This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABORS OF / Rev. ALEXANDER BETTIS Also an Account of the Founding and Development of THE BETTIS ACADEMY BY ALFRED W. NICHOLSON /.'...". Trenton, S. C. Published by the Author W. r -PREFACE. All circumstances considered, the Negro race has made, and through its leaders is now making, history most creditably. A defect, from which the race suffers much, arises out of the fact that so little effort has been made to record and preserve the creditable history which the race has already made. These things ought not so to be. For the day will come when the future historian, observing our advancement, will desire to know the sources, the quality and quantity of the causes, that have combined to determine the trend of our civilization, and have conspired to develop and bring to pass the flattering attainments which are yet to be racially ours. And when that time comes--and come it will--the ante bellum Negro of force and character will then receive a consideration much greater than is now considered is due him. When this type of Negro shall more nearly come into his own, nowhere in this Southland will a character be found more worthy and deserving of consideration than the man who is the subject of this sketch. As truly as God called Moses to lead the children of Israel at that most critical period of their history--as truly as Paul was divinely chosen to stand on Mar's Hill and confound, by unanswerable arguments, the skepticism and atheism of that day, so truly have events shown that our subject was guided by a Higher Power in his leadership among the negroes of Edgefield and Aiken counties, South Carolina. Upon what other hypothesis can the quantity and quality of the work he accomplished be explained? Himself...