that I desire to speak at this time, but of ourselves as a race. We too have enemies—present, ever-active, and powerful. These enemies may be divided into two general classes—those that are affecting injuriously our moral and economic condition, and those that are affecting injuriously our civil and political status.

(1). Those that are affecting injuriously our moral and economic condition. Under this head are to be classed the evil tendencies within our own hearts, and, which are not different from the evil tendencies in other races; for, after all, human nature is everywhere the same. The same radical tendencies are discoverable in all men. Human nature is not different in the black man from what we find it in the white man, or in the men of any other race. Everywhere, in the human heart are evil tendencies that lead inevitably downward, that gravitate towards lower levels. We, as a race, have these tendencies just as other races. Under this head may be classed also such organized forces of evil as strong drink, the saloon, the whole liquor business; impurity, all gambling institutions, the dance hall, the many agencies that encourage idleness, and frivolity. Everywhere among us these forces are at work. And just as the Jews, in the time of Gideon, suffered from the inroads of the Midianites, so are we suffering from the ravages of these foes. What inroads the saloon is making among us. How we are being ruined by it morally! How our physical strength is being depleted by it! How we are being impoverished by it! Think of what impurity is doing! How it is dragging down hundreds and thousands of our young men—down, down into that deepest hell of moral degradation; for there is nothing that sinks a man so low in the scale of being as impurity, as a lustful, lascivious life. Think of what the dance hall and the spirit of frivolity which it encourages, are doing to demoralize our young people. These and many other forces are at work among us, and are steadily, persistently, day and night, operating to destroy us, soul and body. The evil tendencies within us, and the evil influences without us are conspiring to destroy us—to destroy us physically, morally, economically. It is well for us as a race to know what these evil influences are and how we are being affected by them.

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