YYI John F. Goucher Number- The Negro Seer HIS PREPARATION AND MISSION. BY R S. LOVINGGOOD, A. M., PRESIDENT SAMUEL HUSTON COLLEGE. AUSTIN. TEXAS. COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS, DELIVERED JUNE 4, 1907, AT PRAIRIE VIEW STATE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE, PRAIRIE VIEW, TEXAS. R. S. LOVINGGOOD. A. M. Jslm W a (Voucher Nqmbftr , Nrgrn Hf is piTparation an& Httissimi. I am glad I am not an ox. With Terence, I say, “I am a man.” Man is just a little lower than the angels. He carries tfie impress of divinity; is dif- ferentiated from other animals by the moral element, the faculty of reason, and a superior mentality which is capable of a marvelous development. These char- acteristics belong to every variety of the human race. Nevertheless, in 1861, at Savannah, Georgia, Senator A. H. Stevens declared that the foundations of the Confederacy ‘‘are laid, its corner stone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.” Beginning with Count Gobineau, in 1854, a small school of anthropologists have undertaken to ^prove that, by the fiat of God, there are inferior and Super- ior branches of the human race. These savants base their arguments upon cephalometry, orthognathism, that is, measurements of the head, the face, the jaws, etc. They measure the nose. The longer the nose the more he knows. The flatter the nose the less he knows. They measure the height, the breast, the ear, , the feet. They note his color, his eyes, his smell. ) They bring to their aid arguments physiological, path- ological, psychological. They argue for polygenesis, denying monogenesis of the human race. Hence, they have engendered race friction, race hatred, between the white and the brown, and the black and often be- tween branches of the same color. This hatred is one time turned against the Jews, another, against the Japanese, or again, against the Negro. CAUSES OF RACE VARIATION. The causes of the variations in the different branches of the human race are many and apparent. Action of climate, diseases, nourishment, mode of life, the whole environment, the milieu, as the French would say, are causes of race variation. We now know that in Africa there are all kinds of colors and hair depending upon the environment. The Scandinavian, living among his snow-capped hills, is almost colorless. The Antisians of Peru, living at the point of rocks, beneath a forest impenetrable to the rays of the sun, are whiter than those of their own blood about them. We are affected by our geo- logical habitat. As the minerals and moisture of certain soils produce a small, scrubby forest, so “ a granite and sterile soil producing only rye, buckwheat, potatoes, and chestnuts” produces a people remarkable for their narrow shoulders, tight chests, lymphatic temperament. Potassium, iron, magnesia, lime, sul- phur, arsenic, the rays of the sun, the winds, the forests, the rivers, all affect our size, color, nose, liead(, feet, chest, temperament. 1 I ( 2 ) There are, to-day, we are told, men of purest Jewish blood whose color is the whitest of the white, the brownest of the brown, the blackest of the black. A careful study of science and history indicates that the centuries to come will produce a typical American whose color will be red. But moral influence has greatest effect in producting race variety. Norton tells us that Negro children born in liberty have more beautiful eyes, a more ele- gant appearance, and an easier bearing. UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. The arguments for the unity of the race are many and convincing. The blood of a dog injected into the veins of a Frenchman will destroy the one or both. The blood of a Negro or Jap may be injected into a Frenchman’s veins with impunity. Liebnitz, Blu- menbach, Agassiz, Finot, all the leading anthropolo- gists of the world tell us that there is but one human race. No two black-eyed peas are alike and yet they are peas. The babies of all races cry alike. There are forward and backward branches of the race caused by environment. But will the backward always remain backward? The Japs were backward sixty years ago. Are they backward to-day? THE NEGRO OF PURE BLOOD. The Negro is a branch of the human race, and has, therefore, inherently, all the capabilities of the other branches. This is attested by the achievements of many Negroes of purest blood. John C. Calhoun once said: “If I could find a Negro who knew Greek ( 3 ) Syntax, I would believe the Negro was a human being and ought to be treated as a man.” To-day, in re- sponse to the promise of such distinguished consid- eration, we can present an overwhelming array of scholars, publicists, generals, etc. There was Clitus the black general of the Army of Alexander the Great, Phillis Wheatly, the little African girl, whose poetry extorted praise from General George Wash- ington, Benjamin Banneker, the astronomer and friend of Thomas Jefferson, Congressman R. B. El- liot, J. C. Price, the orator, Edward W. Blyden, whom Europe regards as one of the greatest scholars of the world. J. W. E. Bowen, the theologian, M. C. B. Mason, the publicist, Dunbar, the poet, Toussaint L. Ouveidure, the warrior, several distinguished men wearing the honor of knighthood conferred by Queen Victoria, and legions of others. NEGROES OF MIXED BLOOD. But you say these are of purest Negro blood; the cross-breed, the mulatto, the octaroon is a failure, weakling physically and mentally. Where are the distinguished mixed bloods ? Here they are : ‘ ‘ Ish- mael, son of Abraham by Hagar, Menelek, son of Solo- mon and the African Queen of Sheba, Alexander Dumas, the French novelist, Robert Browning, the English poet, Poushkin, Russia’s greatest poet, Ira Aldridge, the actor, Sainte-George, the first vice- president of the French Deputies, a president each of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico, H. 0. Tanner, who as artist, is the wonder of Europe, Edmonia Lewis, the sculpturess, Fred Douglass, America’s greatest ( 4 ) orator, W. E. D. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, America’s great statesman, and greatest financier! Now, this argument is not made in advocacy of amalgamation. But it is made to show that whether amalgamated or not, every man, of every branch of the human race, of every color, who wears the mark of divinity, apart from external influences, is inher- ently as good as any other man. Nor is this trying to run away from the Negro race. It is the proper exaltation of the man of whatever human variety. “a man’s a man for a’ that.” I have never believed a Negro was superior to the white man — never! I have never believed the Jap- anese was superior to the Englishman — never. “Noble blood, bah! What blood is more noble, or so pure as that of the lion ? And yet he is only a brute. It is merit, education, virtue, not blood, that lifts men above the level of the brutes!” So we may conclude that the Negro scholar, the Negro Seer has inherently all the possibilities possessed by any other branch of the human race. DARE THE HERO’S TASK. So young ladies and gentlemen of the Negro branch of the human race, “pregnant with celestial fire,” wearing the mark of divinity, you I address to-day. 1 ou I summons to vindicate your heirship to all the heroes and heroines of the past of whatever branch of the human race. You I call to high endeavor. You I call to dare the hero s task. The world despises ( 5 ) a weakling, a coward. Effort is necessary to growth. As Robert Browning says: “No. Wien the fight begins within himself, A man’s worth something, God looks o’er his head. Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — He’s left himself i’ the middle; the soul wakes And grows. Prolong that battle his life.” As Emerson says: “Hitch your wagon to a star.” Dare to be a scholar, to take any course that produces best results. There has been such a hue and cry against the higher education of the Negro that one is almost afraid to undertake to launch out into the deep. Drink deep at the Pyerian Springs. Study any- thing that is necessary to produce thought-power. THINKERS RULE THE WORLD. Great financial enterprises gravitate about thinkers. The progress of the world regulates its footsteps by the pulse-beats of the thinker. The x-Ray by which we see the lungs of the living, the ship in which we sail in mid-heaven, wireless telegraphy by which we send our messages through the trackless air, the sub- marine boat in which we fight our battles beneath the waters — these are matters of grey-matter. The realm of scholarship lies free before us. The gate swings wide at the approach of the earnest seek- er. “No second class on board the train; no differ- ence in the fare.” There are no mergers in schol- arship. The trusts may control the landscape, but not the beauty of the flowers. No legislative enact- ment can control aesthetic taste, noble feeling, high thinking, honest effort. ( 0 ) BEING WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES. Benjamin Hill, Senator from Georgia, is reported to have remarked that twenty ordinary white men are worth more to civilization than all the Negroes who have lived in the last six thousand years. The remark is not true, but is indicative of a prevalent feeling in many quarters. We are being weighed in the balances. The test is rigid and exacting. We must stand up or fall down. We must run or get off the track. There is no mercy, no quarter. We ask no quarter. All we want is a fair chance to run. If we cannot hold out, let us fall by the way- side. But we can, we must, we will. Let us prepare for the contest. NECESSARY PREPARATION. I do not mean the preparation merely of the routine class work. I refer to the spirit and attitude toward the work before us. In our preparation we must understand that right will ultimately win. Might is no longer right. Right is right. The King of Bel- gium is responsible to all the world for the horrors of the Congo. Russia must answer to the world for the horrors of Kishinev. Individuals and nations are accountable to the “parliament of man, the federa- tion of the world.” “Truth crushed to earth will rise again, The eternal years of God are hers; But error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers.” ( 7 ) No man ever followed the path of virtue in vain. Men and nations ultimately get what they deserve. There is power in goodness. Greatness is goodness. Goodness wins. Character tells. Character compels. If this be true, God, the source of all goodness should hold first place in our preparation. What God wills finally triumphs in history. God is not ancient history. Was is the wrong tense for God. God is. God works to-day in the hearts of individuals, in the universe. As President Hyde says : ‘ ‘ The man who makes the will of God the basis of his character and the motive of his conduct carries with him the germ of Christianity; for this principle, rightly ap- prehended, covers the whole life. The man who has it will be kind and considerate in his home, upright and honest in his work, public spirited in civic and political relations, socially courteous and sincere, sympathetic with the suffering, generous to the poor, helpful to the weak. On the other hand, he will re- sist oppression, expose hypocrisy, denounce injustice, rebuke fraud, fight for timely and rational reform. He will do these things whether they are profitable or costly, popular or unpopular; whether they bring thanks or curses, praise or blame ; whether men strew his path with palms and hail him with hosannas, or crown him with thorns and nail him to the cross.” We live to make others richer, happier, better; to elevate the beautiful, to enthrone truth. “Thus the person who has grown up through faithful doing of the right into loving devotion to the good, finds every place a holy place, every bush upon the roadside ( 8 ) ablaze with God, every circumstance, where duty can be done and good can be accomplished, a gate- way to heaven, an approach to the throne of the Most High!” The love of God embraces The Altruistic Spirit. Our courses of study should be such that no one should receive a diploma from any college unless the sweep of his love takes in all men. Hate kills; kills the hater more that the hated. Love ennobles ; ennobles the lover more than the loved. Some one has said : “I love a good hater.” That’s wrong. The world loves a good lover. Jesus is the incarnation of altruistic love. His character shall ultimately fill the whole earth ; dom- inate every interest. Him we should love. Him we should study. We study the life of Washington. We should study the life of Jesus more. Washington ruled a small segment of the human race. “Jesus shall reign wher’er the sun, Doth his successive journeys run ; His kingdoms spread from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.” We should cut out of our vocabulary such words as “sheeny,” “dago,” “hill billy,” “poor buckra,” “nigger,” etc. They are not fit expressions of a scholar and a gentleman. They do not fit a man wearing the image of God. DESTRUCTIVE RACE HATRED. He who thus stirs up race hatred is an enemy to the world. Alcibiades arrayed the poor of Athens against ( 9 ) the rich. Athens was at her zenith. When the con- flict was over, Athens was in a mass of ruins and rich and poor alike were homeless. The rich of Paris sneered at the poor. Voltaire called them a “mixture of bear and monkey.” Foulon said, “Let the people eat grass.” But “the people hung him, stuck his head upon a spike and stuffed his mouth with grass amid the plaudits of a grass-eating people.” France was drenched in blood, her nobles were beheaded, her fame degraded. The prophets of evil, of racial wars, the fomentors of discontent, of our country, of whatever element of the human race, should be relegated to the rear. The Atlanta riot will be an exception. Ex-Governor Northen, a committee of noble white and colored men are getting together to prevent another calamity like that one. Soon the better angel in all of us will be aroused. Hence, I look to the future with joyous an- ticipation. This nation will not be destroyed in hatred by fire, and shot and shell. Too much love and mercy and Christ abound. Therefore, to be successful, we need, in our prepara- tion to strike a Hopeful Attitude with Regard to Our Environments. We should be optimistic. Laugh a great deal. Sing. Pray. Don’t pine. To pine is to lose time. We should seek peace between the white and black people of our country. Peace is essential to mental, spiritual, and material growth. Without peace all is lost. Why should not the whites and blacks exer- cise a little common sense and treat each other right? ( 10 ) BE A HELP TO ONE ANOTHER. That is what we must do and will do. Racial con- ditions in the South furnish a splendid opportunity to test the greatness of the white race. The Greeks secured liberty to the Greeks; all others to them were barbarians. The Romans secured liberty to the Ro- mans; all others were despised. The white American can prove himself superior to the Greek and the Ro- man, can prove his religion superior only if he is strong enough to treat with absolute justice the back- ward, undeveloped black man. The black man should see to it that no blame attaches to him. He should deserve the best, be worthy a man’s treatment. If he does this, there are evidences that the white man will give him a man’s chance. FRIENDSHIP OF THE WHITE SOUTH. The positive evidence of the sincere friendship of the white South for the black man is afforded in what is being done for his education through the public schools of which Prairie View College is a distin- guished example. The spirit which makes Prairie View possible, which sustains this magnificent plant, is the altruistic spirit, the dominant spirit of Texas and the South. We are proud of the men who are back of this school, proud of its noble faculty and student-body ; and, above all, we are proud to believe that Prairie View State College is only the projection of the spirit of fair play, of love, of sympathy on the part of the white man of the South toward his brother in black. This generous spirit is attested by such distinguished Southern white men as Prof. Ed- gar Gardner Murphy, who says: “The educational policy of a genuine patriotism will include all the children of the unprivileged, white as well as black.'’ By Bishop C. B. Galloway, who says: “We must insist that the Negro have equal opportunity with every American citizen to fulfill in himself the high- est purposes of an all-wise and beneficent Providence. ” * * * “ Indisputable facts attest the statement that education and its attendant influences have elevated the standard and tone of morals among the Negroes in the South.” By ex-Congressman Fleming, of Georgia, who says: “Let us solve the Negro problem by giving the Negro justice and applying to him the recognized principles of the moral law. ‘ ‘ This does not require social equality. It does not require that we should surrender into his inexperi- enced and incompetent hands the reins of political government. But it does require that we recognize his fundamental rights as a man, and that we judge each individual according to his own qualifications, and not according to the lower average characteristics of his race. Political rights can not justly be with- held from those American citizens of an inferior or backward race who raise themselves up to the stand- ard of citizenship which the superior race applies to its own members. ’ ’ RACE DISCRIMINATION AN ASSET. In our preparation, we must remember that while we may not approve race discrimination, it is never- theless, a valuable asset. If we cannot get a sleeper, we must rough it, discipline our temper, harden our ( 12 ) character, and save our money. The refusal of a clerk to fit shoes on a colored girl was the cause of a prosperous shoe store run by Negroes. The refusal to rent to Negroes was the cause of the organiza- tion of the Metropolitan Mercantile and Realty Com- pany of New York, whose assets run into thousands. The protest against Negro writers in the Sunday School literature of the Baptist Publication Society caused the organization of the Negro Baptist Publi- cation Society. It is a fine, exhilerating, strenuous job to be a Negro. Our white friends ought to try it awhile. One month would do. It is calculated to bring out the best in a man. “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” THE SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE. In our preparation there should be the spirit of sacrifice. The Roman exclaimed: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” It should be sweet to us to sacri- fice for our people. We should cry with Knox, “Lord give me Scotland or I die.” We cannot give our mil- lions like Carnegie, but we can do more important service — we can give ourselves, our love, our thought, our spirit. Says Carlyle: “It is only with renuncia- tion that life, properly speaking, can be said to be- gin. * * * In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie.” This is all comprehended in the words of Jesus, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself. ’ ’ ( 13 ) THE MISSION. With full confidence in the ultimate triumph of right, trusting in God the source of all goodness, with goodwill toward all men, with a hopeful attitude to- ward our environment, realizing that race discrimin- ation is rather a valuable asset than a calamity, in the spirit of sacrifice, we go forth to the struggle, to grapple with conditions about us, to prove our worth as American citizens. And we are willing to stand or fall upon our merits. From our scholars must come our professional men, lawyers, doctors, poets, historians, painters, musicians, scientists, orators, philosophers, prophets, seers. Above all we need seers; men with insight and foresight; leaders, pure, wise, true, incorruptible, unpurchas- able. Such seers will see that their first basic, funda- mental duty is to teach the Dignity and Necessity of Labor. Often young men and women start out to be teachers, lawyers, doctors, or to engage in other pro- fessions and fail. Why ? They are unwilling to work, to do the drudgery connected with each profession. No man is fit to be a preacher who is unwilling to wear a pair of overalls. Oh, the constant grind, mak- ing the fire, washing the dishes, feeding the pigs, sweeping the house, the ink on the fingers, correcting papers, correcting misrepresentation of students who failed to pass, taking church collections, cleaning the harness, getting up cold nights to see the patient, chopping the cotton, toil, drudgery, day in, day out! Oh beneficent toil by which we are educated! Wel- come, Toil! Welcome, Drudgery! There is pleasure ( 14 ) in work. There is virtue in it. There is character in it. Work is life. Idleness is death. The les- son of punctuality and reliability must be enforced. We must do our work so well that our services will be in demand at all times. We must work with that love which rejoices in work well done. Unreliability, shift- lessness, the “laying-off habit,” and debauchery, are destructive to the labor interests of the Negro to-day. The labor of the South is the natural heritage of the Negro. But, henceforth, to get it, he must compete with the Italian, the Chinese, the- Japanese. Shall we be able to stand the test? The fittest will survive. In this connection we see the great importance to us of industrial schools and technical schools. Every boy and every girl of the race should learn to do some one thing better than any one else. Here, too, we can see the wisdom of the action of our State in making instruction in agriculture com- pulsory in the public schools. It is our business to make practical and efficient the study of agriculture at the earliest moment. In the world of labor, we must be able to produce results. BUILDING OF HAPPY HOMES. The building of happy homes is the next mission. The most serious mistake of the Negro to-day is his failure to buy land. The only fixed and stable citi- zens of any country are the land owners. We should buy land anywhere, everywhere, much or little, rich or poor, and when we get it, keep it. Get a lot, a few acres, or many acres. On it built a home. Beau- tify the house, plant flowers, set out an orchard, paint ( 15 ) the fence, adorn that house with a few good books; found it upon honesty, truthfulness, cheerfulness, so- briety, family prayer, the sweet songs of Zion; let Jesus be the constant unseen guest; let love of a dear mother, of a precious wife, of innocent, prattling, smil- ing children sanctify that home; let patience, tender- ness and mercy guide it; let filial love and parental affection guard its threshold, and you have laid the foundation of a prosperous and great people. Be it remembered, too, that the happiest homes are not al- ways the richest. The happiest homes are those where dwell love, harmony, kindness, unselfishness. Riches? What is mother worth? Don’t you remember when she tucked the cover under your feet at night, made the tea for you when you were sick, followed you to the gate when you left home the last time? Riches? What would you take for that smiling, chirping baby ? And wife ? She is the best wife, encourages you, meets you with a smile, helps bear your burdens. Ah, that is love. That is life. Here prosperity has its tap root ! PROPER TRAINING OF THE YOUTH. The proper rearing and training of our youth is an important essential. We begin to educate our children one hundred and twenty years before they are born. The sins of the parents are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. Train carefully, drill constantly the child in the path of rectitude, in its formative period, and when it is old, it will not depart from the proper path. There is a woeful neglect of our youth to-day. It is ( 16 ) amazing that any of our young people master the forces of evil that would drag them down. Luther Burbanks, the artisan of the vegetable world, by tender, thoughtful care, year in and year out, has produced the pomato from the potato and tomato; has made the rough, thorny cactus, thornless and edible ; has changed the character of plants whose wretched odor has been offensive for six thousand years, into a perfume, the sweetest of the sweet. In fact, from a lower order of plant life, by diligent care, he is producing an order of nobility in the plant world. Do our parents care thus for their children? A mother artist has a tender flower upon her veranda. Three times a day she waters it, nurses it, watches it. How she loves it! It blooms. She calls in her neighbors. How they rejoice ! But her own darling son, blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh, within him an immortal soul — does she care for him? Does she pray with him three times a day? Does she till the soil in which he grows? Does she take him to Sun- day School and church with her until he is twenty- one? Does she know where he is on Sunday? And the daughter — I pity the Negro girl with beautiful form and face. I must enter this field in euphemis- tic terms. Often without the watchful care of father or mother she is hounded from pillar to post by demons. Notwithstanding her temptations, the aver- age girl is permitted to go about to parties, moonlight picnics, or excursions, church suppers without father or mother, or chaperon. She is too often kicked about like a foot-ball. To get our mothers and ( 17 ) fathers to hold tight rein upon their children to regulate the relation of our boys and girls and our young men and women, in fine to give a proper con- ception of what it means to rear children — this is the mission of the scholar, the seer of the race. Unless we rear our children properly in the home, put them in the public schools, bring them into the folds of the Sunday School and the church, keep them at profit- able, honest labor of some kind, on the farms, or in the shops, somewhere, anywhere, and hold them there until their character is hardened in principles of duty and righteousness, sad, sad will be our future. To do this is a task worthy of our best thought, our best efforts. It involves the divorce question, the sanctity of marriage ties. This is the main remedy for vagran- cy and criminality. Some say we need a better class of young people. I say we need a better class of fathers and mothers. The remedy is a matter of slow growth, of character building. We must make better men and better women, and then we shall have less criminality. CIVIC DUTIES. Our people should be taught their civic duties. We should have pride in our city, county, state, nation. Every question which affects the weal of our country should concern us. We are a part of this government. Those who would make us pariahs, aliens, outcasts, and disfranchise us are doomed finally to failure. We are either citizens or not. If citizens, we must ul- timately be permitted to vote, and help elect our rulers. Sin against any part of our legal citizens ‘(IS) will rebound on the sinner. If the Negro proves worthy the ballot, in self defense, the dominant party will be compelled to permit him to vote or else they should burn up the Constitution of the Nation. Tax- ation without representation is no better for the white man than the Negro. If the Negro population is good enough to be counted to determine representation in our national Congress, it is good enough to help choose that representation. This principle will yet win. Hypocrisy and double-dealing by the nation cannot live. Hence we look to the future with a patriotic, abiding faith in our government, with deep interest in good roads, deep water, purity of the ballot. Every Negro should pay his taxes. He should be interested in all reform movements. He should hold at every possible opportunity an unpurchasable ballot to be cast for the good of his country. In a recent local option campaign, it was said, “Let the local optionists, speak, sing, and pray, we will carry the election. We can buy the niggers.’’ Any man who will sell his blood-stained ballot for any price whatever is not fit to vote, should be disfran- chised. This doctrine should be preached from every hill-top. We should bear a man’s share of the burdens of government. We should help to make our government pure by first being pure ourselves. Our influence should be ever against the saloon, the king-devil of all evils, the worst enemy of the human race. INTEREST IN WORLD MOVEMENTS. Then our vision and interest should sweep out and ( 19 ) take in world movements. Whatever concerns mankind concerns us. No man can grow large whose interest does not go beyond his own roof-tree. Trembling San Francisco, or starving China should find a place in our helpful sympathy. We rise only as we lift others up. Love increases by loving. The continent of Af- rica should be of deepest interest to every thoughtful Negro. We need Africa as much as Africa needs us. Africa is opportunity. It will be the storm center of the great movements of the next century. Eich in resources, romantic and mysterious, with every possible climate, teeming with millions of hu- man beings, the coveted prize of every civilized na- tion, with railroads being built from Cairo to the cape, with an ever widening commerce, Africa offers to the young Negro lawyer, doctor, editor, educator, states- man, missionary, scientist, inventor, farmer, a career of greatest usefulness and fame. The inspiration of black Livingstone in Africa is necessary to the man- hood-growth of the black man in America. What a thrilling mission have we in Africa in America and Africa beyond the seas! Some two or three years ago the Iroquois Theater burned down in Chicago. A thousand men, women, and children sat in this playhouse witnessing “Blue- beard.” Suddenly flames enveloped the interior of the building. The lives of nearly seven hundred per- sons were suddenly scorched out. Their charred re- mains were found sitting lifeless in their seats. Near an exit sat a young man of eighteen summers, Mc- Laughlin by name, son of a missionary in South ( 20 ) America. Kev. Frank Gunsaulus was his uncle. He soon found his way out to safety, but his heart was pained by the piteous screams of mourning women and children. He rushed back and dragged to the air and life a woman, then a child, then another, and another. His hair was singed, his hands crisp, his clothes afire. Bystanders begged him not to go in any more. But he brought to safety another and fell almost lifeless himself. He was placed in an ambu- lance and hastened to a hospital where he died within a few hours. Just before he died, he whispered faintly “Tell Uncle Frank Gunsaulus I died trying to save others.” Then again, more faintly still, “Tell Uncle Frank Gunsaulus I died trying to save others.” Young men and women, Prophets and Priests of our race, the fires of sin, of ignorance, of poverty, of thriftlessness are scorching out the lives of our people in the dark counties of the Brazos, in the alleys of the cities, in America, beyond the sea. You are divinely commissioned to rescue them, to go to them, in the spirit of the Lowly One, to encourage them, to show them a better way, to rejoice with them, to sorrow with them, to give them, in working out a noble destiny, your life, your all, and bequeath to pos- terity the noble sentiment — “I died trying to save others.” ( 21 ) %