(4.) To add yet another evidence that the signs of the times are to be interpreted in the line of advancing evangelization, I would mention the genius of the Negro for piety. Colonel Preston, who has written intelligently on the subject of the religious education of the Negro, says that he has adopted all the vices of the white race except suicide, duelling and religious skepticism. His voice is not more flexible and pure than, his faith is confiding and strong. And this is not a small matter. The world doubtless has great need of brains, but it has vaster need of character. Of the stones God can raise up children to Abraham; but it requires no miracle to raise up children to Plato. There is no fear for the brains of any race that will accept Christianity. To virtue, knowledge will surely be added. It is foolish for us Anglo-Saxons to assume that we have found the best expression of religion. It would be like the claim of the Pharisee, who assumed that the end of the law was fulfilled in himself. The worldliness of the church is at the present time more conspicuous than the churchliness of the world. A person who lives simply according to the doctrine of Christ is so singular as to get special notice in the church news of the religious press. So long as it can be truthfully said that “it is only by a special and rare experience that young men in the church settle the question of their life-work by the simple test of usefulness and duty; and if a young man is found pondering the question in this view, it is regarded as a case of unusual piety, and he is directed at once to the ministry; and if an older man begins to inquire how he can do the most good with his property, it is accepted as evidence of special growth in grace, a ripening for heaven”—so long, I say, as this can be truthfully said, it is perfectly within bounds to affirm that the current expression of the religion of Christ is nothing less than a shame. It is rational to hope that the Negro may help us to a fitter expression. I admit his crudities, extravagancies and immoralities, but he has a genius for religion nevertheless. It has been conjectured that there was a period when the ancestors of the Athenians were to be in no otherwise distinguished from their barbarian neighbors than by some finer taste in the decoration of their arms, and something of a loftier spirit in the songs which told of the exploits of their warriors. But these rude attempts were prophetic of their æsthetic triumphs; they had a genius for the beautiful.