What would be the result of such a union? If an organic union of all the colored Methodists in America could be effected, it would make no mean Church. Just think of the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America, and the colored members now within the Methodist Episcopal Church, say to the number of three hundred thousand, uniting and forming one Church, composed of 22,076 ministers and a membership of 1,012,300, bringing with them an army of Sunday-school children not far from 1,500,000! If the divine promise were fulfilled in each of these, that “one shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight,” why, such an army of true believers could, as the quaint preacher said, “shake hell to its center” while moving the world toward the cross of Christ!

It was in 1883 when Dr. Tanner, through the columns of the paper he was then editing, the Christian Recorder, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, suggested the idea of an organic union of all the exclusively colored organizations. A year or so ago the colored Methodists of Canada, under Bishop Nazery, united with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It did not amount to much then nor since. Several times overtures have been made to the two other colored Churches by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, but it has usually ended in talk. The fact may as well be stated first as last, that a time will never come in the history of this country when all the colored Methodists will belong to one great Negro Church. In the first place, the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America, and the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, each and every one of these is looking forward to, and praying for, a time when all the others will come back to mother or come over and live with sister. Again, because the separate and distinct colored Church organizations have been warring with each other from the beginning of their organization, and these old feuds and petty jealousies keep coming up every time organic union is mentioned. It can not occur, because the African Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches continued separate before the war, and when it ended expected to, and did, receive a wonderful influx from the Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Those two organizations saw a few apples still clinging to the parent tree in the South. They began throwing sticks and mud, then they tried “taffy,” and then stones. In 1869 each of the above-named two Churches began to get ready for the reception of the one hundred thousand members then in the Church South. As the General Conference of the Church South in 1870 met, each of those denominations, basing its faith on the repeated promises of many of the prominent preachers of the Church South, began to prepare to receive them. They were chagrined, however, when, instead of “coming over,” they marched out into the broad field of independency, and set up shop for themselves by the assistance of the Church South. The two older Churches then began to bushwhack all they possibly could, seizing “every straggling soul as their own lawful prey.” The two larger colored organizations will not unite, because each is still waiting and expecting her younger sister to visit and remain with her. The three will not unite, because each is expecting a time to come when the three hundred thousand colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church will leave in a body and join it.

Of course, the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church are praised, abused, loved, laughed at, or coquetted, as the case seems to require at the time. It is really amusing at times to hear the stories told—good, bad, and indifferent—by these three organizations, to induce our members to come. And yet, somehow or other, the one does not seem to know why the other should anticipate our coming. We can not see it. Before we had separate conferences it did look as if all our members would be stolen from us. But every day now the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church pitch their tent a day’s march farther from any kind of African Methodism, on the one hand, and from having the oceans circumscribe them by joining “The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of, or in, America.” If there ever comes a time in the history of the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church when it will be no longer useful, pleasant, or wise to remain, they will undoubtedly form another colored organization, and man it themselves. They have the material. There is no colored Church in this country that is educating so many young people a year as the Methodist Episcopal Church. Our brethren of the three colored organizations in this country will tell you that the time has now passed when their bishops, General Conference officers, etc., can visit the Commencement exercises of our schools and colleges, and take away in their pockets, by flattery or promises, our young people as they were wont to do. This is the explanation of the mushroom “universities and colleges” under the auspices of certain “powers” in this country. Our young men and women begin now to see, as do many others, that a time not far distant must come when the best outlook for cultured colored men and women will not be, as some would have us believe, in Africa, nor among the Africans. Why should it not be a separate organization of our own, if any change must come? Indeed, the thought presents the most flattering prospect,—the twenty or thirty universities, colleges, normal schools, and academies given into the hands of our own competent presidents, professors, and teachers; the real estate, consisting of college buildings, churches, and parsonages, with mortgage on only about twenty-five cents on the dollar; five hundred thousand children in our schools, and over three hundred thousand members, with the great Methodist Episcopal Church behind them! Now and then some good brother, like the author of “Preachers and People in the Methodist Episcopal Church,” advances the utopian idea of handing us over to some one of the existing colored organizations, but the good men and women in the Methodist Episcopal Church are hoping for no such thing. We believe the good men and women predominate.

In the above-referred-to book the statement is made that “the more intelligent colored people in the Methodist Episcopal Church are seriously thinking of separating from the Methodist Episcopal Church.” If the poll were taken of every intelligent colored man within the Church, such an idea would be laughed at, for no such feeling prevails. There is no such spirit abroad within the Church on the part of the colored members. If it exists at all, it must be sought elsewhere. There is no occasion for it; and though it may be that now and then some word is let fall by some braggadocio, that if so and so is not done, thus and so will happen, yet no such stuff has ever fallen from the lips of the leaders of our colored membership, properly so called. Should anything of the kind ever be broached, there would be no occasion for secrecy, and less for braggadocio; no absolute necessity for rejoicing on the part of any colored organizations, if there might follow overtures to the Methodist Episcopal Church for organic union that are not now made. The thought naturally uppermost at this juncture in the minds of some may be, Would it not be Christian-like and brotherly for the colored members to separate, so that organic union may take place between the “two great branches of Methodism in this country?” Is that what keeps them apart? We would, to the question as to separation, answer, No. If we understand the heart of the Church—and we think we do, having been born naturally and supernaturally in her lap—she does not ask as much. In 1844 the Church, by dropping her interests in and work for the colored man, could very easily and knowingly have preserved her union, power, and influence, kept back the rebellion for a time, received the encomiums instead of the vituperation and obloquy of every slaveholding nation in the world, and brought to her support the strong slave oligarchy of the South. She did not do it. She will never compromise with sin enough to accept even an organic union conceived in caste and born of a hate that excludes one the Lord said should be loved as herself. We believe, laying aside all personal predilections, prejudice, and aspirations that, so far as the Church is concerned, the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church will remain therein until they are pleased to go out, if that is until the sound of the first trumpet.

Would there be anything gained by a separation? To our mind there is nothing to gain, and much to lose, by the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church separating from it. In the first place, it would have the same tendency that the now existing colored organizations have, casting reflections upon the wisdom of those good men and women who all along have contended for general equality; it would weaken the race politically and socially; widen, instead of narrowing, the chasm between the white and colored clergy in this country. “Like priests, like people,” would naturally widen the breach between the laity. This would naturally cause variance between neighbors because of color. This would naturally lead to separate schools where they are now mixed, and keep forever separate those that are now separate. In a word, it would magnify caste, race prejudice, and eventually lead to a war of races. The segregation of one million or more colored men in this country into one single organization would endanger the safety of our Republic in more ways than one. In the second place, a separation now from the Methodist Episcopal Church for anything less than a crime against the race would not only be suicidal, but foolhardy, paying kindness with contumely, and subjecting not only the members concerned, but the race to the scorn and laughter of the world. We do not expect to have everything go our way, to count for more than we number, nor to see every law we propose adopted, nor to be fondly dandled in the lap of an affectionate and opulent mother. We expect only what we have always received from the Church—the privilege of full membership therein.

The work which the Church has done in the South, may be seen from the following tables:

In the above figures the West Texas Conference is included in Texas Conference, East Tennessee in the Tennessee Conference, etc. While no claim is set up that the above figures are exactly true, they are at least an approximation. Where the conference was mixed, one-eighth of the missionary appropriation only has been credited to the colored work, though it is easy to see how mistakes could creep in an account of this. But the work that has been done, and the interest which the Church has had in it are apparent. So long as souls are to be saved, the Church can not relax its efforts toward these people, whether white or colored.

The great work done by this benevolent society of the Church among the colored people of the South deserves emphatic mention in connection with these tables of results which we have been giving. It will be impossible to tabulate perfectly statistical results among the colored people, as the work done has been for the populations of the South, regardless of color, and has so interpenetrated that it would be impossible to say that this was done for one race, and this for another. We may mention, however, the publication of the Good Tidings and its gratuitous distribution among the Sunday-schools of the colored people in the South. During the year 1888 the Sunday-school Union, in connection with the Tract Society, sent the Good Tidings to 2,536 Sunday-schools in 807 different charges in the Southern States. The weekly average of Good Tidings distributed was 37,134; total number of copies distributed during the year, 1,994,000; total number of pages, 7,976,000. No one can possibly estimate the great good which has been accomplished by the circulation of this excellent publication. Besides this, the Union has sent grants of Sunday-school libraries, music-books, catechisms, and Sunday-school periodicals of every possible description to all parts of the South, calling into existence new schools, and inspiring discouraged schools with new life. Possibly the most helpful work accomplished by this society has been its personal visitation in the person of its efficient agents in all parts of the South. Almost every section of the country has been touched. Extensive campaigns of work have been conducted. Weary and disheartened pastors have been encouraged; new schools have been organized, which have already grown into commanding churches; new and better methods of work have been taught a people who knew so little how to work; and because of this “hand-to-hand” effort immense good has been accomplished, and the Sunday-school Union stands well to the front among the benevolent societies of the Church, contributing to the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church among the colored people of the South.

In addition to this official work for the Sunday-schools of the South, there were in several places organized efforts to collect and distribute second-hand books in needy localities. From Cincinnati many boxes of these were forwarded, that useful reading matter and school-books might be supplied by the proper agents to those who had not the means to purchase for themselves. These went largely into the cabins and cottages of the freedmen; and the first lessons in reading were learned by many who had no other teachers than those in the Sunday-schools. A single book served ofttimes for an entire family. Father, mother, and children were alike ignorant, and alike needed instruction.

In twenty-two years the Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society has expended in the work of Christian education in the South about $2,500,000.

The present value of the property owned by the Society in the South is over $1,500,000. This includes lands—some of which have increased in value—school buildings, furniture, and libraries. More than one hundred thousand colored students have been in the various schools, and a reasonable estimate is, that the preachers and teachers in public and private schools, from among this multitude, have had under their influence fully one million of the youth and adults of the South. No words can adequately express the far-reaching and glorious results already achieved, and yet to flow, from this ever-widening current of intellectual and moral power.

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.

With the understanding that we are not cumbersome to the Church, what is the duty of the colored members therein? It is our indispensable duty to remain loyal, wise, and prudent. By saying that the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church ought to remain loyal, does not necessarily carry with it a thought that there is a spirit of disloyalty brewing. What is intended is simply that each and every member thereof should know his and her obligations to the Church, her rules and regulations, and sacredly keep them, “not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.” If the entire membership would be loyal and stay loyal, as well as appear loyal in the eyes of the world and of the Church, it must see to it that there is no just ground for such complaints against the race as have herein before been mentioned as found in Mr. Wright’s book. The charges he brought forward were, that the colored delegates to the General Conference of 1884 were “generally very ignorant representatives.” He said also: “It is said, by those who know and judge impartially, that to-day there are but few men in any of the Southern colored and mixed conferences who are fitted for their places, and that the colored members are still grossly immoral.” These are awfully serious charges, whether true or not. A great many people in these United States will probably form (or may have already) an opinion from that book of not only the race with which they anon come in contact in the busy scenes of every-day life, but of the colored membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church, members of the same Christian family, who are privileged to eat at the same Lord’s table. We know there are thousands of chances for even us to say, “It is not all on this side of the house;” but it makes but little, if anything, in our favor if others are no better than we. That the good brother overleaped the bounds of reason, not to say common sense, in his desperation to make out a case, is a foregone conclusion. What he says is, that “those who know and judge impartially,” say “that the colored members are still grossly immoral.” What a fearful charge is this against the bishops of our Church, that they have brought into the Church, directly or indirectly, under their very noses, three hundred thousand “grossly immoral” members! Thousands of these have received authority to preach the gospel and administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; none of whom have been less than two years under the almost personal training of the General Conference. Isn’t it horrible? Who believes it? But no one need be surprised at this tirade against the poor “black man,” for in his next paragraph above, at page 265, brother Wright, in speaking of the white ministers and agents sent South to teach the colored people, says: “The general impudence and lack of knowledge of the agents and ministers sent to the South have blocked up the way of the Church. The immoral character and the dishonest practices of some inflicted disgrace on the Church and cast a doubt on all.” All the white delegates were not as “learned” as the author of “Preachers and People in the Methodist Episcopal Church,” who were elected to attend the General Conference in 1884. It was not to have been expected that all the colored delegates would measure up to him. However far he may have missed the truth in this case, intentionally or otherwise, one of the best ways for the colored members in the Church to show that they are loyal and worthy is to elect no one as a delegate to the General Conference who is not qualified. By qualified we mean possessing natural and acquired ability, and the grace of God richly shed abroad in the heart. With the former he will be qualified to discharge the functions of his office with credit to himself, his race, and the Church. By the latter he will be “an epistle known and read of all men,” who will by it perceive that he is “neither common nor unclean,” but “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” As presiding elders, pastors, officers, and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, let us let our light shine by raising our standard higher. Let no one be recommended for license to preach by us in any quarterly-meeting, however far back in the woods it may be, who has not “gifts and grace.” As to our mode of worship, let it be after the manner of our excellent Discipline, and not after the style of Revolutionary days. Let our Sabbath-schools be brought up to a higher plane. Let the songs of thanksgiving and praise, accompanied by the Word of God and prayer, be of daily occurrence where it has been periodical. Let us see to it that, as a Church, the rules and regulations thereof are kept to the very letter. Let us, as a race, continue to improve morally, financially, intellectually, and spiritually, “having an eye single to the glory of God.” “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; praying always, with all prayers and supplications in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance,” until the great and notable day of the Lord, when you shall appear before the great white throne, and hear the Captain of your salvation, to the question, “Who are these?” answer, “These are they which came up out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”