1. One is that our church system had not previously prevailed at the South, to become modified by the influences of slaveholding, and identified with it in the associations of the colored people. As individuals become intelligent enough to rise above the prevailing sectarianism; as they learn the anti-slavery history of our churches; and as they learn that the nature of our polity prevented it from coming South in the days of slavery, they turn to the Puritan way with avidity. It is to them a new discovery of friends, who had stood by them when they knew it not. Indeed, these people, whose ancestors were landed upon these shores the same year the Pilgrims came, appear to be the Yankees of the South. They fall naturally into the observance of Thanksgiving, and on that day they love to hear over and over the story of the Pilgrims and Puritans, their exile, their hardships, their poverty, their simplicity of life, their struggle for liberty. They soon learn that the Puritan ideas have taken possession of the North, are now penetrating the South, and are rising to a supremacy over the nation. As they advance in understanding they take in these ideas; and, more and more, will they be disposed to seek the church form which represents them. 2. Another advantage is the adaptation of this church system as an educating process for the colored people. Any one who considers the untutored quality of the communities in which the Apostles planted their self-governing churches, must give up the notion that they were New England people. Indeed, as one becomes acquainted with the qualities of mind and elements of character in these sable Christians, he can see that the Epistles of the New Testament were addressed to much the same sort of people. These can govern themselves as well as those. And, coming forth from the house of bondage, much more do they desire their largest liberty in Christ Jesus. The working of this autonomy of the churches is to them an educating process. It puts responsibility upon them. They must study its principles in order to exercise its function. Even such men as Senators Lamar, and Hampton, and Hendricks, in the _North American_, have argued that the elective franchise is not only the means of defense, but of education, among these new-made citizens. Precisely so does it work in church relations. Some of us, who have observed the process, have been surprised and delighted to see with what decorum and parliamentary skill they will handle a deliberative assembly. As, in the days of bondage, the only outlet for their native talent was the pulpit; and as their church was about their only arena for organic efficiency, so now they love most of all to handle their church affairs. And so does their self-governing fellowship become a means of education.