From the Christian Union.

The question whether the Church of Christ shall recognize the color line is coming up to vex in turn each one of the great Protestant denominations in the North.  We say Protestant denominations advisedly; for we do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church would for a moment entertain the notion of excluding a man either from its sacraments, its worshiping assemblies, or its priesthood, on the ground of color, or would recognize in its worshiping assemblies any distinction except the broad one between clergy and laity.  To do so would be to violate all its traditions and history.

In the Protestant denominations of the North, the question is complicated by two considerations:  a strong anti-caste prejudice in the Northern constituency, on which the missionary organizations are dependent for their support, and a strong ecclesiastical ambition and spiritual desire, commingled in various proportions, to push on the work of church extension in the South, where it cannot, apparently, be pushed forward with early success, if caste is ignored and colored Christians are admitted to white churches, and colored clergymen to white ecclesiastical assemblies, on equal terms with their white brethren.  In the Diocesan Episcopal Convention of South Carolina it is, therefore, proposed to amend the diocesan constitution so as to provide for two Conventions, a white and a colored.  In the Presbyterian Church the difference of opinion on this subject constitutes one bar to a union between the Northern and Southern churches, or even to co-operation between them.  This has been for the time removed by a sort of concordat by which the relations of the colored and the white members in the two churches respectively are allowed to remain in statu quo, and the settlement of the problem is relegated to the future.  In the Congregational denomination, the question is likely to come up before the meeting of the American Home Missionary Society at Saratoga early in June, and again before the National Council at Worcester in October.  In the State of Georgia, there has been for some time an Association of Congregational churches mainly composed of colored people, and largely under the fostering care of the American Missionary Association.  A Congregational work has latterly been started among the whites under the fostering care of the American Home Missionary Society.  And recently a body of independent Methodists, really Congregational in the principles of their government, and having a considerable number of churches in Georgia, and some in other Southern States, has become also Congregational in name.  Both bodies will have representatives, presumably, at Saratoga, certainly at the meeting of the National Council at Worcester in October, and the latter body, if not the former, will have to determine whether it will recognize two Congregational Associations in one State, the sole difference between them being that one Association is composed wholly of white people, and the other chiefly of colored people; unless, indeed—­and of this there is some hope—­the Congregational Associations of Georgia solve the problem by coming together and forming one body.  There have been some correspondence and conferences to consider the possibility of such a union.