Читать книгу The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church онлайн

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The author of this book has treated of the relation of the Methodist Episcopal Church to the colored people from this stand-point of a clear perception of the evil of slavery, and the unrighteousness of one Christian holding his fellow-Christian, his brother in Christ, as a chattel. The writer traces the action of the law-making power of the Methodist Episcopal Church for nearly a hundred years, in her treatment of the colored man as a member of this Church, as an office-holder, and as a preacher under the system of slavery.

The author shows that the Methodist Episcopal Church has never swerved from the recognition of the rights of her colored members, in all her general and annual conferences. She denounced slavery as an evil to be extirpated, and at one time required her members to emancipate their slaves. (Had she adhered to her requirement, what a sea of wasted treasure, what a world of agony of the slave, what an ocean of bitter strife, and what a host of precious lives might have been saved!) She forbade the buying and selling slaves; she tried to enforce rules for the merciful treatment of the bondmen; she made provision to have all of the gospel preached to them that the masters would allow or the preacher thought safe. She did what she could to have the relation of husband and wife duly recognized. He also tells us that, as soon as the sounds of battle had ceased, this Church began her work again among the colored people. She organized them into Churches, took their own men and made them pastors; although poorly qualified for this work, received them into conferences with their white brethren, and gave them all the rights and privileges of members and ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church.