So ended the first chapter of humiliating and fruitless Church compromises; but a new chapter has begun to be written, and so far promises to read just as the other did, both as to the facts to be recorded and the end that will be reached.  Slavery is dead, but the son and heir and legitimate representative, race prejudice, arises to take its place.  This does not propose to remand the colored race back into slavery, but to hold them as inferiors, to be discriminated against as to equal rights and to bear with their color the perpetual ban of separation and degradation.  This might be expected in the political world, but not in the Church where “all are one in Christ Jesus.”  And it would be a specially sad fact if the Church should be more tardy than the State in the recognition of the equal manhood of the two races.

One great effort in the present ecclesiastical struggle is to secure the reunion of the sundered Churches; and, as in the case of slavery, other issues have been waived or compromised, leaving race-prejudice as the real point in the contest.  Great have been the endeavors for harmony.  Committees of Conference have been appointed, have met and conferred; enthusiastic public meetings have been held; communion services have been celebrated jointly, and great feasts have been spread to welcome visiting delegations.  But the South has been inflexible on the color-line.  The Northern leaders have made concessions, and in some instances have been ready to surrender the main point, but the mass of Northern Christians seem unwilling to deny the Saviour in the person of the man whose ostracism is demanded for no fault of his own, but only because God made him black.

The Presbyterian Church (North) deserves special mention for having, in the last General Assembly rejected a compromise that approved “the policy of separate churches, presbyteries and synods.”  The prize was nothing less than the ultimate reunion of the Northern and Southern branches of that great Church.  The leaders in the Church and in the Assembly were committed to it and warmly advocated it, but when the test vote came, it was rejected by an overwhelming majority! God grant that when the test comes for the Congregationalists they may show as much back-bone! The present stage of the controversy finds the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians still divided, with little prospect of reunion.  The Episcopalians in South Carolina have surrendered on a compromise that permits the one colored minister in the Convention to remain in it, but utterly forbids the admission of any others.

THE CONGREGATIONALISTS IN GEORGIA.

The Congregationalists are considering the question practically, but with a division of sentiment.  Some stand firmly against all race distinctions, while others are disposed to compromise on a plan that keeps the two organizations in Georgia still separated by the color-line, but that provides for the appointment of a few delegates from each, to form a new body that shall have charge of the interests of the denomination and be represented in the National Council.