Or, A Colored Mans Reply to Bishop Foster. 75
equal rights to all in the church, but Bishop Foster's failure lies
in the application that he makes as it regards the colored man.
Can the Methodist Episcopal Church igrjore or reverse her
history from 1844 to 1848 on which vast church movements have
been justified? Can the Methodist Episcopal Church practic¬
ally say that there is no moral questions involved in the treat¬
ment of the colored man belore the Altar of God ? Bishop
Foster seems ignorant of all questions of principles touching our
relations to the Church of Christ. To his mind, there it. no test
of equality involved in the matter of our being retained or
practically invited and helped to go somewhere else. The
church has been building up the eternal foundation—the Father¬
hood of God and the brotherhood of man—for more than a
century. Whatever the future may bring, that is the foundation
stone.
We cannot tell future events, but we do know something of
the past. We know thut many true, loyal sons of the Methodist
Episcopal Church have suffered for doing their duty in trying
to erect the building. The church has said to all, come in. We
know that some of all the known races are members. We know
that the church has taken a decided stand against wrong of
every kind and stands for the right. For the church to yield to
Bishop Foster's views would be to stultify itself; it would draw
a black; mark over the pages of our history that now are white
and clear in their record of Christian philanthropy and illus¬
trious with struggles for the sake of our common humanity. She
has made sacrifices to uphold and illustrate the doctrine, the
brotherhood of all men in Christ Jesus. The record is not perfect
nor altogether consistent, but it is strong and true in its insistence
on the manhood rights of all men in the Church of God.
If our church does not remain for the brotherhood of man in
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