self. Although the
white man is not entirely rid of his prejudice in religion and the
color line is written over the entrance to many of his temples of
worship, yet he recognizes the Negro as a man and a brother and
accords to him religious rights and privileges. The Negro worships God
according to the dictates of his own conscience, and the laws of the
land protect him in this worship. He is a potent factor in all
religious and reformatory movements and works side by side with his
brother in white for the overthrow of vice and sin and for the
hastening of the time when man and nations shall live and act in
harmony with the principles of the Christian religion. He sits in the
councils of the leading denominations of the country and assists in
making their laws and determining their polity. He is accorded a place
on the programs of the different young people's gatherings and is
listened to with the same attention which other speakers receive. He
bears fraternal greetings from his to white denominations, and is
courteously received and royally entertained. In international
assemblies and ecumenical conferences he enjoys every right and
receives the same attention that others enjoy and receive.

But this progress is further evidenced by the profound interest
manifested by the white man in the Negro's religious and moral
development and by the strong pleas on the part of the nation's best
and ablest men for the complete obliteration of the color line in
religion and for dealing with the Negro as with any other man.
Millions of dollars have been given for the building of churches and
schools and hundreds of noble men and women have toiled and suffered
that the Negro might be elevated. The bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, representing two and a half million members, said in
their address to the General Conference, at Omaha, in 1892: "We have
always affirmed them (the Negroes) to be our brothers of the same
blood and stock of all the races which compose one common humanity. As
such, we have claimed for them the same rights and privileges which
belong to all other branches of the common family."

His political rights. He, who but yesterday was a slave, is now a
citizen, clothed with the elective franchise. This is marvelous, and
all the more so, because the ballot is a wonderful force. It is the
ground element of our American civilization. In its exercise the poor
man counts as much as the rich, the ignorant as much