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The Time to Help the Colored People

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 16, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 37.

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The Time to Help the Colored People

By C. F. MCVAGH

C. F. MCVAGH
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Eccl. 3:1. October 2 has been appointed for the annual offering to the work for the colored people. God frequently commends in the Bible those who recognize the time of their visitation and obey the instructions that he sends by the testimonies of his Spirit and by the providences set before them.
“And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” 1 Chron. 12:32. If God’s people ever had evidence of anything, they have evidence of the fact that a strong and united effort should be made for the colored people in the South just now. In almost every discourse at the recent General Conference at Washington, D. C., the servant of the Lord referred to the great work to be done in the South and in the East. From a Testimony entitled “A Call for Colored Laborers,” I quote: “There is the greatest need for all kinds of missionary work in the South. Without delay workers must be prepared for this field. Our people should provide a fund for the education of men and women in the Southern States, who, being accustomed to the climate, can work without endangering their health.
“Promising young men and young women should be educated to become teachers. They should have the very best advantages. Schoolhouses and meeting-houses should be built in different places, and teachers employed.”
“Our churches in the North, as well as in the South, should do what they can to help support the school work for the colored children. The schools already established should be faithfully maintained. The establishment of new schools will require additional funds. Let all our brethren and sisters do their part whole-heartedly to place these schools on vantage-ground.”
Aside from this plain instruction God is telling us by his providences that now is the time to work for the colored people. Never since the days of the climax of the abolition sentiment has there been such a universal interest in, and widespread study of, the negro and the race problem in the South as at the present. In evidence of the popular interest in the subject, I need only refer to the articles in the June and August numbers of Hampton’s Magazine by Judge Harris Dickson, entitled respectively, “The Unknowable Negro” and “The Negro in Politics,” together with William Archer’s “White and Black in the South,” in the July number of McClure’s. The question is a live one just now. All shades of opinion on the problem are being freely expressed and publicly discussed.
Ex-Gov. Hoke Smith of Georgia, in his last message to the legislature, took occasion to deal specifically with the race question as related to the public-school system; and Mr. P. A. Bruce, in his “Rise of the New South,” voices this significant opinion: “Already it is the ultimate fate of the negro that is in the balance, not the ultimate fate of the Southern States in consequence of the presence of the negro.”
Again: a Southern health officer, in presenting and studying statistics, makes this comment: “The negro is with you for all time. He is what you will make him, and it is ‘up to’ the white people to prevent him from becoming criminal, and to guard him against tuberculosis, syphilis, etc. If he is tainted with disease, you will suffer; if he develops criminal tendencies, you will be affected.”
What is the significance of all this interest and agitation? It is God’s providence telling his people that now is the time to give the message to the colored race. Ought not these things to stir our people to make a liberal offering October 2?
Nashville, Tenn.