on of God's treatment
of a colored man in the case of the Ethiopian treasurer. He was
returning from Jerusalem, where he had been at one of the great annual
Jewish feasts, and as he was riding in his chariot he was reading aloud
to himself the book of the prophet Isaiah, when the evangelist Philip,
specially sent thither for the purpose by God's Spirit, addressed him,
and on being asked to come into the carriage with him expounded to him
the meaning of the passage which he was reading, and preached the gospel
from it unto him with such good effect that he was forthwith baptized on
the confession of his faith, and afterward went on his way rejoicing to
found that Ethiopian church which claims to this day to be one of the
most ancient Christian churches in the world. He was a man, for he was
moved by the truth as you and I have been, and he became a
Christian--"the highest style of man"--to show us that, as Peter said,
"In every nation they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted
of him." That which is highest in any man is his appreciation and
acceptance of the gospel! of Christ, and wherever we see that
appreciation we have not only a fellow man but a brother Christian, to
be treated by us as Paul requested Philemon to treat Onesimus--as "a
brother beloved." Nor let any one suppose that there is a single race
upon the earth that can not be so transformed and gladdened as this
Ethiopian was. Even Charles Darwin declared that after the Patagonians
it could not be said that any race is too degraded for the gospel to
elevate, and so he gave new emphasis, unwittingly, perhaps, but, if so,
all the more strongly, to the words addressed to Peter on the housetop:
"What God hath cleansed that call not thou common;" or those of Paul in
one of his epistles: "For there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus."

This topic is at present greatly occupying the attention of the
Christian churches in our land. It was before the General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in May last, and has been again discussed at the
meeting of the Council of Congregational churches in Worcester three
weeks ago, and in the Triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, which has just closed its sessions in New York. I will not seek
to criticise or to characterize the decisions at which these bodies have
arrived, save to say that in my judgment the