Though this exposition might be preferable to the former, still it does not materially affect the situation; for the exception is left to the judgment of the parties ‘on the ground and more immediately interested,’ which is equivalent to saying that any of our schools may be exclusive, which is just what Report No. 3 declares. “The two resolutions, then, declaring a separate and distinct policy, it becomes a simple question of _weight_ between them. It can not be fairly said that the practical policy of the Church has been mixed schools or Churches; so that the resolution of the Committee on the State of the Church embodies a principle that has only had a shadow of application in the practical work of the Church; and the reason for it is founded in the fact that, after a fair trial, mixed schools and Churches have been found inexpedient. The preamble of Report No. 3 of the Committee on Freedmen’s Aid declares that the ‘establishment of schools for our white membership’ ‘has greatly redounded to the benefit of our colored people.’ The resolution, then, so far as it declares for a uniform policy is not in harmony with that principle of practical expediency that we have found necessary in our work in the South. “Again, the report of the Committee on the State of the Church seems to have been volunteered. It was not necessarily binding on that committee to prepare and present a report on that subject. “And, further, the necessity for such a report seems to have been questionable. The position and policy of the Church, as to the equal rights of the colored man, had been sufficiently declared by the general policy and administration of the Church for the last twenty years. The policy of the Church in its Discipline and administration has been, and still is, to grant to the colored man all the rights, privileges, honors, and immunities of the white man. On the question of personal rights the Church knows no difference. He is the peer in Methodism of the white man in Church membership, in all the councils of the Church, and as eligible to any position of honor or trust in the gift of the Church as the white man. No resolution of the General Conference of 1884 could in any way dignify either the man or his equality of rights in the Church above that which he already enjoyed in the fundamental organism of the Church. There seems to have been no necessity for this action. It can be of no practical utility to the colored man.