A. Because the Lord has said; "Behold, I have set before thee an open
door, and no man can shut it."

* * * * *


THE CARS, THE CHURCH, THE COURTS.

Our esteemed brother, Rev. G.C. Rowe, pastor of the Plymouth
Congregational Church, Charleston, S.C., and his associates, on their
return from the meeting of the Joint Committee on the union of the
Georgia Association and the Georgia Conference, were forcibly
transferred to an inferior car on the Georgia Railroad. They were not
driven from the train, they were allowed to ride, and the car in which
they rode was connected with the cars containing the white passengers.
They were simply separated from the others and that only because they
were colored persons.

The reception these honored ministers of Christ met in the Joint
Committee was very much of the same sort. The white brethren did not
deny them their place in the church--nay, the two bodies, white and
colored, were to be connected together, but these colored brethren were
to be kept separate and that only because they were colored persons.

An appeal will be made to the courts, but the interesting question is:
which will be first to recognize the equal manhood of the colored man--
the cars, the courts or the church? Would it not be a shame to the
church and a dishonor to the Christian name if the church should be the
last?