Deeper than the question, what shall we do with the Negro, lies the more
fundamental question: What does God mean to do with the Negro in our
country? Many a so-called solution of the "race problem" has been a
foredoomed failure, because it ran counter to the Providential plan.
Some have hoped that time would settle the burning question; if people
would only stop talking about it, especially meddlesome people far away
from the real pinch of the trouble, they fancy that somehow the mere
flight of years would adjust differences and secure to all their rights.
Others think the short way to peace is by force, keeping the Negro down
with a strong hand, and keeping the Anglo Saxon on top by any vigorous
means that may be needed. Others, again, think there never can be any
solution of the problem so long as the two races occupy the same
territory, and they propose some mammoth scheme of colonization to take
the blacks away to some quarter of the world where they can be by
themselves. But these and other remedies are utterly futile, because
they are in collision with God's plan, as indicated by certain manifest
facts. Meantime, while men are so busy trying to get around the
difficulty instead of solving it in a straightforward way, the problem
gets a little bigger every year. The caste question agitates our great
religious assemblies. The spoliation of the civil rights of the Negro is
one of the most menacing features in our politics. Bitter race
prejudices keep Southern cities in a ferment, and even break out in
dreadful massacres. This race problem will continue to be one of the
most momentous and disturbing questions in American public life, until
somehow we learn how to get into line with Providence, and find some
solution that harmonizes with the great movements that have the hand of
God in them.