be controlled absolutely by such an utterly ignoble sentiment as race prejudice. You can't help asking yourself the question, Can these people really be sane? Jesus, we are told, wept over Jerusalem. As he saw her condition—saw her in her blindness, stupidity, obstinacy—as he saw the end towards which she was madly rushing, it touched his great heart with pity, and wrung tears from his eyes. And this is the way, it seems to me, that any right thinking man, any man who has a heart of pity must feel as he looks out on the multitudes in this land who are yielding themselves up to the sway of this bitter, degrading, Negro-hating spirit; as he sees how they are being driven more and more into doing so many utterly contemptible things; and, when he remembers also that the reaping is to be as the sowing. It is easy enough to hate such people, if you don't stop to think; but when you remember that they are human beings; that they are under the dominion of moral laws that are just as inexorable in their operations as are physical laws; and remember also, under these laws, what the result is sure to be, there is no room for hatred, for bitterness, but only for pity, for the deepest commiseration. The thing that we ought to do, and, that I wish very much that we would do, and do more than we have been in the habit of doing, is to pray for these misguided, unfortunate, greatly to be pitied individuals who are fighting us. The Spirit of God can open blind eyes, can unstop deaf ears, can soften the hardest hearts. The Spirit of God can regenerate, can give an entirely new bias or direction to character and life. And this is what is needed. These people need to be changed, to be set right. The possibility of such a change, both for their sakes and for ours, should lead us to work and pray earnestly for it.

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(9). It is also well for us, as we face the future, not to be deceived, not to be misguided by the assumption upon which some of our race leaders have been proceeding. It has been assumed by some that the reason why we are treated as we are is because we are poor, because we are ignorant, because we are degraded, in a word, because of our condition; and, that if we will only improve ourselves—will only work hard and better our condition—will get more knowledge, more money, more character, it will be all right in the end. Those who act upon this assumption think that the wise thing for us to do, therefore, is to lose sight entirely of the manner in which we are treated, to take no account of it, to make no ado about it, to bear it patiently and give ourselves up entirely to the work of improving ourselves. This is what they counsel; this is the way, they say, 

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