"What _shall_ we do with these Negroes! I for one would like to have them stay. I believe it is in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, but the proportion is growing so large that white people are drifting away from us. Strangers avoid us. Our organisation is expensive to keep up and the Negroes are able to contribute very little in proportion to their numbers. Think about it yourself: What shall we do? If we allow the Negroes to attend freely it means that eventually all the white people will leave and we shall have a Negro church whether we want it or not." In no other city are there any considerable number of Negroes who attend white churches--except a few Catholic churches. At New Orleans, I have seen white and coloured people worshipping together at the cathedrals. White ministers sometimes have spasms of conscience that they are not doing all they should for the Negro. Let me tell two significant incidents from Philadelphia. The worst Negro slum in that city is completely surrounded by business houses and the homes of wealthy white people. Within a few blocks of it stand several of the most aristocratic churches of Philadelphia. Miss Bartholomew conducts a neighbourhood settlement in the very centre of this social bog. Twice during the many years she has been there white ministers have ventured down from their churches. One of them said he had been troubled by the growing masses of ignorant coloured people. "Can't I do something to help?" Miss Bartholomew was greatly pleased and cheered. "Of course you can," she said heartily. "We're trying to keep some of the Negro children off the streets. There is plenty of opportunity for helping with our boys' and girls' clubs and classes." "Oh, I didn't mean that," said the minister; "I thought, in cases of death in their families, we might offer to read the burial service." And he went away and did not see the humour of it! Another minister made a similar proposition: he wanted to establish a Sunday School for coloured people. He asked Miss Bartholomew anxiously where he could hold it. "Why not in your church in the afternoon?" "Why, we couldn't do that!" he exclaimed; "we should have to air all the cushions afterward!" But to return to Boston. A proposition was recently made to organise for coloured people a separate Y. M. C. A., but the white members voted against any such discrimination. Yet a coloured man said to me hopelessly: "It's only delayed. Next time we shall be put off with a separate institution." _Colour Line at Harvard_