Supplying a Great Need by I. H. EVANS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 31, 1905

Supplying a Great Need

By I. H. EVANS

ABOUT forty years ago, by a proclamation of the President of the United States of America nearly four millions of slaves were made freemen of this country. Hitherto this people had been in a servile condition, and were held by their owners as chattels or other personal property.

As shocking as it may seem to the rising generation, these men and women and children were at the mercy of their owners, and had no rights in law, nor redress in courts of equity, but their conditions were subject to the goodness or the caprice of their respective masters.

Those who were so fortunate as to have gentle, considerate owners were far more fortunate than those whose owners were tyrants and cruel at heart. At best, it is a sad picture to think of all that these poor unfortunate souls were compelled to undergo while in a state of slavery and bondage.

When these four millions of souls were declared freemen, a great civil war was raging between the North and the South. The nation was in the very throes of strife and carnage, and the North and the South were in a death grip for the mastery.

The world looked on aghast, and believed the days of an “elective government” were at an end, and that our nation must crumble into fragments. Great debts were accumulating. The homes of the South were being desolated, their fortunes ruined, and everywhere was war, and loss, and ruin.

It was in the very midst of this greatest struggle in our national life that these four millions of colored men, women, and children were declared free, and placed where they must provide

themselves a home and supply their own necessities.

They and their fathers had ever been bondsmen. They owned no property, they had no shelter for their heads, they owned no land on which to plant their feet, they had no earth in which to bury their dead.

Where should they go? What should they do? They had no money with which to travel, they had but little knowledge to guide them, and they were without business training. Poor, unfortunate people! They were still on the old plantations, where they had toiled for many a year; but he who had been their master was at the battle’s front, or was lying with fellow comrades on some lost, but hard-fought battle-field.

Only forty short years ago and this four millions of human beings were without education, or schools, or land, or shelter. Improvident by nature, and made more so by their environment, the bravest heart almost staggers at the hopelessness of their future.

But they are buoyed by a cheerfulness native to their race; and all their lives long having endured privations, this people set forth under the banner of “freemen” to solve their future.

It has been a struggle, but we believe it has been an upward struggle, and an upward growth, and that the Lord God of hosts has led them all the way.

Ten millions of this people to-day live within the borders of our country, and constitute about one eighth of our nation’s population. There has been crime and sin among them, but is there less among the white people? Has the African alone been the transgressor? We deprecate the savage lust and depravity of the black man, but why not also cry out against the white man’s sin in leading astray the innocent women and daughters of these people?

The black man shows a great aptitude for learning, and often proves himself an overmatch to his fellow white student. In music, in oratory, and in language they progress rapidly, and with only forty years of liberty we believe they have made rapid strides of upward progress.

They are a religious people, devoutly religious. Whatever is descriptive or touching or comical finds a response in their hearts; and while their services are not always in the same cold formalism of their white brethren, are they less acceptable to him who is our Judge?

The great mass of this people live south of the Mason and Dixon line. Upon our Southern brethren, therefore, rests the direct burden of setting before this people the third angel’s message. But our Southern brethren are poor. Their conferences are feeble, and their membership is limited. The field is wholly unable to carry on the work for such a constituency. Nor is it because the South is selfish, and the people penurious, that these conditions exist. It is doubtful if a warmer-hearted, more generous, responsive people can be found in all the world than this Southern people. But they have not yet recovered fully from the loss and waste of the Civil War.

But few of those who have accepted the truth have means. The colored people have comparatively little. Our brethren in the South who are directing our work are constantly crippled for lack of funds. They need money for school buildings, for little chapels, to help pay local teachers, and to set native workers preaching the gospel. More must be done for our colored brethren than heretofore.

The General Conference at its late session voted that the first Sabbath in October should be the day when we would request all our people to make an offering for the colored work. Last year the offering brought in several thousand dollars. It was a great blessing to our colored people, and has helped to keep several workers in the field. This year we hope for a liberal donation; for the needs are greater than we can think.

There is no greater need in this country to-day than that of the colored race. Their need should appeal to all our hearts, and may God help us to contribute liberally to supply this need.

I. H. EVANS.