THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH ETC.                 477

to be opposed to Church ownership and control, until certain
financial benefits became involved in the matter of Church
relationship.
  To take a specific case, the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching is positively forbidden by its
charter to aid denominational colleges-that is, colleges
which are under the control of a Church organization. This
prohibition has acted as a revealer of the latent views of
many persons engaged in educational work. It has been a
test of the depth of the real conviction of those who in days
gone by appealed strongly and persistently to the Church
for support and money and patronage on the ground that it
was the duty of the Church to own and control her colleges,
and that as the colleges with which they were connected
were owned and controlled by the Church, they should be
supported by the Church. It seems apparent now that these
men deceived themselves, and that the Carnegie Foundation
opened their eyes. But the men who have held it as a deep
conviction that the Church should own and control colleges
for the training of her children are not moved from the con-
viction by Mr. Carnegie's gift. The man who honestly be-
lieves in the need and the efficiency of denominational col-
leges is not changed in his position by Mr.  Carnegie's
disbelief in them.  He simply regrets Mr. Carnegie's man-
ifestation of narrowness in failing to recognize the noble
purpose of the Church in her educational work, and the
great value to the world of the denominational college, and
he is amazed that men who in the past had been considered
zealous advocates of the Church college should now appear
to be so zealous in repudiating Church ownership and con-
trol.
  What a humiliating spectacle it has been to see denomina-
tional colleges repudiating their past history and moral obli-
gations, and hastening to amend their charters, and passing
the resolutions prescribed by an unbeliever in the Christian
religion that in "the selection of trustees there be no denom-
inational test," in order to secure an old-age pension for




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911