Prayer

So we hail our God, Eternal God, Ras Tafari, hear us and help us and cause Thy face to shine upon us, Thy children.

Kebra Negast

14. CONCERNING THE COVENANT OF ABRAHAM

And God held converse with Abrâm, and He said unto him, “Fear thou not. From this day thou art My servant, and I will establish My Covenant with thee and with thy seed after thee, and I will multiply thy seed, and I will magnify thy name exceedingly. And I will bring down the Tabernacle of My Covenant upon the earth seven generations after thee, and it shall go round about with thy seed, and shall be salvation unto thy race; and afterwards I will send My Word for the salvation of Adam and his sons for ever. And at this moment these who are of thy kinsmen are evil men (or, rebels), and My divinity, which is true, they have rejected. And as for thee, that day by day they may not seduce thee, come, get thee forth out of this land, the land of thy fathers, into the land which I will show thee, and I will give it unto thy seed after thee.” 1 And Abrâm made obeisance to God, and was subject to his God. And [God] said unto him, “Thy name shall be Abraham”; and He gave him-the salutation of peace and went up into heaven. And Abraham returned to his abode, and he took Sârâ (Sarah) his wife, and went forth and did not go back to his father, and his mother, and his house, and his kinsfolk; and he forsook them all for God’s sake. And he arrived in the city of Sâlêm, and dwelt there and reigned in righteousness, and did not transgress the commandment of God. And God blessed him exceedingly, and at length he possessed [3]18 stalwart servants, who were trained in war, and who stood before him and performed his will. And they wore tunics richly embroidered with gold, and they had chains of gold about their necks, and belts of gold round their loins, and they had crowns of gold on their heads; and by means of these men Abraham vanquished [his] foe. And he died in glory in God, and was more gracious and excellent than those who were before him. He was gracious, and held in honour, and highly esteemed.

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Such an amazing example to try to become…”he…was more gracious and excellent than those who were before him. He was gracious, and held in honour, and highly esteemed.”

Psalm 24

1 The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?

4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

5 He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

6 This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.

7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

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The Work That Has Been Done

Part 2 of the speech by Marcus Garvey, given to an audience in Menelik Hall, Sydney, Oct.31st 1937)

(Printed in Black Man 3 Number 10, July 1938)

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign.

The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind, because man is related to man under all circumstances for good or for ill. If man is not able to protect himself from the other man he should use his mind to good advantage. The fool will always carry the heavy burden. The fool will always be crushed without a tear from God or man because God Almight never made a fool. God is all wise. When God Almight made man in His own image and likeness, it wasn’t the physical, it was the mind that was like God. Every man represents God in his unitary intelligence. When man abuses that intelligence he lowers himself. God has given you intelligence to take care of you. He hasn’t repeated Himself yet. God was so thoughtful of man and his progeny that he made a variety of things so as to pander to the taste of the Adams that would come after the first. When God made you He made you the masters of the world, not serfs and slaves, but your mind must be developed intelligently. It is your mind that rules the body. You cannot go further than that mind to seek truth and to know truth and to re-act to truth. That is the only way you will be able to protect your group. The white man is still doing research work with his mind. It has taken him to the bowels of the earth to extract what nature placed there for him. On that same intelligence he has gone into Heaven. What you see in Sydney, in Nova Scotia is only the fringe of the white man’s intelligence. Everything that you see that is methodical is the product of the white man’s mind. He visualises nations and kingdoms and he has them. There is nothing spiritual around his materialism. They are all objective things realised, dreamt and thought out. Sydney is only what men have visualised to a greater extent. The British Empire was the visualisation of men like Raleigh, and Drake, who seeing things of value, attached them to the mother country. If places are not well protected then men take them and add them to their Empires. The U.N.I.A. is dreaming of a day when the Negro will possess himself of a homeland, when he will build for himself. The man who cannot build for himself is not only a poor fish in the sea, but ultimately will be a dead fish, plodding for himself. Nobody wants to die except the fool, because life is a worth-while thing. It is only people who are together can survive now-a-days. It is only by organising that we can get anywhere, as the Mayor told you. We are looking for the redemption and the freedom of our homeland. (We hope, sir, to invite you to Sydney, in Africa, because there we shall have different things than you have in Canada.)

Our obsession is like that of the Jews. They are working for Palestine. We are working for Africa, like the Irishman, he is working for Ireland, and the Canadian is working for a grand and noble Canada. We are helping to send on the great force of power of Canadian industry when the Canadians will realize that they too can help us to do some good as we have been helping them to do some good. We have been helping to build and up to now we are not dead, we have not fallen. The Negro has the power of resistance. He can do the job. I feel sure, as you have done in the past, you will continue in the future, whether I come here or not. Remember the primary purpose that has brought me here — goodwill, co-operation, unity from the rest of your fellows in the United States, Africa and the West Indies. We have celebrated the happiness, the glory of our Organisation’s accomplishments. We have had our ups and downs and failures, but that was only a drop in the bucket. If the Mayor were to tell you of the failures of his race, you would wonder at their patience. When the Liberals fail they go out of office and let the Conservatives go in, and the Government goes on. If you Negroes have a penny bank and it fails, you swear that you will never put another penny in it again. You should kick out the first dishonest man and put in an honest one. That is why you will have to it swim to Barbados, Trinidad and Demerara. You know how many times the Canadian Pacific failed until they now have their wonderful system? The only way you can be happy is to lay the foundation in one generation for the succeeding generation. If you do not build ships for the next generation you will always be walking. Take the white race, sometimes you see an old man president of the bank, knowing well that their grandchildren are coming after them and they are storing up for their generations to come after. Our disposition is to eat everything and let the boy work for his. We cannot treat our children as our fathers treated us, so do not eat up everything you get, for God’s sake. Remember that the boy who is coming up is to carry on until God comes. Do not be here as serfs and slaves because God never made you anything else but men. Whatever that has happened to the man it is his own mind that puts him there. He has abused the force of power of that mind. Men can create the environment to suit himself. When you do not use your intelligence you fall and will be submerged. It is because we do not live up to the state of our intelligence why we suffer so much. Before I close, I want to appeal to you to use your intelligence to work out the real things of life. You have to apply that intelligence to the management of your own individual and collective racial affairs. Every race has to look after its own affairs. You have formulated no legal or moral claim. That is why people are taking away Africa today, just how Mussolini took away Ethiopia because he thought the Ethiopians had no use for it. One man used his intelligence and knocked out while the other tried to pray.The time you waste in levity, in non-essentials, if you use it properly you will be able to guarantee to your posterity a condition better than you inherited from your forefathers. The U.N.I.A. is carrying throughout the world the message of goodwill. The message is going on. It has reached you. It will go to others, so that we may have one outlook, one purpose in life. I do hope the friendship will continue, sir, economically, politically and that you will never have cause to believe that we are not what we seem. (Cheers.)

The Chairman, Rev. Ford: Speaking on behalf of the peoples of this community permit me to say that they have enjoyed this message of goodwill immensely. Please take back for us the message that we, in Cape Breton, shall stretch out the curtains of our habitation with this in view — one God, one aim, one destiny. I have spent over six years in college learning the various ologies, but to-night you have taught me one ology and that is Negro ology. The hon. Marcus Garvey told you to-night that the man who doesn’t love his people cannot love his God. This is an epoch-making event. Let us bind ourselves together, not only when he is here, but when he is gone, so that we may be lifted up with wings as he goes.

The Wise Words of H.I.M. Haile Selassie I

Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both.  Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.

It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.  The type of progress we have chalked out for Ethiopia is based on these fundamental principles. Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both.  Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.

It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.  The type of progress we have chalked out for Ethiopia is based on these fundamental principles.

Prayer

The Shepherd’s Prayer By Athlyi

O God of Ethiopia, thy divine majesty; thy spirit come in our hearts to dwell in the path of righteousness, lead us, help us to forgive that we may be forgiven, teach us love and loyalty on earth as in Heaven, endow us with wisdom and understanding to do thy will, thy blessing to us that the hungry be fed, the naked clothed, the sick nourished, the aged protected and the infants cared for. Deliver us from the hands of our enemies that we prove fruitful, then in the last day when life is o’er, our bodies in the clay, or in the depths of the sea, or in the belly of a beast, O give our souls a place in thy kingdom forever and forever. Amen.