Page:Rebels and reformers (1919).djvu/276

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by its ministers and members, and by preventing whenever it could meetings or discussions being held against it. The Church, Garrison thought, should not be regarded as the Church of Christ, but as the foe of freedom, humanity, and religion. He hated Sunday because on that day no abolition meetings could be held—yet, as we know, he had been a strict church-*goer as a young man, and was always to the end of his life a Christian, longing for men and women and the Church to turn to true Christianity, apart from its forms and dogmas.

Garrison had demanded for the negro full citizenship, but he did not live to see how strong is the prejudice in many places against black people. He had not to face this problem of race. It was a great step in the history of civilization to abolish slavery, but it was not the end of the negro question. Is the black man to have the same rights as the white man, the same opportunities for education and improvement? Is there a place for him in this world? Can he make himself useful and indispensable? If we read the history of the negroes' struggles to get education against fearful difficulties and opposition, of how they endeavored to learn with their clouded, unused minds, and of how they succeeded in lifting themselves by their own efforts out of ignorance and degradation, I think we must believe that there is a place for them, that, given a share in the world's work and its responsibilities, they will show themselves