those of the second class, one to 1468; and those of the third class, one to 1052.

Of the denominations, 37 are not represented in any of the cities. Only three-the Roman Catholic, Methodist Episcopal, and Protestant Episcopal-are represented in all of them. Of the Jews (Orthodox), nearly 92 per cent. are in the cities; of the Jews (Reformed), more than 84 per cent.; of the Unitarians and Episcopalians, upward of 48; of the Roman Catholics, more than 42; of the Presbyterians (North), nearly 29; of the Methodists (Episcopal), nearly 15; and of the Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists, only about 4.

XIII.

THE NEGRO IN HIS RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH.

The negro is a religious being wherever you find him. and under whatever conditions. In his own continent, where civilizing influences have hardly begun to lift him above the state of savage degradation in which he has so long remained, his religious instincts are dominant. They find expression often in superstitious, idolatrous, and cruel rites and observances; but he has, nevertheless, conceptions of beings of exalted power who affect the destiny of men.

The negro of the United States has no religion but the Christian religion. He is not a heathen, like our native Indian. He worships but one God, who is a just and merciful God, desiring that all men should be free from sin, and should come to a knowledge of the way of life through Jesus Christ. He is still more or less superstitious; he still has some faith in the power of charms; there is still some trace of heathenish practices in him; but our own race has not altogether outgrown childish thoughts about

unlucky days and the way to avoid the evil they bring, and how mascots procure success. We cannot condemn the negro for his superstition without taking blame upon ourselves for the tenacity with which we cling to belief in signs and times and things, lucky and unlucky.

The negro of the United States is a Christian, not an atheist or a doubter. He gives no countenance to secularist or free-thinking organizations; nor does he prefer abnormal types of religion, such as Mormonism and spiritualism. Moreover, he is not a rationalist, or a theosophist, or an ethical culturist. He does not turn aside to follow the erratic turns of little coteries of religionists. Neither does he show a preference for the Roman form of Christianity. The splendid ceremonies of Catholic worship might be supposed to have a strong attraction for him, but it is not so. The actual membership of separate negro Catholic churches does not exceed fifteen thousand, and yet the Catholic Church is not weak in Louisiana or Maryland or the District of Columbia. Thirty-one represents the total of separate Catholic negro churches, not including, of course, the negro communicants in mixed churches.

The negro is not only a Christian, he is an evangelical Christian. He is a devout Baptist and an enthusiastic Methodist. He loves these denominations, and seems to find in them an atmosphere more congenial to his warm, sunny nature, and fuller scope for his religious activity, than in other communions. Perhaps this is due to his long association with them and his training. There is no reason to believe that he might not have been as intense a Presbyterian as he is a Baptist, or as true a Congregationalist as he is a Methodist, if these denominations had been able to come as near to him in the days of his slavery as did the Baptist and Methodist churches. It was fortunate for him that, while he was the slave of the white

master, that master was a Christian and instructed him in the Christian faith. The school was practically closed to him; but the church was open, and thus he came into personal freedom and into the rights of citizenship an illiterate man, but a Christian, with that measure of culture in things spiritual and moral that the Christian faith, voluntarily accepted, necessarily involves.

According to the census of 1890, there are 7,470,000 negroes in this country. This includes all who have any computable fraction of negro blood in their veins. Of these all except 581,000 are in the old slave territory, now embraced in sixteen States and the District of Columbia. In other words, notwithstanding the migration of negroes to the North and West, ninety-one percent. of them are still in the South, on the soil where the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 reached them, and made them forever free from involuntary bondage. The negro churches of the South, therefore, form a large and important factor in the Christianity of that section. In ten of those States the number of negro communicants ranges between 106,000 and 341,000, and in four of them it exceeds the total of white communicants. Thus in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina there are more colored than white communicants, although in Mississippi and South Carolina only does the negro population exceed the white. This shows that in point of church-membership the negro is quite as devoted as his white brother. Indeed, the proportion of colored people who are connected with the church throughout the United States is larger than that which obtains among the white people. About one in every three whites is a church-member. On this basis there should be 2,410,000 colored members. The actual number is 2,674,000, or an excess of 264,000 beyond the proportion that obtains among the whites.

The aggregate of colored communicants in the United States, so far as it could be ascertained by the careful methods of the census, is, in round numbers, 2,674,000. This includes all colored denominations, and all colored congregations in mixed denominations, so far as they could be ascertained; but it does not take account of colored communicants in mixed congregations. The number omitted, however, cannot be very large. The States in which the negro communicants are most numerous are as

In these twelve States are found 2,398,865 communicants, leaving about 275,000 to the rest of the States and Territories of the Union.

As to denominational connection, the negro is predominantly Baptist. More than half of all negro communicants are of this faith, the exact number being 1,403,559. Most of these are Regular Baptists, there being less than 20,000 in the Freewill, Primitive, and Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit branches. It is significant that the negro prefers the progressive and missionary type of the Baptist faith, and does not believe in the Hard-shell, Old School, or anti-missionary wing. Not less Calvinistic than the most Calvinistic of the Regular Baptists, he is also strict in his practice and thoroughly denominational in his spirit, and takes no little satisfaction in winning negro members of other bodies to the Baptist faith.

The number of negro Methodists is 1,190,638, or about 213,000 less than the aggregate of colored Baptists. The

Methodists are divided into more branches than the Baptists, those having the episcopal system embracing the great majority of church-members. The Presbyterians have about 30,000, the Disciples of Christ 18,578, and the Protestant Episcopal and Reformed Episcopal bodies somewhat less than 5000. The Baptists are organized into associations, and have State conventions; the Methodists and Presbyterians into annual conferences and presbyteries. A large measure of superintendence is characteristic of the Methodist bodies, the system of episcopal and sub-episcopal supervision resulting apparently in more intelligent endeavor, greater concert of action, and better discipline.

The increase in the number of colored communicants

since emancipation has been marvelous. How many of the slaves were church-members is not and cannot be known certainly. Such statistics as we have must be regarded as imperfect, particularly of the colored Baptists. There were of colored Methodists at the outbreak of the war about 275,000, as nearly as I can ascertain. According to this, there has been an increase in thirty years of over 900,000 negro Methodists. This is truly enormous. In the Methodist Episcopal Church alone are more colored communicants, mainly in the South, than the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, reported in 1865, and the two leading African branches have had a marvelous growth. The number of colored Baptists in 1860 did not, probably, exceed 250,000. We do not know, of course, how many colored communicants there were who were not organized into churches and reported in denominational statistics. But according to the figures we have, there was an increase in thirty years of more than 1,150,000 colored communicants. I know of no parallel to this development in the history of the Christian church, when all the circumstances are considered.