The following pages were begun during a few weeks of enforced rest from active labor, in response to repeated requests from friends, benefactors and fellow-workers for information respecting the methods adopted in carying on the work of St. Mary's Chapel. It was hoped that by a brief history of the work the information could be more satisfactorily given than was possible by private correspondence. To the fulfillment of this pur pose it was sought to add such details as would make a permanent record prized by the colored people who have been associated with the parish. In carrying out this very restricted and simple purpose, the review of difficulties of the past, the singular perplexities of the present, and the great uncertainty of the whole problem of the future of the colored people, have tempted the writer to extend the plan, and to offer some suggestions, and to draw some inferences from a somewhat ex ceptional experience, which he trusts will not be wholly unacceptable nor unprofitable to such read ers as may be induced by their interest in the sub ject to consider them.