The colored man from one end of this country to the other had always recognized the Methodist Episcopal Church as a friend to him and his, a friend whose sympathies were worth a great deal. But whenever he was reminded that it was “The Abolition Church” and one of the prime causes of the war—which was usually taught him whenever the poor, deluded colored men imagined, as they would naturally at times, that the war imposed additional hardships and burdens—he sometimes shuddered. But when the Union forces went South, and any of the colored people were seen, they usually spoke kindly to them. If about religious matters, they usually found the colored man either a Baptist or a Methodist. If the latter, and the interlocutor, or any one of the company, was a Methodist, the poor colored man learned of the interest the Church was taking in his welfare and liberation. When colored men ran within the Federal lines, they never failed to find the chaplain or some one of the company a member of the Methodist Church, who deeply sympathized with him, and did all possible to make him comfortable. While all this was true, another aspect presented itself. THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH AS SEEN BY GENERAL CONFERENCE ACTION. It was not enough that the General Conference had repeatedly stood forth the friend of the Union, but individual conferences gave no uncertain sound at that time. It is almost literally true that the hitherto unmistakable factional lines within the Church faded so much that the anti-slavery, conservative, and radical elements united in some sort, for the purpose of rallying to the national standard to find shelter beneath “the Star-spangled Banner.”