Just what was intended by that General Conference touching this vexed question may be easily found out, if allowed to take as a basis the trite saying, “We have no way of judging the future but by the past.” The declarations of the several General Conferences of our Church warrant us in declaring the following as her principles: “(1) God made of one blood all men for to dwell on the face of the earth; (2) God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” The Methodist Episcopal Church is either founded upon and guided by the Word of God, or is nothing. The Church further declared: “(1) There is no word ‘white’ to discriminate against race or color known in our legislation; (2) Being of African descent does not prevent membership _with white men_ in annual conferences; (3) Nor ordination at the same altars; (4) Nor appointment to presiding eldership; (5) Nor election to the General Conference; (6) Nor eligibility to the highest offices in the Church.” (Journal, 1872, p. 373.) That the actions of that General Conference on the color question were enigmatical, the following will declare. The declaration of the General Conference of 1880 naturally led to, if it did not bring about, the entire discussion. The declaration was as follows: “2. That under the phrase ‘and others’ of Article II, in the Constitution of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, we see the way clear to aid the schools which have been established by our Church in the Southern States among the white people, and hereby ask the General Conference to recommend to the board of managers of this society to give such aid to these schools during the next quadrennium as can be done without embarrassment to the schools among the Freedmen.” If the words “to aid the schools which have been established by our Church in the Southern States among the white people,” had been “the schools established in the Southern States among our white members, to be held sacredly for them to the exclusion of colored pupils,” _it would have died on the spot, and been buried uncoffined, unknelled, and unknown_. It may be that a wrong construction is put on the former by the insertion of the latter words. If so, the sequel will so declare it. If not, then the phraseology was, and is, misleading. But it was adopted. What does it say? That the already existing exclusive schools for the whites, established within the Church in the Southern States, are to be fostered by the Freedmen’s Aid Society, with the provision that, as a result, no embarrassment come to the schools for the freedmen. Does not that provision imply _separate schools_? We are trying simply to state facts as they exist, without committal on the subject at this time.