They despise the submission and sub-
serviency of the Southern Negroes, but offer no other means
by which a poor and oppressed minority can exist side by side
with its masters. Feeling deeply and keenly the tendencies
and opportunities of the age in which they live, their souls are
bitter at the fate which drops the Veil between; and the very
fact that this bitterness is natural and justifiable only serves to
intensify it and make it more maddening.
Between the two extreme types of ethical attitude which I
have thus sought to make clear wavers the mass of the
millions of Negroes, North and South; and their religious life
and activity partake of this social conflict within their ranks.
Their churches are differentiating,--now into groups of cold,
fashionable devotees, in no way distinguishable from similar
white groups save in color of skin; now into large social and
business institutions catering to the desire for information and
amusement of their members, warily avoiding unpleasant
questions both within and without the black world, and preach-
ing in effect if not in word: Dum vivimus, vivamus.
But back of this still broods silently the deep religious
feeling of the real Negro heart, the stirring, unguided might
of powerful human souls who have lost the guiding star of the
past and seek in the great night a new religious ideal.
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