CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS
IN COLORED CHURCHES.[1]
1.I apprehend that there is a common recognition, in this "Ministers' Meeting," of the fact, that acts of mercy and organized benevolence are special functions of the religion of Christ. They stand, unless I make the greatest of mistakes, next in order to the confession of faith of the Lord Jesus. There can be no doubt, I judge, that mercifulness to the poor, trie sick, the disabled, and the miserable run parallel, in the life of our blessed Lord, with all the announcements He made of the saving truth which He came into this world to announce to the sons of men.
He came, it is true, into this world to proclaim divine truth; but His mission was, as well, to see what were the pains and pangs of wretched human nature, and to exert a divine power capable of arresting the deadly tide of disease, in human frames and human homes. In accordance with this generous purpose He spent a life of most gracious restorative power; healing all manner of disease and sickness. He fed the hungry. He comforted the widow. He restored hearing to deafened ears. The blind, at His touch, were reclaimed from darkness to look forth, in joy, upon the brightness of clear skies and the lilies of the field. The paralyzed regained lost vital power to disabled limbs. The withered hand was made whole, and lunacy was changed to calm rationality and clear sense.
And these were to be perpetual characteristics of the Christian Faith, to the end of the world. Mercifulness was to be an unfailing inheritance in the Christian system. The age of miracles has gone: but there is no disticnt power and influence, the Lord once exererted, that has ever departed, entirely and in every way, from among men. We have still His personal presence in the world in His church; and so, likewise, the wondrous powers and
- ↑ A paper read before the "Ministers' Meeting" of Colored Churches, December 5th, 1892; and printed at their request.
