Before he retired to rest that night, he besought God to enable him
and his people, as a mark of appreciation of what had been done for
the race, to rise to the full measure of just expectation and prove
worthy of all the care bestowed. He went through school, therefore, as
though the eyes of the world were looking at the race enquiringly; the
eyes of the North expectantly; and the eyes of God lovingly,--three
grand incentives to his soul.

When these schools were first projected, the White South that
then was, fought them with every weapon at its command. Ridicule,
villification, ostracism, violence, arson, murder were all employed
to hinder the progress of the work. Outsiders looked on and thought
it strange that they should do this. But, just as a snake, though a
venomous animal, by instinct knows its enemy and fights for its life
with desperation, just so the Old South instinctively foresaw danger
to its social fabric as then constituted, and therefore despised
and fought the agencies that were training and inspiring the future
leaders of the Negro race in such a manner as to render a conflict
inevitable and of doubtful termination.

The errors in the South, anxious for eternal life, rightfully feared
these schools more than they would have feared factories making
powder, moulding balls and fashioning cannons. But the New South, the
South that, in the providence of God, is yet to be, could not have
been formed in the womb of time had it not been for these schools. And
so the receding murmurs of the scowling South that was, are lost in
the gladsome shouts of the South which, please God, is yet to be.

But lest we linger too long, let us enter school here with Belton.