“The adoption of this report, as narrated above, leaves no room for a doubt as to the position of the General Conference on the question of caste. There is no conflict between the two reports. The report from the Freedmen’s Committee is to be interpreted in the light of the report from the Committee on the State of the Church. “The attempt made by certain persons to make the impression that the latest deliverance of the General Conference was hasty and not well considered, is hardly less than a perversion of the facts in the case. Being the latest, it is the _mature_ judgment of that body, and was intended to set at rest the question of caste. “It is passing strange that any attempt should be made, particularly by members of the late General Conference, to justify the course pursued by the Chattanooga trustees. They have simply violated both the letter and the spirit of the deliverance of the Church through its only legislative body. There was but one thing, therefore, that the Freedmen’s Aid Society could do without joining hands with the Chattanooga trustees; namely, to condemn their policy of rejecting colored students; and that, thank God, it has done. Let its resolution be engraved in letters of gold, and conspicuously displayed over the doors of all the schools under its care. Let it be announced boldly by bishops, editors, college faculties, and ministers, that the Methodist Episcopal Church knows no caste, either in its houses of worship or schools of learning. “Now that this vexed question is settled, so far as it is possible to settle it by the action of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, and settled in harmony with the action of the General Conference and the teachings of the New Testament, let the support of the society be more generous than ever before. There is no cause that is more worthy, and when its merits are fairly stated it can not fail to meet a generous response.” The following appeared in the _Western Christian Advocate_ of same date, written by Isaac Crook, D.D.: “‘You can and you can’t, You shall and you sha’n’t.’ “Allow a word now from one outside of the responsibilities of General Conference membership in 1884, and of ambitions for 1888, and with no votes to be defended. The action had on the report (No. 3) from the Freedmen’s Aid Committee seemed to outsiders to say, ‘That action is inspired by the prudence come from experience, and through those ‘on the ground.’’ It is in harmony with the liberty needful in all similar work North and South, and is sustained by the Pauline wisdom which ‘took and circumcised Timothy because of the Jews in those quarters.’ Local prejudices did control the ‘policy’ of St. Paul.