CHAPTER VIII _Work Among the Colored People_ Bishop Cheshire's active interest in the church's work among the Negroes began when he was rector of St. Peter's Church, Charlotte. His organization of the colored mission of St. Michael and All Angels and the part he took in helping to establish the Good Samaritan Hospital have already been related. When he became bishop he continued and greatly enlarged his activities in behalf of the Negro work. In the early part of his episcopate the Bishop made an address to the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People, in which he expressed some interesting ideas on the colored work. He first pointed out that the reconstruction acts had failed to accomplish for the Negro many of their designed objectives. Although those acts were for the most part of a purely political character, he realized many sincere people in the North had advocated them in the belief that they would help the Negro. In his opinion, the legislation of the reconstruction period had not accomplished for the colored people what its sincerest advocates had confidently expected. If the Negroes are to play a significant role in the future of this country, the Bishop declared, "it will be only because they shall have become fitted for that part. No theories of predominant political equality will avail for preserving privileges which are not exercised for the benefit of the community...." He believed that the disabilities of the Negro could not be removed, nor the disadvantages under which he worked conquered, by legislation against particular evils, "but simply by changing the actual conditions of the race itself." Those who are interested in the welfare of the Negro must work for the elevation of his ideals of living, of working, and of self-restraint. The Bishop emphasized the importance of developing a spirit of self-reliance and self-help among the colored clergy and laity, believing this to be the best means by which they could strengthen their economic and social position. The colored churchmen of the Diocese soon learned that in Bishop Cheshire they had a staunch friend and one from whom they could count upon receiving a fair and sympathetic hearing. He reciprocated this confidence with a like faith in them. It was a regular practice of the Bishop to attend only the first day's session of the annual meetings of the white and colored convocations. He did this in order to give the clergy an opportunity of "speaking their mind freely." He always remembered an observation of George Eliot that "the first thing the clergy do, when they get together in convocation, is to abuse the Bishop." In this connection Bishop Cheshire once remarked: "I do not know what the white clergy may do, but I do not believe my black clergy will have anything to say against me even in my absence."[49]