Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-01-20


petition to Liberia, on which he had been sent
by the New York society, and the Rev. E. E.
Smith Of Goldsboro', N. c., late minister to
Liberia.
BISHOP POTTER ON THE NEW MOVEMENT.
Bishop Potter, the new president of the
society, said: "There are in nature certain forms
Of life which, after having done their work, are
superseded and disappear. The organism is
outgrown or outworn, and, having performed
Its appropriate function, something else super
vines and dsplaces it. The old mechanism has
fulfilled its end and to undertake to maintain it
any longer would be to feed the shell of the
crystals after it has become butterfly. This is
as true Of institutions as well of any other Or
ganisnls, and it is because We cannot recognize
1t TO be true, SO there are many excellent people
who would tell US, that you and are here to-
night.
II have reflected. as I venture this evening
to ask You to do. that while the principle Of
Development with its consequent principle of
the progressive abandonment of inferior forms,
does indeed apply to institutions as we'll as to
other organized modes of life, this also is
forever true that in the highest forms Of life.
which are those illustrated in humanity, we
observe traversing. SO to speak. this law of
evolution another law which may be called the
law OF rea ijustment. And the operation of
that law is the story of the race. Trace it from
the beginnings of history and YOU will see that
same powers, aptitude, gifts, call them what
you will, trained forever to new tasks, and
rising to new energies And that / maintain
is the noblest Office of an institution well as
OF a man. The savage man and the civilized
man are one They have the same hands and
feet and eyes and brain. Yes. but the civilized
man has put these instruments, step by step,
he has climbed up out of the barbarsm into the
enlightened state, to new and nobler uses, and
SO has gveatened them and himself by their use.
at is to such task as profoundly believe,
ladies and gentlemen. that this society is called
today.
"1here is for it in the future a work no less
noble, no less worthy of its best endeavors than
any which it has done in its most prosperous
days. The old methods may be outlawed by
time. For one, ! may as well say frankly, l
believe they are. The cid theories may wisely
be surrendered in the face Of facts with which
1t is idle to attempt to reconcile them. But
this our noble and honored mechanism this
national and well-tried institution, the Ameri-
can Colonization Society. has still believe
work to do, and a most potent and far-reaching
function to fulfill. = g The able and
patriotic Frenchmen Of whom this writer
speaks seek to make Africa a school for devel-
oping and renovating French character
through the struggle with African difficulties.
Ought not that to be largely the Office of this
society in connection with the development,
most of all of our own African population? The
problem of their future in this land let him
attempt to forecast who will; but meantime, in
that other which was once their own land there
is opportunity for this race such as in all its
history it has never had before.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN NEGROES.
"From the beginning to the end of the at
tempt of any foreign people to coionize or civil
ize Africa there will remain the insurmount-
able difficulties nseparable from its climate and
all the deadly influences for which in Africa
that word must always stand. But here is
race, trained and nurtured among the condi-
tons of our own American civilization, which
in this direction has absolutely nothing to fear.
Here is a race which in 30 far as henceforth it
shall carry with it the best fruits OF that Amer-
can civilization, will carry thither all and more
than all that any, even the greatest, European
state can give. And here today. in the newly
opened resources of Africa, 10 an opportunity
which, if only we can learn to use it with wise
discrimination, will open to this society one Of
the noblest fields for honorable distinction in
the history of this republic. To build roads
into that interior Of which as yet we know SO
little. but of which all that we do know is SO
full OF a wondrous promise; to send to Africa
those, and for one am disposed to say only
those who. whether as day laborers or
skilled artizans or men of still higher
culture, can give to Africa and to Libera some
thing that they have not today; to foster
schools, yes, but most Of all to foster men and
women who shall be fit to teach in them--to
see to it that, side by side with that CONNER
cial enterprise which is just awakening to its