portion of the Universal Church, known in
this country as the Episcopal Church, to my mind, is better suited and
equipped for the amelioration of the condition of the Negro than any
other.

The Negro is specially fond of "regularity" in religious as well as
political affairs. In this respect the Episcopal Church comes to him
not as something new but as the living exponent of the old-time
religion and the old church which has actually descended to him,
through all the ages past from the very hands of Christ down to
this present time. It has historic continuity and claims none less
than the Blessed Master as its founder. She is not founded upon the
Bible, for she gave to the world this blessed book. Her sons inspired
of God wrote it. And the claim of historic continuity can be
established and proven in the ordinary way that we attest other
historical facts. The church, then, that Jesus Christ founded and
concerning which He said the "Gates of hell should not prevail against
it," must of necessity be "adapted to the present Negro."

The Negro needs the faith once delivered to the saints, not in shreds
or left to pick it out for himself, but the whole faith. This the
Episcopal Church offers him. A complete faith, naturally, is to be
found in a comprehensive church. The Episcopal Church is most
comprehensive. She believes more in turning in than in turning out.
Men are not brought into the fold to be "turned out" for every little
thing, but they are brought in to be built up, established and rooted
and grounded in Him. The church, then, is adapted to the present Negro
because she gives him not opinions and theories, but the living faith
of the ages and a living Christ as potential to-day as when He trod
this earth clothed in flesh. And this church is most comprehensive,
taking in all sorts and conditions of men, and by grace dispensed
through sacraments, ordained by Christ Himself, seeks to bring to the
fullness of stature as realized in Jesus Christ.

The Episcopal Church is pre-eminently adapted to the present Negro,
for the present Negro is most eager to learn, and, above all other
religious bodies, she is a _teaching church_. More Scripture is read
at one Episcopal service than is ofttimes read in a month in the
services of other churches. She has a liturgy which is the sum total
of all that is good and grand in the ages past, and the constant and
almost imperceptible influence of her most excellent system of public