“The report of the Committee on the State of the Church (No. 4 adopted afterward) looked like a halt, and even a retreat, under some alarm at what had thus been done six days before. “The first action said: ‘The question of separate or mixed schools we consider one of expediency, which is to be left to the choice and administration of those on the ground.’ That said, ‘You can.’ “Then came, six days later, the adoption of this: ‘No student _shall be excluded_ in any and every school under supervision of the Church.’ How could it say more clearly, ‘You can’t’ ‘exclude?’ It is not now, as it was six days ago, ‘left to the _choice_ of those on the ground,’ except as they choose to _admit_. “When Lorenzo Dow would answer high Calvinism, which declared for the freedom of the human will, but that freedom possible only in one direction, he flung out the rhyme heading this article: ‘You can and you can’t, You shall and you sha’n’t, You will and you won’t; You’ll be damned if you do, And be damned if you don’t.’ “Is not Chattanooga University caught between the two horns of a parallel case of decreed liberty? ‘Left to the choice and administration of those on the ground,’ says Freedmen’s Report, No. 3. Those on the ground administer for a white school under that General Conference ‘_can_,’ when lo! they are caught by the younger member of the decrees governing the case, which says ‘_you can’t_’. “There is not a school under our Church-care in all the South but is liable to both horns of this dilemma of double decrees. No school in the North is so hampered. “Let the next General Conference take out the Calvinism of the last action had, and adhere to that broad doctrine of human rights which allows not even the tyranny of any majority or minority, though it be of one headstrong person. Let us have freedom of election in both doctrine and polity, not to mention of delegates. May, the name of the beautiful month when General Conference meets, would make a good substitute for ‘shall’ and ‘sha’n’t’ in all far-reaching legislation for distant and future contingencies. “Those who show no faith in posterity, or people differently surrounded from themselves, provide for embarrassment and often for revolution. The antecedents and the present love of justice in the heart of Methodism may be trusted to see that every member of every color shall have right to the pursuit of ‘life, liberty, and happiness,’ with no other exclusions than a righteous Christian prudence may, as exceptions dictate, require. Even then the ‘strong should bear the infirmities of the weak.’” In the same paper, March 23, 1887, the following, contributed by Gershom Lease, appeared: