The author shows that the Methodist Episcopal Church has never swerved from the recognition of the rights of her colored members, in all her general and annual conferences. She denounced slavery as an evil to be extirpated, and at one time required her members to emancipate their slaves. (Had she adhered to her requirement, what a sea of wasted treasure, what a world of agony of the slave, what an ocean of bitter strife, and what a host of precious lives might have been saved!) She forbade the buying and selling slaves; she tried to enforce rules for the merciful treatment of the bondmen; she made provision to have all of the gospel preached to them that the masters would allow or the preacher thought safe. She did what she could to have the relation of husband and wife duly recognized. He also tells us that, as soon as the sounds of battle had ceased, this Church began her work again among the colored people. She organized them into Churches, took their own men and made them pastors; although poorly qualified for this work, received them into conferences with their white brethren, and gave them all the rights and privileges of members and ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The reluctance of some to accept the situation of Negro equality in the Church led to the discussion of the question, What shall we do with the Negro? The author gives the outline of this discussion and the action of the Church authorities in reference to it. The unwillingness to recognize the manhood and brotherhood of the Negro on the part of some members and ministers of the Church, gave rise to such treatment of the colored brethren that they were easily persuaded that the white brethren did not want to be associated with them in Church or conference relation. Hence, when the white brethren asked the colored to go out of the conferences and set up for themselves, the colored brethren did so, not always because they thought it absolutely best, but best under the circumstances; not because they thought it right, but because they were disposed to yield to the desires of the white brethren. The reasons for the treatment of the Negro are very much the same as the grounds for neglect of the poor, ignorant, and degraded of any community. People do not like to come in contact with the uncultivated in intellect and morals. Hence the fine church, where it is written in the dress and bearing of the worshipers, “No poor are desired here.” Hence the mission Churches, where the action of both the poor and the wealthy members of the Church says: “No rich are expected here.” There is a disposition to separate the Christian Church into classes corresponding to classes in social life. The distinctions, so marked in society, are carried into the Church. In the case of the Negro, this feeling against the ignorance, uncouthness, which is found in the lowest strata of whites, is intensified by two circumstances, which belong exclusively to the Negro. The first is the color.