“_Resolved_, (3) That we reiterate the declaration of the General Conference of 1872, touching the relation of a man of African descent to our episcopal office, and assert that race, nationality, color, or previous condition is no bar to the election of any man to the episcopal office in our Church, nor any other elective office filled by the General Conference.” (Journal 1876, p. 353.) The fact that “papers asking that the residence of such bishop be in Liberia” had also been presented, though coming in all probability from opposition to the election of a man of African descent to the bishopric, like Thomas doubting his risen Lord, demonstrates the fact that that General Conference, by its Committee on Episcopacy, would have granted the petitioners in favor of the election to the episcopacy of a man of African descent their request, if they had produced a suitable man of African descent; or that the election of a missionary bishop for Liberia would put a quietus upon the agitation. If not this, then it declares that there were those in that General Conference who had expressed themselves as favoring every move touching the colored membership in the Church that would elevate and inspire them with hope for the future. The entire proceeding is, to my mind, inexplicable, were it not for the omnipresent fact that, so far as the Church is concerned, “God is in the midst of her.” The plea of the petitioners was not granted by that General Conference; but that is not stranger than the fact that other plans failed to be carried out at that General Conference, and for that matter every General Conference in the history of the Church from 1844 until to-day, that were, so far as arrangements, etc., go, already well supported before the meeting of the General Conference. Going back to the day of the adjournment of _that_ General Conference, we say, we can wait. THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1880.—During the following quadrennium up to this General Conference the colored bishop question was more generally discussed than before. The official papers of the Church began to take notice of the question, while our brethren of the African and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, joined in to help on the good work—the former, in all probability, because of the supposed predicament it put the colored members into; and the latter, because they wished to push what they were pleased to call “the thorn in the flesh” farther into the quick of the white membership in the Church. The Baltimore District of the Washington Annual Conference passed a series of resolutions touching this question. Those resolutions were, in all probability, too radical when they declared the election of a man of African descent to our episcopacy “the only way the Church can hope to prove its good faith or respect for the numerous colored membership within the Church.” The fact is, the Church was not required to bring forth fruits to exhibit any such thing.