ood. Nothing else can meet cruel prejudice,
which would forever deny full manhood or womanhood to those called to
it by God himself, and pour oil upon its angry waves until they shall
be still.

Our plan of work in the South is often misunderstood and often
misrepresented. It is not our plan to force the races together. It is
not our plan to agitate questions which arouse the prejudices of the
Southern people. We do not agitate. Quietly, steadily, patiently,
lovingly, our missionaries seek to lift up the degraded, enlighten
the ignorant, and bring them all to Christ, well knowing that bitter
prejudice cannot forever stand opposed to an enlightened, cultivated,
Christian people, whatever may be their color or their past condition.
We have nothing to do with the question of social equality in the
South any more than we have in the North. We are not even trying to
force the races together in the churches. We have no principles which
would prevent our aiding two churches in the same town--one with a
membership of white, the other of colored people. We have done it.
In our church work, we simply maintain that a Christian church should
stand ready to fellowship any one whom Christ fellowships, that it
should turn no one away because of his color, or because he, his
father or his mother was a slave. We maintain that there is
no Christian reason why there should be either State or local
organizations of churches which will not fellowship churches whose
memberships differ in race. We seek to establish churches and other
institutions which dare interpret Christianity as Christ taught
it, and which will not yield a Christian principle for enlarged
statistics. There are caste churches enough in the South. No more are
needed. If Congregationalism can go there true to its history, true to
its real convictions, true to that gospel which successfully faced
the bitter prejudices of Jew and Gentile with the broad invitation,
"Whosoever will, may come," then it goes to become a mighty power and
to win both a place for itself and other churches, in time, to accept
the same broad interpretation of Christianity.

This Association has faith in the power of the gospel, and, under
the reign of God, of the final triumph of the right. It is willing to
enter the doors now so wide open for missionary work, and to wait, if
need be, for that glory of the denomination, which is better than long
tables of statistics, the glory of adhering to the righ