University of Virginia Library

A Century's Meaning

One hundred years in the life of a state
means much. One hundred years in the life
of any church means more. One hundred

years in the life of a religious body born in
poverty, in the midnight of bondage, amidst
the throes and groans of slavery, surrounded
and penetrated by oppression and lack of opportunity,
furnishes an occasion for supreme
thanksgiving and congratulations. Then thirty
dollars in property, now three million five
hundred thousand dollars; then twenty in
church-membership, now five hundred thousand;
then one minister of the Gospel, now
four thousand, besides nine bishops; but the
record is not complete. Blot out this property
and these numbers, and the church with
such a birth, that could within a century produce
a Price, a Dancy, a Hood, or a Walters,
and set the world an example in its ability for
self-dependence and self-government, would
have, with these achievements alone, more
than justified its existence.

Centennial A. M. E. Zion Church.