Oakwood Manual Training-School by HUGH W. JONES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 15, 1908

Oakwood Manual Training-School

By HUGH W. JONES

On the seventeenth of September it was my privilege to visit this our only training-school for colored workers, and I was gratified to see the improvement made in the nine years since I last saw the institution. Being a native of the South, and having a special interest in the colored race (one of whom was the first Seventh-day Adventist to call my attention to the Sabbath) I feel grateful to God for this training-school, and for the work that men and women who have the fear of God before their eyes are there doing in training promising individuals of this race to give the last solemn message of mercy to that people.

As I am the son of a Confederate soldier, and the grandson of a slave-owner, I keenly appreciate the fact that there is being built up at Oakwood, what was once an old slave plantation, an institution where the sons and daughters of that race may get a speedy preparation to go out and proclaim liberty to the slaves of sin and Satan. I want to say to our brethren and sisters all over this nation that these students appreciate what this school through your gifts enables them to do. It was an inspiration to me to hear the personal testimonies of these earnest young colored people.

I know that the conditions in the South are just such as the Spirit of God through the Testimonies has declared them to be, and I urge you who read this to help us in solving the hard problem of giving the third angel's message in this, the most difficult field, by remembering the Oakwood School, its students, and faculty in your petitions to God, and by your gifts through the appointed channels. Thus will you hasten the coming of Him who said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

HUGH W. JONES.