mittee was made public. It proposes a
separate convocation for the colored churches under the ministration of
the bishop, and consents to the admission to the Convention of colored
clergymen who have been associated with the church for twelve months
prior to May, 1889. If the report is adopted, three negro ministers will
sit as members, but no lay delegates will be eligible. The committee
were willing to forego their prejudice out of deference to the holy
office. They felt that the color of a clergyman's skin, although it was
no doubt a very serious ground of objection when it happened to be
black, should not overcome the respect due to the sanctity of his
official calling. His cloth, so to speak, saved him, and what would have
been denied to the man it was possible to concede to the priest.

Under these circumstances the gravity of the question, "Do colored folks
retain their complexion when they go to heaven?" is obvious. The
concession which the committee of the Diocesan Convention make is but a
re-affirmation of the Charleston brethren's aversion to anything that
smacks of an approach to association of the two races on terms of
equality. If there are colored saints in Paradise, it will be utterly
impossible for the Charleston white saints of the Episcopal denomination
to feel at home there. The only chance of reconciling them to a heaven
so liberally disposed would depend on the adoption of some such plan as
that recommended by the committee as a _modus vivendi_ in the church on
earth. That is to say, if the colored saints were corraled by
themselves--if their convocations were separate from the convocations of
the white saints--if they were not admitted to the white circles of
celestial society as equal partakers of the privileges of the heavenly
kingdom--the Caucasian angels from Charleston might be willing to pass
their eternity in such a place.

It is very essential for them, therefore, to know whether there are in
fact any colored saints in heaven; and, if there are, whether the
divisions of the Father's house into "many mansions" admits of an
arrangement whereby the angelic brunettes may occupy one set of quarters
and the Charleston blondes another. Until these problems are solved to
their satisfaction, we do not see how our Christian friends of the chief
city of South Carolina can contemplate a future life with any degree of
equanimity. Their faith may be equal to the removal of mountains and
their virtues m