Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-05-10
aHo ROOM FOR NIGGERS. "
New Eurl, Tribune.
Intolerance aiWavs seems most intol-

New yOrl, Tribune.
Intolerance always seems most intol-
Grant in religious affairs. The clergy
and laity of the Protestant Episcopal
diocese OF South Carolina, who have
been ranco-ousIy opposing the admis-
sion OF colored men as delegates to their
conventions, are simply carrying out in
church polity the principles prevailing
in white league politics throughout the
south: but their conduct is condemned
BY many who find it either convenient
OF proper to condone the systematic sup
preston of civil rights in that and other
States. There is no difference in prin-
cfDle between an exclusive white mems
party in politics, which does not allow
an inferior race to participate IN cleo
tionS and exercise its constitutional right
of free suffrage. and an exclusive white
mems church that Will not suffer nag.o
congregations and ministers to enjoy
the privilege of representation in dio-
cesar convention. In either case race
intolerance appears in malignant form;
but whereas Journals and men of ali
parties at the North unite in denouncing
the faction warfare waged against Bish-
Op Howe as hostile to the spirit of the
Christian religion, there is disposition
in many quarters to deprecate discussion
of the political outrages and crimes b.
which the Democratic leaders acquired
and have maintained their aScGndancy
in the South. The Bishops opponents
are merely transferring from State to
Church that mOnstrous spirit of intoler-
ance, injustice and hatred which leagues
the whites against the blacks in every
Southern election, municipal CT national.
One of the incidents of this church
controversy illustrates the instructive
impulse of a native-born South Carolin-
ian 20 revolt against the time-honOred
principle of majority rule. At an cleo
ton of delegates to the approaching
Diocesan Convention from one Of the
prominent Charleston churches the op-
pOnents of negro representation made
a stand against the rector, who was
one of the warmest supporters of the
Bishops policy of liberation and justice.
They were defeated and at once deter
mined to secede from the parish. On
Sunday they went out with flying colOrs
"a warden, three veStrymen and many
followers entrenched themselves
in the pews of another church. The
churchmen of their new parish was not
congenial to their taste in "the asthet-
les of religion" and the breaking up of
old associations was painful, but high
above everything else they placed the
principle of excepting the niggers out"
of a respectable white mems convention.
They seeded; and probably if the Dio-
cesan convention when it meets to-day
sustains the Bishop in giving Christian
fellowship to colored ministers and lay
men, they will consider it to be their
bounden duty to secede from the Pro
testant Episcopal Church and to join
some religious communion where white
men can worship their God with digni-
ty and self-respect. In the common
wealth of South Carolina secession will
always open way for their retirement
from promiscuous gatherings of blacks
and whites who have souls to be saved
from wrath to come. What they will
do in another world, if any of the de-
spised negroes happen to get in with
them, does not concern them now. 1t
may not be as easy then to hire pews in
the church around the corner as it is
now.