CASTE IN THE CHURCHES.

OPINIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS PRESS.

From The Congregationalist.

If report be true, the South Carolina Episcopalians have compromised their difficulty in the matter of color in a manner which is not likely to be permanently satisfactory.  A portion of the diocesan convention had seceded because the bishop declared that he could not exclude a regularly ordained minister who was black.  The canon law now has been amended so as to exclude henceforth all other black men, and the seceders have returned, consenting to make the best of the one obnoxious colored man, but indignant because he has not been ejected.  Whether the General Convention will endorse or repudiate this compromise remains to be seen.  In either case the Episcopal branch of the church might as well abandon its efforts to make headway among the colored race in that State.  So far as we can see, the bishop has made a manly stand, however, and deserves commendation and sympathy.  But the seceders have shown a sad lack of the true spirit of Christ.

From The Advance.

There have been in Georgia for ten or more years a number of Congregational churches and a State Congregational Association.  This included, along with the pastors of colored churches, the President and some of the Professors in Atlanta University.  Last year, when that interesting body of churches hitherto known as Congregational Methodists, saw fit to take measures for becoming in name as well as in fact Congregationalists, a “Georgia Congregational Conference” was formed, a committee was also appointed to confer with the previously existing Congregational Association, with a view to the right adjustment of relations between the members of the two organizations.  We publish on another page the reply recently addressed by the “Association” to the “Conference,” with a view to unity on terms that would be in themselves Christian and agreeable to both the parties interested, as well as acceptable to Congregationalists everywhere.  All of our churches have an interest in a matter of such significance, as they would also be sensitive to the reproach of there being two distinct Congregational Associations in the same State, separated from each other on the un-Christian caste line of race and color.  With the temper and spirit manifest in the communication referred to, it would seem that the way is now open for a happy consummation of Congregational fellowship in the State of Georgia, on terms which not only Congregationalists but Christians of every name at the North will warmly approve and applaud.

From The Independent.

The members of the Presbyterian General Assembly can go home from New York assured that they have vindicated truth and righteousness.  The one vital, vicious fault in the report of the Conference Committee of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches on Co-operation was amended out of it and as it now stands adopted it gives not even by implication any support to the unchristian doctrine of separate presbyteries and synods for black and half-white Presbyterians.