kind of home-shanty or log-hug, or the rarer cottage-gave hospitality to as many ministers as he could accommodate; and the least number was two, even although the host had but one spare room and bed. The people were proud of thus housing their pastors, and vied with each other in giving them the very best of food. A negro, man or woman, is born a good cook, and it is safe to say that many a white family, even in respectable circumstances, does not fare so well, or at any rate seldom fares better, than a coloured woman with a much smaller income. Some people say the latter often steals her provisions; we do not think they steal, on an average, more than a certain class of white servants do; and even granting that the material of the cuisine is stolen, there are few whites who, if they had stolen such material, would know how to turn it to such good account.

During the rst two or three nights after the main body of the ministers had arrived, a few kept coming irregularly, and it became a question how to procure quarters for them. One evening a very old preacher was presiding over the meeting, and after gratefully thanking the people of the town for their lavish hospitality, and especially praising "the sisters,” he added, very pleasantly: "But we have another brother who has just come, and we must find a home for him. Will any of the sisters come forward and give him hospitality? He is young and very good-looking; and you know the Bible tells us we may often entertain angels unawares."

Presently a young woman stepped forward, and claimed the newlyarrived minister as her guest, and the old man laughingly said: "Very well, sister; I commend him to your care; take him home, and feed him well, and give him a very good bed." The accommodation was doubtless scanty, but the will of the sister was good, though we suspect that she already had her hands full.

There were "exercises" every morning and evening, while the rest of the day was set apart for business. A white Methodist bishop presided. As yet there is no coloured bishop in the Methodist Church, a fact which occasioned one of the best addresses made to the students for the ministry during the Conference. The church where the meetings were held was small and very plain, whitewashed and galleried, and provided with a small melodeon, or species of harmonium without stops, and looking like a very diminutive cottage pianoforte. But the congregation was not dependent on this instrument for its music; the coloured churches had simply the best music in town. The choir proper consisted of a dozen men and women, who sang hymns beautifully and accurately in parts, while the whole congregation backed them up with a volume of sound more melodious than is generally heard in any white church in America. A negro could hardly sing out of tune if he wished to, and no choir but the surpliced one of a cathedral could outdo the performance of coloured singers, even if only very slightly trained.

At the chancel end of the church was a space railed off and raised

two steps above the level of the floor, while in the place of the altar stood a kind of tribune, where three men could stand abreast, with six or eight steps leading up to it on each side. This was used for prayer and preaching; the space below was fitted up with chairs for the bishop and some of the speakers, while two secretaries sat at a long table placed against the base of the tribune. The bishop wore a tail-coat and a white necktie, but scarcely looked dignified. The young secretaries, both of them candidates for deaconship, were good-looking and intelligent: many of the young men had been through a regular theological course in the new colleges and seminaries that the coloured Methodists have established since the Act of Emancipation, but the old ministers were rougher and hardier-field-preachers in old times, when they were also labourers or servants. (Slave was a word never heard in the South; the agricultural labourers were called "field hands," and the negroes employed in domestic service simply "servants.") One of these old men, relics of a past state of things, Brother Snowdon, was over eighty years of age; but his mind was as bright and his heart as tender as ever, and one night, when he prayed, which he did in as good language as most white people, his words stirred the sympathy of his hearers, both white and black, as few extempore prayers can now-a-days. His. words were fervent and poetic, however vague if looked at in any doctrinal sense, and we hardly like to set them down in our own form, because we made no notes at the time, and therefore should do injustice to the speaker. His aspect, too, told how earnest he was, and how the love of the Saviour powerfully affected him, leading him into all manner of energetic, poetic expressions, and firing him with a missionary zeal towards all those who heard him.

It would be impossible to gather together all the incidents of that week every day and night was full of interesting details, each characteristic of the earnestness of the men assembled and the passionate sympathy which they raised in their bearers. The two hundred ministers filled up the pews in the body of the church during the business meetings, and the spectators sat in the galleries. It was interesting to mark the differences among those dark faces. Some preserved the true African type, though we hardly remember one that was absolutely black. Though most of them had the ordinary woolly hair, a few had it wavy but smooth (and evidently oiled to make it smoother still), and one, whose face was very dark, had straight, wiry hair. If the colour could have been taken from some of them, you would have judged this one by his features to be a shrewd Yankee, eager and investigating, and that other a scholarly Jew, quiet and thoughtful. In the galleries, especially at the evening prayer-meetings, the variety of curious faces was much greater; there were men who might almost sit for baboons, and one with such a marvellous head of hair that it stood out round his face like a black halo, four or five inches broad. Others, on the contrary, wore their hair close cropped, so that it was not more conspicuous than the down of a black

swanling. The women, too, were of all kinds, from the old " 'auntie," whose face was all fat and good-natured, to the haughty, saucy, or pensive maiden, whose skin was more white than "coloured." Of these there were many, most of them very pretty, and well, i.e. quietly, dressed, with ladylike manners and sweet, gentle voices. No uninitiated person would have known that these girls were not of pure Caucasian blood, unless the fact had been revealed to him by seeing them walk arm-in-arm with ordinary "dandies" of every shade. Social equality is the one thing which the coloured race will perhaps never win, save in the persons of a few who will emphatically remain exceptions; and it is noticeable that it is not only the Southern people who recoil from this, but the foreigners and the immigrants from Europe, who, no matter how lowly their own condition, feel an instinctive dislike to social equality with the negro race.

We have, perhaps, taken up too much space in describing them, and commenting on them, and it is time to go on with what was done and said, which, after all, is the best illustration of any living subject. The first time we went to the church was on a week-day, and a morning session was going on. It was a good specimen of the business meetings. The elders and representatives of the most prominent churches sat on the two front benches, and the speakers and secretaries occupied the space behind the rails. The bishop looked neutral and weary. One very impulsive speaker, an agent of the Bible Society, who mysteriously described himself as belonging to no particular race, having African, European, and Hindoo blood in him, was holding forth on the subject of schools and seminaries. He looked like an ordinary white man. He spoke well and to the point, and specially shone in anecdote. He laid the greatest stress on the necessity of education, and told a story of a young white student who came to his father with a bundle tied to a stick, and in a generally deplorable plight, not to ask for charity, but to beg, in a bright, eager manner, to be allowed to enter a school of theology "where my father was an 'exhorter.' He was admitted, and today he is a bishop in the Methodist Church, and one of our most enterprising men. Do you know," he went on, "that until a coloured student shall come with that indomitable spirit, and grapple with like difficulties, and, as it were, conquer an education, I shall not believe in our having a coloured bishop among us?" Here there were deep murmurs of approval, and the speaker went on urging the cause of education, and instancing other cases of eagerness for learning, his own among the rest, when, on being called away from school by unexpected family circumstances, and not having a farthing in his pocket, he refused to borrow money, and equally determined to stay away no longer than was absolutely necessary. Many of his school-fellows, under the same pinch, had got home, but had to stay at home, having no money to pay their way back to school; but he, taking a bundle with him, started on foot for his home, which was sixty miles away, and accomplished thirty

the first day. His feet were swollen and bleeding, and he made hold to knock at the door of a man in the village which he reached at night who had known his father. He told him his story, and the man sheltered him for a day, and would have kept him longer, but he determined on going on, and so reached his home the next day, walking another thirty miles at one stretch. He stayed long enough to rest and get strong again, and when the business was over for which he was needed-very likely it was some agricultural crisis-he started for school again, quite undismayed by his previous experience. Then another speaker got up and answered him by a second eulogism on education, especially of that for theological students; and then followed a motion which one of the brethren was anxious to make this year, he said, and which he considered very important. He was a grave-looking man, about forty-five, with gold spectacles and black kid gloves; and his speech, perfectly grammatical and well accented, proved him to be, if not of the post-slavery school of students, at least one of the progressive school of reforming ministers. Indeed, as far as peculiarities were concerned, this Conference was not what would be called "characteristic; " the ministers are the picked men of the race, and strive after the same decorous uniformity of manner and speech as that which distinguishes the white men of their profession. Besides the Virginian negro, even in his most unnatural state, is not nearly so amusing in character as the negro of the more Southern parts of the country. His dialect is far less peculiar, and even his accent is not remarkably striking. When this minister whom we have mentioned rose in his place to make his "motion," he addressed himself to the bishop in earnest tones, denouncing the "free use of tobacco among the ministers," and inveighing against it. Immediately a titter ran through the audience, but the bishop still looked weary and impassive." I say,” the speaker went on, "that it is a disgrace to the ministry; I have seen ministers chew in the very pulpit, and dishonour the Lord's house by this filthy habit. It is unclean and injurious; it is a vice more than a babit, and those who renounce liquor ought also to renounce tobacco. It is bad in any form, but especially in that disgusting form in which too many of our brethren use it in the house of the Lord. I move that the use of tobacco be made a disqualification for candidates to the ministry, and that henceforth no young man shall be ordained who is unwilling to swear that he will not use tobacco in any form."

The argument, of course, is here much condensed. The man was very vehement in his denunciation, but evidently his hearers scarcely sympathised with his project of reform; many of the older ministers looked at each other with suppressed merriment, and others were engaged in protesting against the restriction by quietly doing the very thing against which the speaker was discoursing. When he had done the votes were taken, as customary the "ayes" and "noes" alternately standing up and being counted over by one appointed for the purpose. Hardly half a dozen stood up with the reformer, and the whole body

rose when the "noes" were called for. The motion was directed, however, to be laid on the table, and the bishop promised to say a few words on the subject when the morning's business was disposed of. In order not to break our narrative by again referring to this subject, we will give the bishop's opinion at once. He spoke, as he always did, with singular impressiveness, but quite to the point. He agreed with Brother

that the use of tobacco was neither healthy nor dignified, and was especially to be deprecated during Divine service or in the pulpit; but he said that while he recommended young candidates for the ministry to wean themselves from it, and make good resolutions against indulgence in it, he could not advise the extreme measure of turning the question into a test of moral fitness for the ministry. Then he put in a touching plea for the older ministers.

"They had been bred up to a hard lot," he said, "and in days when the slave had but little enjoyment within his reach, tobacco had become both a stimulant and a comfort to him. He bad his little tobacco patch, his only personal property, and the use of the weed had been a great solace. Many of our brethren have been brought under this system, and could not give up the habit without injuring their health, or, at any rate, seriously interfering with their comfort, so that it would be neither wise nor charitable to deny them this little enjoyment, which, after all, is very harmless, provided it be indulged in moderately."

Of course the motion was a failure, as any one but an enthusiast could have foreseen; and yet the motive of the reformer was thoroughly praiseworthy, and we must say he had every reason to be practically disgusted with the abuse which he so eagerly denounced. Another discussion followed on the case of a minister (or a candidate we forget which) who had quarrelled with his wife, and whose reconciliation with her was not yet satisfactorily arranged. The question was whether he should be debarred from officiating (or should be considered unfit for ordination) until he should have made friends with her again. It was noticeable that the bishop made the case turn entirely on the wife's decision. It had already been premised that no immorality was involved, but only some domestic disagreement. Still, the thing had given scandal. At last one spokesman got up and settled the question by saying that he had reason to suppose that the wife was practically reconciled, and that be took it upon himself to declare that the "brother" was therefore fit for the ministry. The vote was in his favour as soon as each voter had satisfied himself that the wife had agreed to all that had been proposed.

Then came an examination of the candidates, mostly young men. Some elder or minister answered for the moral and intellectual worth of each. The form of examination was read from a book, and one of the questions was, "Are you in debt?" The same "brother" answered for the character of several of the young men, and his formula of endorsement of their claims was generally pretty much the same:-"Fine young