- Title
- Era of progress and promise, 1863-1910 : the religious, moral, and educational development of the American Negro since his emancipation
-
-
- Date
- 1910
-
-
- Creator
- ["Hartshorn, W. N. (William Newton), 1843-1920."]
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Era of progress and promise, 1863-1910 : the religious, moral, and educational development of the American Negro since his emancipation
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Bishop Lucius H. Holsey,
D.D.
Colored M. E. Church
Residence: Atlanta, Ga.
Bishop Holsey was born in Columbus,
Ga., in 1845, the eldest of a family of fourteen
children.
His early education was obtained after a
long, hard struggle. He bought bis first book
with a few hard-earned pennies, ami learned
his letters from the white children. He
married, at an early age, Harriet A. Turner,
a girl of fifteen years, who had been reared
in the home of Bishop Pierce.
He was converted in 1858, licensed to
preach in 1888, ordained an elder in 1809,
and in 1873, five years after he was licensed
to preach, he was chosen a bishop of the
church.
He was a delegate to the Ecumenical Con¬
ference in Ixnidon, 1881. Through his in¬
fluence, Payne Institute, Augusta, Ga., was
established in 1886, and is now a school with
nearly seven hundred students. The bishop
lias aided in the establishment of several
similar educational institutions.
In response to an inquiry by the writer,
Bishop Holsey said: “ I have been a bishop
in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
thirty-six years, and have conscientiously
sought to obey the teachings of the Scriptures in all things and merit a ‘ well
done ’ when ushered into the presence of the Judge of all mankind.”
BISHOP L. H. HOLSEY, D.D.
will make them better citizens, better
servants, and better laborers. Such
sentiment, dominating and shaping the
progressive forces of human develop¬
ment, is fatal to the ends in view; besides
this, sentiment and practice prejudices
the black race to the help proffered by
the good people of the country; and the
ideal is detrimental, if not destructive,
to the interests involved. It destroys
legitimate aspiration on the one side and
waste of effort on the other, leaving
many reasons for a more thorough and
extended training of the mind.
Even the importance of skilled labor
in the wake of an advancing civilization
sinks into insignificance when com¬
pared to the development of the mind
and heart. The moral faculties, with
their high and lofty ideals, conceptions,
and possibilities, constitute the necessary
fundamentals in the personality of in¬
dividuals, as also in the state, yet this
force in human character can do nothing
until the mind goes before, clears up the
way, as did John the Baptist, crying,
“ Prepare the way,” of the moral forces.
1 he black man, like the white man, needs more morality in his
( hristianity, and there can be but little morality where there is little or
no mind to comprehend the reason for religion and morals.
Greatest Needs of the Negro Race
Bishop L. H . Holsey* D.D.
The greatest need for the further advancement and development of
the Afro-American people is the training of the mind in the direction
of religious and moral.development. It is a distinguishing fact in l>eing,
and accords with exact science, that the mind of man is the only real
difference between the beasts and the entities of the human personality,
and that this is the only ground of possible progress and development.
This is not only as in the present with the Afro-American, but it has
been and will be so in all time to come with all }>eoples and races. When
the mind is uncultured, and the intellect untrained, no real, true, or
permanent progress can be made by a race or by an individual.
The great mistake that is now being made, as to the kind of training
that is being allotted to Afro-Americans, is that half training is letter
for them than for other people, upon the presumption that such training
I rue, there were many slaves who were Christians in the days of
slavery, who exemplified the power of its living force in beautiful
characters, but it has been found that such religious dominant pro¬
clivities were enforced by fear and sustained by autocratic rule. It is
impossible to make a people true to the obligations of citizenship without
imparting to them the knowledge to see the reasons of it.
All elforts to uplift a people to moral and mental standards, less
than the possible, not only retard but woefully defeat the final ends.
So we conclude that religious and moral education is the greatest
need for the further development of the Afro-American people. While
the black man needs industrial education, such education alone cannot
make him what he is designed to be. No specific that limits the intel¬
lect or the efforts of the mind can put human nature on the God-given
plane of its native environments and its best conditions.
Kvery effort should be to produce the highest and best productions
402
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