Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/49

Rh with painstaking and in the spirit of love, then and not till then, shall we have paid the debt. The colored people will raise up and support their own preachers. They are a religious people. On Sundays, arrayed in their best, they statedly frequent the sanctuary to sing, and praise, and pray. There is no lack of ministers among them. Their preparation to preach is small, but their fluency great, and their use of language remarkable. The St. Andrews Methodist Church in New Berne has raised a thousand dollars for church purposes the past year. The colored people fear God, are free from profanity, and highly prize worship. Almost the only comfort they enjoyed under slavery was derived from this source. It may be that their changed condition will train them into the vices of a higher state of Christian society, and make profanity, drunkenness and crime as common among them as it is, alas! among the dominant race. But we hope not. The first want of the negroes is instruction by devoted and cultured teachers. Schools, academies, institutes, colleges, universities, may all be needed by and by. But at present schools only. The tyranny under which they have been ground was nursed by ignorance. Upon intelligent people it would have been powerless. Send out teachers then, and especially female teachers. Let them follow in the track of every conquering army. Let them swarm over the savannas of the South. Bring hither the surplus of females in New England, greatly increased by the bereavements of war, for here it can essentially contribute to the national wealth and honor. No more beautiful resolution of a difficult and delicate social dilemma can be conceived of. My relations to the military authorities of the Department, and of the District and several Posts as well, has been so uninterruptedly cordial, as to make the conduct of negro affairs far easier than it would have been under a state of distrust and jealousy. The number of officers who sneer at the idea of freedom, education, and advancement for the African race in America is, fortunately for the service, growing less every day. The current of public opinion and the resistless logic of events is too strong for them. Those who make a stand against this sentiment of the age will go down before it to rise no more. Those who attach themselves to it will advance with it to historic success.