Just a word or two here about slavery, this suggestion coming to me from a Northern clergyman, who has for the past twenty years been doing noble work for the negroes in North Carolina. Slavery with all its horrors was over-ruled by God to be a great missionary institution. The savage black men were brought into the closest contact with the highest Anglo-Saxon civilization, the best negroes coming into personal touch with the best whites as servant and master. They were taught Christ by as fair representatives of his religion as the world has ever seen. The negroes were brought under law, and were forced to see the blessings of order and justice. As Booker Washington also admits, they were taught the value of work and its necessity. So, through slavery the negro in the United States to-day stands far above the wild and ignorant African who now inhabits the land from which he came. When you read Uncle Tom's Cabin, remember that Uncle Tom was a product of slavery and that the fairer side as presented by Mrs. Stowe was the most common in the whole South. Do not misunderstand me; together with a large majority of the thinking white men of the South, I rejoice that slavery is a thing of the past; I would not have it again if I could; I see its frightful evils; but we must all acknowledge that slavery has been a potent factor for good in the evolution of the negro in the United States. The great Civil War swept over the South; and the negro was made a free man. How did this change affect his religious position? The negroes as a rule left their old masters, to try their wings and see if they were really free. One sad incident in my early childhood comes back to me now. I was awakened one night by the uncontrollable weeping of my mother. "Mother, Mother," I cried, "what is the matter!" "Hagar"--my dear black mammy--"is going to leave us." I broke out with her in still louder lamentations. Mammy came in; and then her tears fell with ours. "You aren't going to leave me, Mammy?" "Yes, chile, I'm bound to go." "Why?" "All the cullud people is gwine down de river; and I must go too." And so for pride and fear of race, though her heart was breaking for us, she went away. I am happy to tell you that in a few months she came back, and was, just as before, my loving and beloved mammy, until the day of her death. The negroes left the white churches in like manner, and most of them stayed away in their own negro churches. The Baptists and Methodists separated entirely from the whites, becoming completely independent. After working together for many years the colored Presbyterians have become an independent organization. We in the Church tried to keep them with us just as before in the days of slavery; but we only partially succeeded. We began to train colored men for the ministry; we built Churches for them; we admitted them to our Diocesan Councils on equal terms; and we strove manfully to cling to the Catholic idea: one Church for all peoples and races.