h it all, what do you think would
have been His answer? Well, here is the answer the American
Missionary Association sent as quickly as the telegraph could carry
it: _Admit all applicants irrespective of color._ And then what
followed? Nearly half the scholars picked up their things and left!
This happened a few weeks ago. We had about a hundred students. We
have now about fifty, and we may lose even those. Letter writing is
easy. Talk is cheap. Even _Buncombe_ is not a lost art. But actions
speak louder than words. Let us know what follows when _the test is
applied_, and then we shall know just what profession of loyalty to
principle signifies. Berea stood by its guns, and it has steadily
grown in favor with God and man ever since. And it will win in the
end. Then what a glorious triumph! No regrets for having played the
hypocrite, no regrets for having played the part of a time server, no
regrets for having played the part of a trimmer, no regrets for
having played the part of a special pleader, no regrets for having
concealed its colors behind its back in shameful silence as to its
past history, no regrets for having turned away one of Christ's
little ones for whom He died, no regrets for having counseled it,
while professing friendship, to go elsewhere. What a glorious
triumph!

And we, too, shall win--and our triumph shall be glorious. Let us go
forward preaching the Word, and when the time comes let there be no
attempt to postpone its issue--but let the test be applied. Better go
down standing on our principles than live with our principles denied
and dishonored.

* * * * *

RELIGIOUS CULTURE OF THE SLAVES BEFORE THE WAR.

The _Independent_ of Feb. 5 has an exceedingly interesting article on
the above subject from the pen of Rev. Dr. J. E. Edwards, Danville,
Virginia.

He says that at an early period in this century Southern Methodists
sent missionaries to labor with the slaves on the rice and cotton
plantations. In 1845 Southern Methodism had in church fellowship
124,000 slaves. At one time the Methodist membership in Charleston,
S. C., was in the proportion of five colored to one white. Blacks and
whites worshiped in the same house and were ministered to by the same
pastor.

One of the early reports of the South Carolina Board has the
following: "We claim it best, as a general rule, to include the
colored people in the same pastoral charge with the whites, and to
preach