THE SCHISM AND THE SUBSEQUENT SITUATION
An important factor in the growth of the Negro Church was that the
Negroes found the white churches of their choice less friendly and
finally saw them withdrawn from the churches in the North to perpetuate
slavery. In the South, the slaves and free Negroes had to accept
whatever religious privileges were allowed them; but when the national
bodies grew lukewarm on abolition, receded from the advanced position
which they had taken in the defense of the Negro, and persistently
compromised on the question to placate their southern adherents to
maintain intact their national organizations, Negroes forgot the stigma
attached to their radical religious bodies and united freely with their
brethren who during the first years of their independence found it
difficult to secure a following.
In 1808 the general conference of the Methodists provided that the
annual conferences should form their own regulations relative to buying
and selling slaves, thus making it possible for the body of preachers to
act efficiently in one direction against slavery, even should the
general conference choose wholly to refrain. This rule was abrogated
in 1820, however, and the only important changes made thereafter with
reference to the Negroes were some rules adopted in 1824, one of which
provided that all preachers should prudently "enforce upon their
members," the necessity of teaching their slaves to read the word of
God, and to allow them time to attend upon the public worship of God on
our regular days of divine service. Another rule provided that Negro
preachers and official members should have all the privileges which are
usual to others in the district and quarterly conferences, where the
usages of the country did not forbid it, and that the presiding elder
might hold for them a separate district conference, when the number of
Negro local preachers would justify it. The annual conferences might
employ Negro preachers to travel and preach, where their services were
judged necessary, provided that no one should be so employed without
having been recommended according to the form of discipline.
The Presbyterians had tried to evade the Negro question but it was again
brought up in view of the cruelty practiced in the traffic of slaves
during the first decade of the nineteenth century. The General Assembly
was forced to take some action again in 1815. It then referred to its
previous resolutions on the subject and expressed regret that slavery of
Africans existed, hoping too that such measures might be taken as would
secure religious education at least to the rising generation of slaves
as a preparation for their emancipation at some time in the future. As
to the transfer of slaves necessary in the economy of the slave States
the General Assembly regarded this as unavoidable; but it denounced the
buying and selling of slaves by way of traffic and all undue cruelty
among them as inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, recommending
it to the presbyteries and sessions in their care to make use of all
measures to prevent such shameful conduct. In 1818 there came before
this General Assembly a resolution to the effect that a person who
should sell as a slave a member of the church, who should be at the time
in good standing in the church and unwilling to be sold, acted
inconsistently with the spirit of Christianity and ought to be debarred
from the communion of the church.
After considerable discussion, the subject was submitted to a committee
to prepare a report for the adoption of the General Assembly, embracing
the object of the above resolution and also expressing the opinion of
the Assembly as to slavery. This report, unanimously adopted, carried,
among other things, a declaration that the voluntary enslaving of one
portion of the human race by another is a gross violation of the most
precious rights of human nature, utterly inconsistent with the law of
God which requires us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and totally
irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ,
which enjoins that all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even unto them.[8]
In another part of this report, however, the Assembly seemed to undo
what it had done; for it exhorted others to forbear harsh censures, and
uncharitable reflections on their brethren, who unhappily live among
slaves whom they cannot immediately set free, but who, at the same time,
are really using all their influence, and all their endeavors, to bring
them into a state of freedom, as soon as a door for it can be safely
opened. It also encouraged the members of the Society to patronize the
American Colonization Society with a view to sending the Negroes to
Africa and thus deliver themselves and their country from the calamity
of slavery. The General Assembly recommended the encouragement of
religious instruction of the slaves in the principles of the Christian
religion, granting them liberty to attend on the preaching of the
gospel, when they have opportunity, by favoring the instruction of them
in the Sabbath schools wherever those schools should be formed and by
giving them all other proper advantages for acquiring the knowledge of
their duty both to God and man. The General Assembly further recommended
that it was incumbent on all Christians to communicate religious
instruction to those who are under their authority, so that the doing of
this "in the case before us so far from operating as some have
apprehended that it might, as an incitement to insurrection, would, on
the contrary, operate as a most powerful means for the prevention of
those evils."
In this straddling position these churches tried to discountenance as
far as possible all cruelty of whatever kind in the treatment of slaves,
especially the cruelty of separating husband and wife, parents and
children, and that which consisted in selling slaves to those who would
either themselves deprive these unhappy people of the blessings of the
gospel or who would transfer them to places where the gospel was not
proclaimed, or where it was forbidden to slaves to attend upon its
instruction. During the thirties most of these churches were taking the
position of evading the question, but the abolition members therein kept
the problem before them. Postponement of the discussion thereafter
became the order of the day. One decade later many took the position
assumed by the Presbyterian Church in 1845 when, as a result of various
memorials on slavery, the Assembly, deploring the division of the church
on slavery, passed a resolution that the church could not legislate
where Christ has not legislated, that as Christ and the Apostles
admitted slaveholders as members of the church, they could not be
expected to do otherwise. Some disclaimed, however, any desire to deny
that slavery is an evil, or to countenance the idea that masters may
regard their slaves as real property and not as human beings. They
merely intended to say that since Christ and his Apostles did not make
the holding of slaves a bar to communion, the church organizations as
the court of Christ had no authority to do so. The apostles of Christ
sought to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, not by denouncing and
excommunicating their masters but by teaching both masters and slaves
the glorious doctrines of the gospel and enjoining upon each a discharge
of their relative duties. These sects rejoiced rather that the ministers
and churches of the slaveholding States were awakening to a deeper sense
of their obligations to extend to the slave population generally the
means of grace, for many slaveholders not professedly religious favored
this object. They deplored the agitation which tended to separate the
northern from the southern portion of the church, "a result which every
good citizen must deplore as tending to the disunion of our beloved
country and which every enlightened Christian will oppose as bringing
about a ruinous and unnecessary schism between brethren who maintain a
common faith."
The schism, however, was impending; for the southern members of the
churches boldly defended slavery as justified by the scriptures, while
many northerners differed from them. Ministers and laymen wrote works
setting forth these doctrines while pseudo-scientists and philosophers
undertook to justify the enslavement of the Negroes on the ground of
racial inferiority. Southerners who would not go to the extent of
justifying the institution on these untenable grounds merely deprecated
it as an evil for which they were not responsible and of which they
could not rid themselves. Richard Fuller, a southern Baptist of unusual
influence in shaping the policy of that sect in his section, expressed
this thought in the words: "I am willing to appear in any controversy
which can even by implication place me in a false light and odious
attitude representing me as a eulogist and abettor of slavery, and not
as simply the apologist of an institution transmitted to us by former
generations--the existence of which I lament--for the commencement of
which I am not at all responsible--for the extinction of which I am
willing to make greater sacrifices than any abolitionist has made or
would make, if the cause of true humanity would be thus advanced."
The outbreaks soon followed, however, in spite of efforts to heal the
breach. There came from the Alabama State Baptist Convention a memorial
with respect to the discrimination of the Foreign Mission Board against
slaveholders in making its appointments. The reply of the Board was
conciliatory but was to the effect that a slaveholder could not be
consistently appointed as a missionary for the reason that such action
would involve an approval of slavery. This and other Baptist conventions
thereafter severed their connection with the national body, and in 1845
organized the Southern Baptist Convention. That same year occurred the
secession of the Southern Methodists. That denomination had for years
struggled with this question and had undertaken to maintain the position
that slavery is an evil to be deplored and that ministers and bishops at
least should abstain therefrom. When, in 1845, the Methodists undertook
to discipline one of its bishops, James O. Andrew, charging him with
holding slaves, the southern delegates stood by him and withdrew to
organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1857, the
Presbyterians who had all but compromised sufficiently to hold their
national body intact gave an expression of opinion on the Fugitive
Slave Law which so offended its southern members that they withdrew and
formed the nucleus around which the Southern Presbyterian Church was
established in 1861.
In spite of the reactionary tendencies of the white churches, however,
no such thing as the independence of the Negro had ever been possible in
the South and could not be so after the radical aspect which this
movement assumed in the North. In slave States, the majority of Negroes
became a decidedly neglected mass during the reaction, although many of
them were nominally members of churches. When because of the
insurrectionary movement led by certain blacks like Gabriel Prosser,
Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, it became unpopular to teach Negroes to
read and the educated white persons were not willing to supply this lack
of religious workers among the blacks, there was no longer hope for
ordinary religious instruction. This reaction was unusually disastrous
to the Negro preacher when it was noised abroad that Nat Turner was a
minister. The rumor attached to Negro ministers throughout the South the
stigma of using preaching as a means to incite their race to servile
insurrection.
Some of the legislation enacted by the States after this great upheaval
will indicate the extent to which this fear controlled the minds of the
southern people. In 1832 Virginia passed a law to silence Negro
preachers, making it impossible for them thus to function except in
compliance with very rigid regulations and in the presence of certain
discreet white men. In 1833, Alabama made it unlawful for slaves or free
Negroes to preach unless before five respectable slaveholders and when
authorized by some neighboring religious society. Georgia enacted a law
in 1834 providing that neither free Negroes nor slaves might preach or
exhort an assembly of more than seven unless licensed by justices on the
certificate of three ordained ministers. Other Southern States soon
followed the example of these, passing more drastic laws prohibiting the
assembly of Negroes after the early hours of the night, and providing
for the expulsion of all free Negroes from such commonwealths, so as to
reduce the danger of mischief from the spread of information by this
more enlightened class.
Thus circumscribed, the Negroes in the South had to follow their masters
in religious matters. They continued to join the Methodist and Baptist
churches, but constituted a part of a mixed membership worshiping under
the same roof. The masters had long since learned that coincidence of
religious belief on the part of the slave and the owner was a necessity
in the economy of the slaveholding States. No master would look with
favor upon seeing his slave proselyted or influenced by a minister whom
he would not tolerate as his own spiritual adviser. Later there was not
much commingling of the two races in the same meetings. White ministers
preached to the Negroes in their special meetings or provided some Negro
exhorter of power to supply that need, but only when such Negro
minister's character had been thoroughly investigated and approved in
accordance with the law and public opinion. Where there were not so very
many Negroes in the churches, they were segregated in the gallery or
certain pews, which they entered by a side door, as provided in the
Court of the Gentiles in the Temple of Jehovah; but if there were many
Negroes and very few whites in these congregations, they usually
provided separate buildings or used the same edifices at different
hours. The argument in favor of this segregation was that God in making
the races different intended that they should be kept separate and
distinct.
Where there was allowed much liberty in seating, very often grave
problems arose. Such was the case in Charleston, South Carolina, in the
Bethel Church in 1833 on an occasion when Dr. Capers was to preach. As
more whites came than could be seated and the Negroes refused to vacate
their customary seats, a number of uncouth young white men forcibly
ejected them therefrom. Because one of the preachers a few days
thereafter sharply criticized this action of the uncouth element they
became unusually indignant, registering a protest against such censure.
An effort was made to settle the matter by reconciliation, but when that
failed, nine of the young men were expelled only to be followed by 150
others to form a new organization, which established connection with the
Methodist Protestant Church.
This sort of segregation was common to all of the denominations alike.
The Presbytery of Charleston, finding the church in that city unusually
crowded in 1850, built a structure for the worship of the Negro
membership, costing $7,700. The edifice was of the shape of a T to
provide seats for the whites in the transepts. It had connected with it
all of the facilities for religious instruction in the other churches
with the exception that teaching was oral. The Episcopalians in that
city, however, found it more difficult to carry out such a policy in
relieving the congestion of the Negro pews in St. Michael's and St.
Phillip's. These communicants decided to build what was to be called the
Calvary Church for the accommodation of the blacks who were then
occupying temporary quarters in Temperance Hall. Because of certain
radical action of the burial societies among the Negro communicants,
however, the owner of Temperance Hall refused further to accommodate the
Negroes and the Calvary Church was demolished while it was in the
process of construction.
The Negroes seemed to have retained several separate places of worship
in the State of Virginia, as in the case of Georgia. Among the churches
established for Negroes at a very early period was that of Williamsburg,
Virginia, organized exclusively for Negroes in 1776 and admitted as
such to the Dover Baptist Association in 1791. Upon petitioning the
state legislature in 1823, however, the Negroes were refused the permit
to build a Baptist church in Richmond, although the one used by the
whites was not sufficiently spacious to permit their attendance. In
1841, however, when the Baptist church was finally compelled to build a
new structure to accommodate its increasing membership, they turned over
to the Negroes for their special place of worship the old building in
which they organized what is known as the first African Baptist Church
under the pastorate of the Rev. Robert Ryland, a white man, who served
during the same period as president of Richmond College. When this
became unusually crowded the Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized by
the overflow membership in 1855 and was controlled very much in the same
way. There were flourishing Negro Methodist and Baptist churches in
other parts during the forties, fifties, and sixties, conducted very
much on the order of the First African Baptist Church in Richmond, or
like the Anthony Street Church in Mobile, Alabama, in charge of the Rev.
Keidor Hawthorne. In other centers in Virginia, however, the Negroes
were proceeding almost independently. There was then a representative
Baptist congregation in Portsmouth under the direction of the noted
builder and organizer, E. G. Corpew. Rev. Mr. Morris, another pioneer in
the work, was at this time leading forward the Court Street Baptist
Church in Lynchburg. In 1837 and 1838 Sampson White was reported as a
successful minister in charge of the Gillfield Baptist Church of
Petersburg, which as early as 1803 undertook to erect its first
structure. Sampson White then went to Norfolk for a short stay in this
inviting field, and in 1839 came to Washington and organized the
Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.
[Illustration: SAMPSON WHITE
A Baptist preacher in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and New York
almost a century ago.]
In the District of Columbia, where, as in Maryland, the restrictions on
Negroes were not so rigid as in some other parts of the South, the
Negroes had numerous churches of the Baptist and Methodist faith, and
under the leadership of John F. Cooke established, in 1843, the
Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church.
Baltimore was no exception to this rule. As the slave and free
membership freely mingled in that city they had, as early as 1835, ten
congregations, and by 1847 thirteen, ten of which were Methodist. The
work of the Baptists had been largely promoted by M. C. Clayton, the
preacher of versatile genius, who founded the First African Church in
that city in 1836, and by Noah Davis, a leader and organizer of much
ability.
[Illustration: REV. M. C. CLAYTON
A Baptist preacher of power in Baltimore before the Civil War.]
This favorable condition, however, obtained in the South only in those
communities where the authorities winked at the violation of the law by
free Negroes and where slaves enjoyed unusual privileges because their
masters were a law unto themselves. In 1828 the Alabama Baptist
Association conditionally purchased a slave named Caesar at the cost
of $625 and sent him to preach the gospel and live among his people. He
was then made the companion of the famous white evangelist, James
McLemore, of much note in Alabama. Caesar was respected alike for piety
and his ability as a preacher. Not infrequently he addressed audiences
composed entirely of whites. Another slave of Alabama, Doc Phillips, was
a Baptist preacher of a commanding influence among his people. The
Tuskegee Association of that State undertook to purchase him that he
might be appointed a missionary, but he declined to be severed from his
master, who allowed him whatever time he might desire for preaching. So
was this true of George Bentley of Giles County, Tennessee, a slave of
unusual note, having attained distinction as a preacher of power, well
versed in polemic theology. Out of a debate on baptism lasting more than
four days he emerged victor over a white minister in that county
challenging him to a discussion of the principles of baptism. He
numbered among his communicants the best white people of the community,
who paid him a salary of more than $600. He, like Doc Phillips, refused
to have his congregation purchase his freedom, as he did not care to be
separated from his kind master.
Here and there in the South, however, there developed certain Negro
preachers better known to fame. A striking example of this class was
Lott Cary, who was born a slave in Virginia. When quite young he was
hired out and thereby came under the influences which caused him to be a
man given to profane and intemperate habits, although his parents were
of the higher class of slaves. In 1807, however, he was awakened by
hearing a sermon from the third chapter of John on the interview of
Nicodemus with our Saviour, from the words: "Notwithstanding what I say
unto you, you must be born again." So powerful was the preaching and so
telling was the effect on the mind of this slave that he immediately
secured a copy of the New Testament and almost miraculously learned to
read by studying that chapter. Upon developing into a strong spiritual
man, he was made superintendent of all the laborers in the tobacco
warehouse in which he was working in Richmond. Not long thereafter he
received permission to serve as an exhorter in the First African Baptist
Church of that city, the membership of which, then being about 2,000,
required the services of a number of assistant pastors.
[Illustration: REV. LOTT CARY
A missionary to Africa.]
Lott Cary reached a new stage in his development in the fall of 1813,
when Luther Rice, who had just returned from the East, appeared in that
city preaching rousing sermons urging the Baptists to enter upon and to
support the work of missions in foreign fields. In November of that year
the Richmond Foreign Missionary Society was organized and delegates were
sent to Philadelphia the following spring to participate in the
organization of the Baptist Triennial Convention. As this new body had
for one of its objects mission work in foreign fields, the national
interest aroused therein excited also a deep interest among the Negro
members of the churches in Richmond. Two years later, therefore, the
Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, with Lott Carey as the
moving spirit, was formed with the sole object of sending the gospel
into Africa. This society was composed of the Negro members of the First
African Baptist Church and of other churches throughout the city. It
held annual meetings and with their small donations accumulated as much
as $700 during the first four years.
As no one volunteered to go abroad to extend this mission work, Lott
Cary himself determined to go to Africa, accompanied by Collin Teague.
They were, therefore, duly appointed by the Board of the Baptist
Triennial Convention as missionaries to Liberia. In 1821 Cary and Teague
with many others sailed from Norfolk for the land of their fathers
beyond the Atlantic. Before leaving Richmond, Cary and wife, Teague and
wife with their son Hillary, who later became editor of the _Liberian
Herald_, and Joseph Sanford and his wife, formed what is called the
First Baptist Church of Monrovia. This congregation was later designated
as the mother of the Providence Baptist Association in Liberia.
Upon arriving in Liberia, Lott Cary addressed himself with much energy
to the task of reconstruction and organization in this foreign field. He
easily became a leader among the communicants of that denomination and
preached for years among them as a man representative of the power of
the gospel unto the salvation of the heathen. Wielding such influence in
the religious field, he easily convinced others of the necessity for
availing themselves of his services in another line. He was, therefore,
made governor of one of the provinces of Liberia. After administering
the affairs of this province a short period he fell a victim to the
diseases which swept away so many others who gave their lives as a
sacrifice in this foreign land.
His fate, too, was not unlike that of Harrison Ellis of Alabama. In that
rapidly developing slaveholding commonwealth where men gave little
attention to things spiritual, even for the whites themselves, Harrison
Ellis rose to great eminence as a power in the church. Born a slave, he
was, of course, denied the opportunities for mental development. He was,
however, a man of such strong character and so efficient in his work as
a blacksmith, a trade in which he excelled, that it was possible for him
to secure privileges denied so many others of his race. He soon mastered
the rudiments of education, and building upon this foundation, began to
acquire knowledge of Latin. Having a deep impression as to the worth
of Christianity and the influence of the gospel as a factor in the
uplift of his people, he thought of preparing himself for the ministry.
The study of Latin then was to some extent neglected for a more thorough
study of Greek with a view to reading the New Testament. Some attention
was thereafter given to Hebrew to get a better grasp of the linguistic
setting of the Old Testament. He thereafter took up the principles of
theology.
A man of such unusual attainments in spite of the various difficulties
with which he had to struggle in earning a livelihood and securing
instruction, Ellis naturally impressed the people of his community.
Coming under the influence of the Presbyterians, he was encouraged by
them to make an effort for the exercise of his gifts as a minister. As a
man of such a well developed mind could not find in this country
adequate opportunity for service in this field, he was urged to go to
Liberia. The Presbyterian synod of Alabama, therefore, examined him with
a view to testing his efficiency. In this examination he proved himself
a good Latin and Hebrew scholar and showed still greater proficiency in
Greek. His attainments in theology were highly satisfactory. Giving an
account of the rise of this prodigy the _Eufala Shield_, an organ of
that State, referred to him as a man "courteous in manners, polite in
conversation and missionary in demeanor." Impressed with his usefulness,
the Presbyterians of Alabama finally purchased him and his family, in
1847, at a cost of $2,500, that they might go to Liberia and work among
their own people.
In Liberia, Harrison Ellis took up his post under very favorable
auspices. He quickly impressed those with whom he came in contact,
attracted to him a sufficient number of persons to constitute a
respectable following, easily held his own among other intelligent
Negroes, and finally became one of the most influential men in the
colony. Soon thereafter, however, like so many others, who in that land
of their fathers gave their lives as a sacrifice for their many
persecuted brethren in the western world, he finally proved inadequate
to the demands of that climate and passed away, admired by those who
knew him and mourned by his coworkers and friends.
These few Negro ministers, however, could not reach the masses of their
race. In their undeveloped state the rural Negroes depended upon the
crumbs that fell from the white ministers' tables. The religious
experience of such Negroes, therefore, was more nominal than rational.
Many of them obtained their first religious impressions in some camp
meeting during a special effort in behalf of the lost. These meetings
were looked forward to with a great deal of anticipation and persons,
knowing of the good supposedly derived therefrom, came from afar and
remained about the place, thus giving to such convocations the
well-known name of camp meetings. As these assemblages were social as
well as religious and sometimes partook of a festive nature, the
Negroes easily became attracted to this more liberal method of promoting
the cause of Christ.
The Negroes in these meetings appealed especially to the white ministers
because of their quick response to the appeal to come out of darkness
into light. While an Episcopal clergyman with his ritual and prayer book
had difficulty in interesting the Negroes, they flocked in large numbers
to the spontaneous exercises of the Methodists and Baptists, who, being
decidedly evangelical in their preaching, had a sort of hypnotizing
effect upon the Negroes, causing them to be seized with certain
emotional jerks and outward expressions of an inward movement of the
spirit which made them lose control of themselves. The program of the
day was a delivery of sermons at intervals, interspersed here and there
by appeals to sinners to come forward to be prayed for at the anxious
seat, while various members, having unusual influence over the
unconverted and in touch with God, whispered in their ears the way to
find salvation and life.
Among the Baptists, the soul-stirring reunion was known as a protracted
meeting, which differed very little from that of the Methodist camp
meeting. The preacher came forward, declaring the dawn of a new day and
the shower of blessings that every one could receive. The burden of his
message was that he had come to set forth those things which had been
hitherto kept from the wise and prudent but lately revealed unto fools.
Seeing that they were made a special object of the philanthropy of these
new workers, the Negroes became seized with hysteria because of this new
boon; and the interest in the work passing from one to another, spread
almost like a contagion, moving communities to seek salvation. Persons
passing as sinners were made to feel that they were wretches in the
sight of God and that direful punishments awaited them as the lot of the
wicked. Their state was awful to behold, and their opportunities were
swiftly passing away. That moment was the accepted time; for their delay
would mean damnation. Persons fell helpless before the altar of the
church and had to be carried out to be ministered unto, and when they
emerged from their semi-conscious state they came forward singing the
song of the redeemed who had been washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
Statistics show, however, that such a conversion of people who were
given no opportunity for mental development amounted to very little in
the edification of their souls. Not long after these exciting camp
meetings and protracted efforts had passed over many of these persons,
who had been most vociferous in their praise of God for cleansing them
of their many sins, readily fell thereafter by the wayside in engaging
in what is known as pleasurable evils. Baptists and Methodists during
this period insisted that dancing was an evil, but how could the
plantation Negro resist the temptation when he heard the clapping of
the hands and the tune of the banjo? It became fashionable, therefore,
for a person to be converted several seasons, sometimes once every four
or five consecutive summers before his feet could be completely taken
out of the mire and the clay and placed upon the solid rock where the
wind might blow and the storm might rise, but none should frighten them
from the shore.
Because this wild religious excitement meant very little in the uplift
of the slaves, there were throughout the South members of other than
Methodist and Baptist churches who still adhered to the idea of the
literary instruction of the blacks. Although there were soon laws on the
statute books to the contrary in practically all of the Southern States,
the wives and children of ministers taught their few slaves to read the
Bible, and when this was unpopular or prohibited, they made use of the
catechism in requiring the Negroes to memorize the principles of
religion and to learn formal prayers. There were some masters who went
to the extent of opening private schools for their slaves.
The more the Negroes were instructed by these rather intellectual
denominations, however, the less they, as a group, seemed inclined to
join their fortunes with those persons who were disposed to lay a
foundation for an intensive spiritual development. When the Methodists
and Baptists had had a chance to proselyte the Negroes, the
Episcopalians and the like were almost relieved of the necessity for
any effort among them. From the report of Alston's Parish in South
Carolina, in which there were 13,000 slaves, for example, 3,200 were
Methodists and 1,500 Baptists, while only 300 belonged to the Episcopal
Church. In St. Peter's Parish of that State the Methodists had 1,335 of
6,600 in 1845. In the Parish of St. Helena the Baptists reported 2,132
communicants, the Methodists 314, and the Episcopalians only 52. The
Episcopalians discounted the religious benefit derived by attendance
upon the Methodist and Baptist evangelical meetings, feeling that
because of their social and festive nature the Negroes lost more in
worldly pleasures thereby than they gained in spiritual uplift. Many of
them believed that it would have been much better for the slaves, had
their masters kept them at home. They did not think very well of the
influence of the Negro preachers, contending that they often did harm.
Where there was an improvement in Negro character many insisted that it
was due to the religious and moral training given by their masters, and
still more largely by their mistresses. For this reason it was strongly
urged upon masters to manifest more interest in the morals of their
bondmen, as it would not only make them better men spiritually but would
increase their economic efficiency.
From the Negroes' point of view, however, religious experience did not
result from instruction in books. Persons known to be illiterate had
strange visions and prophesied with such success as to move multitudes.
Slaves prohibited from attending meetings violated the law and braved
the dangerous network of the patrols enforcing the police regulations.
When converted they made no secret of their new experience and boldly
shouted before their masters, praising the Lord. That they should,
contrary to instructions, frequent the places of these emotional
upheavals was considered crime enough, but to appear before their owners
themselves, telling them about what the Lord had done for their souls
and at the same time warning these aristocratic "Christians" to repent
of their sins and flee from the wrath to come, was more than the ruling
class could endure. These Negro converts were cruelly told to hush up
because they "were getting above themselves," and if they refused to
obey, many of them were whipped until they stood in puddles of blood
drawn by the lashes inflicted upon their bodies, while others, stricken
down with heavy blows or subjected to mortal torture, went to their
death rather than cease to bear witness for Jesus.