CASTE IN THE CHURCHES.

OPINIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS PRESS.

From The Congregationalist.

If report be true, the South Carolina Episcopalians have compromised their difficulty in the matter of color in a manner which is not likely to be permanently satisfactory. A portion of the diocesan convention had seceded because the bishop declared that he could not exclude a regularly ordained minister who was black. The canon law now has been amended so as to exclude henceforth all other black men, and the seceders have returned, consenting to make the best of the one obnoxious colored man, but indignant because he has not been ejected. Whether the General Convention will endorse or repudiate this compromise remains to be seen. In either case the Episcopal branch of the church might as well abandon its efforts to make headway among the colored race in that State. So far as we can see, the bishop has made a manly stand, however, and deserves commendation and sympathy. But the seceders have shown a sad lack of the true spirit of Christ.

From The Advance.

There have been in Georgia for ten or more years a number of Congregational churches and a State Congregational Association. This included, along with the pastors of colored churches, the President and some of the Professors in Atlanta University. Last year, when that interesting body of churches hitherto known as Congregational Methodists, saw fit to take measures for becoming in name as well as in fact Congregationalists, a "Georgia Congregational Conference" was formed, a committee was also appointed to confer with the previously existing Congregational Association, with a view to the right adjustment of relations between the members of the two organizations. We publish on another page the reply recently addressed by the "Association" to the "Conference," with a view to unity on terms that would be in themselves Christian and agreeable to both the parties interested, as well as acceptable to Congregationalists everywhere. All of our churches have an interest in a matter of such significance, as they would also be sensitive to the reproach of there being two distinct Congregational Associations in the same State, separated from each other on the un-Christian caste line of race and color. With the temper and spirit manifest in the communication referred to, it would seem that the way is now open for a happy consummation of Congregational fellowship in the State of Georgia, on terms which not only Congregationalists but Christians of every name at the North will warmly approve and applaud.

From The Independent.

The members of the Presbyterian General Assembly can go home from New York assured that they have vindicated truth and righteousness. The one vital, vicious fault in the report of the Conference Committee of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches on Co-operation was amended out of it and as it now stands adopted it gives not even by implication any support to the unchristian doctrine of separate presbyteries and synods for black and half-white Presbyterians.

When the General Assembly met a year ago the Church had been somewhat stirred up, though the leaders and editors generally seemed so anxious for a proud reunion that they were ready to forget the wrong proposed to the colored brothers. Indeed, a volunteer commission of editors and managers had gone all through the South visiting the synods of the Northern Church where the Negroes were in the majority, persuading them that it would be better for them to go by themselves and get their share of the honors. Not willing to be an obstacle, the Negroes had very generally yielded to the persuasions of their kind visitors.

But there were a number of earnest men who were not willing to yield the principle, and who would make a fight. It was the Centennial year, and the two Assemblies were meeting at the same time and in neighboring cities, ready to consummate the union if desired. But the previous discussion had stirred up the Southerners also, and they had discovered that the temper of the North was not all that had been represented. They were not at all sure that the color-line could be peacefully drawn. They had decided, therefore, not to unite. The report of the Committee of Conference was accordingly withdrawn, and the matter referred to another committee, which praised the fidelity of the Committee, declared it premature to act on their report, and approved "the general principles enumerated in the replies of the Committee," and recommended that the committee of thirteen be enlarged by the addition of five more men, and continued to devise methods of co-operation with the Southern Church. In fear of acrimonious discussion this was railroaded through in two minutes.

Well, the General Assembly has met again and the action taken by an overwhelming majority of the Assembly fills us with gratitude to God. The ticklish part of the report on co-operation was that, of course, on colored evangelization. Here the report first stated what had been the policy of the Southern Church for a separate Negro denomination, and then gave that of the Northern Church:

"The Northern Assembly, on the other hand, has pronounced itself as not in favor of setting off its colored members into a separate, independent organization; while by conceding the existing situation, it approves the policy of separate churches, presbyteries and synods, subject to the choice of the colored people themselves."

Only one of the seventeen, Elder S.M. Breckinridge, of St. Louis, signed a minority report.

It was fully expected that this report, so overwhelmingly recommended, would go through with a rush. The managers had so planned. The ex-Moderators, Smith, Crosby and Thompson, were in its favor. Dr. Crosby said he would as soon be in the Southern Church as in the Northern. All the prestige of good fellowship was in favor of the report as it was presented, and the Southern Assembly had adopted it by a large majority the day before.

The Rev. John Fox, of Allegheny, Penn., opened the opposition, opposing the report generally, and supporting Elder Breckinridge's minority report. It was a useful speech, and, though the sentiment of the Assembly was plainly opposed, it stemmed the tide awhile and prepared the way for what was to follow. Ex-Moderator Smith, of Baltimore, Chairman of the Northern Assembly's Committee, then defended his report and showed how much the Southern Assembly had yielded in accepting it. Then came the event of the day. The Rev. M. Woolsey Stryker, of Chicago, a young man of thirty-five, whom our readers will remember as one of our correspondents, arose and denounced that portion of the report which in the paragraph given above we have put in italics, and moved its omission. He denied that the Church ever had "approved the policy of separate churches, presbyteries and synods," and he declared such a policy to be utterly unchristian. It instantly appeared that he had the sympathy of the Assembly, if not of its leaders. Dr. Niccolls, of St. Louis, supported him vigorously, but briefly, for speakers had been shut down to five minute speeches. Dr. McCulloch, of Alton Presbytery, Ill., defended the report and asked, "Do you mean to tell me that if the colored people themselves prefer separate churches, presbyteries and synods, you would deny them the right to have them?" "Yes, by all means," shouted Mr. Stryker, whose clear head and bold answer was rewarded with loud approval. Dr. Crosby said he understood that the Negroes had last year indicated their desire for separation; but Mr. Sanders, the colored editor of The Africo-American Presbyterian, of North Carolina, arose, and said they had many of them consented to it last year rather than seem to stand in the way of re-union, but that this year there was no reason for such a sacrifice, that they did not wish it, and that while the presbytery of which he was a member had no white ministers in it, they would be glad to welcome them if they would come. After other addresses, the motion of Mr. Stryker for the excision of the paragraph favoring separation of the races was put and carried by an overwhelming majority, not less than three to one, and the report, with this amendment, adopted.

It was a glorious victory, due to the conscience of the rank and file of the Assembly, a victory of the Christian heart of fellowship with the humblest over the pride and ambition of greatness and power. The Assembly has done its duty by its colored members, and every colored member's face was radiant with delight. We have never doubted that if the subject once came fairly up for discussion, the Conference Committee would learn something they did not know before about their denomination. Encouraged by the indorsement given by the Presbyterian Assembly to the position we have maintained against the separation of Christians in the Church of Christ, we shall not neglect the same conflict going on among the Congregationalists and Episcopalians.

From the Christian Union.

The question whether the Church of Christ shall recognize the color line is coming up to vex in turn each one of the great Protestant denominations in the North. We say Protestant denominations advisedly; for we do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church would for a moment entertain the notion of excluding a man either from its sacraments, its worshiping assemblies, or its priesthood, on the ground of color, or would recognize in its worshiping assemblies any distinction except the broad one between clergy and laity. To do so would be to violate all its traditions and history.

In the Protestant denominations of the North, the question is complicated by two considerations: a strong anti-caste prejudice in the Northern constituency, on which the missionary organizations are dependent for their support, and a strong ecclesiastical ambition and spiritual desire, commingled in various proportions, to push on the work of church extension in the South, where it cannot, apparently, be pushed forward with early success, if caste is ignored and colored Christians are admitted to white churches, and colored clergymen to white ecclesiastical assemblies, on equal terms with their white brethren. In the Diocesan Episcopal Convention of South Carolina it is, therefore, proposed to amend the diocesan constitution so as to provide for two Conventions, a white and a colored. In the Presbyterian Church the difference of opinion on this subject constitutes one bar to a union between the Northern and Southern churches, or even to co-operation between them. This has been for the time removed by a sort of concordat by which the relations of the colored and the white members in the two churches respectively are allowed to remain in statu quo, and the settlement of the problem is relegated to the future. In the Congregational denomination, the question is likely to come up before the meeting of the American Home Missionary Society at Saratoga early in June, and again before the National Council at Worcester in October. In the State of Georgia, there has been for some time an Association of Congregational churches mainly composed of colored people, and largely under the fostering care of the American Missionary Association. A Congregational work has latterly been started among the whites under the fostering care of the American Home Missionary Society. And recently a body of independent Methodists, really Congregational in the principles of their government, and having a considerable number of churches in Georgia, and some in other Southern States, has become also Congregational in name. Both bodies will have representatives, presumably, at Saratoga, certainly at the meeting of the National Council at Worcester in October, and the latter body, if not the former, will have to determine whether it will recognize two Congregational Associations in one State, the sole difference between them being that one Association is composed wholly of white people, and the other chiefly of colored people; unless, indeed—and of this there is some hope—the Congregational Associations of Georgia solve the problem by coming together and forming one body. There have been some correspondence and conferences to consider the possibility of such a union.

We find ourselves on this subject occupying a position midway between the radicals on the one side and the conservatives on the other. In some parts of the South, the whites and Negroes must for many years to come be educated in separate schools and worship in separate churches. They need, to some extent, a different education; they desire, to a large extent, a different kind of religious worship and instruction. The preaching which appeals to the Anglo-Saxon race appears cold and unmeaning to the warm-blooded Negro; the preaching which arouses in him a real religious fervor appears to his cold-blooded neighbor imaginative, passionate, unintelligent. To attempt to force the two races into a fellowship distasteful to both, to attempt to require the two to listen to the same type of sermon and join in the same forms of worship, is a "reform against nature." Even if the erection and maintenance of two churches where one would suffice for the worshipers of both classes involves some additional expense, the expense may not be greater than the resultant spiritual advantage.

But to close the doors of any church on any Christian is in so far to make it an unchristian church. To go into the South to establish white churches from which, whether by a formal law or by an unwritten but self-enforcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black, is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ: All ye are brethren. It is to introduce into a church already divided by sectarian strifes a new division. It is to rend afresh the seamless robe. To say to any man asking for Christian fellowship on the simple ground of faith in Christ, "Stand back: for I am whiter than thou," is simply a new and indefensible form of Pharisaism. The church exists to proclaim certain truths, among which the brotherhood of man stands pre-eminent. It is difficult to see with what consistency a Christian minister can preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan if his church refuses to recognize a Christian brother in one of another race because he belongs to another race. There is no reason for an attempt to corral all men of all races in one inclosure; but for any church, especially for a church of the Puritans, to enter upon missionary work in the South, and initiate it by refusing to admit to its fellowship a black man because he is black, is to apostatize from the faith in order to get a chance to preach the faith. To assert equality and brotherhood at the polls, to reaffirm it in a public school system, to reassert it by courts of law in the hotel and the railroad train, and then deny it in the church, would be indeed a singular incongruity, and would make the Nation more Christian than the church.

The principle, then, by which the color-line question is to be settled is very simple, though its application may in some cases present some difficulties. The whites and Negroes are not to be coerced or bribed into uniting in one and the same church organizations. If they prefer to worship and to work separately, they must be allowed so to do. This is within their Christian liberty. But it is not within their Christian liberty to refuse the fullest and most perfect Christian fellowship to each other. The doors of every Christian church must stand wide open to men of every race and color. The only reason of exclusion must be in moral or spiritual character. And in the higher representative bodies these churches must be one. To organize, for example, in the State of Georgia two Congregational bodies, one white and the other colored, would be to organize a church to perpetuate divisions which the church should aim to obliterate. It were far better that the Northern Church should not go with its missionary work into the South at all, than that it should go with a mission which strengthens the infidelity that denies that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth for to dwell together.