THE FREEDMEN.

REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D.,

FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

NORTH AND SOUTH.

Some Things in Common.

In efforts to promote the spirit of Christian union, it is always advised that we look for the things that we hold in common—the things that make us Christians, rather than those which make us of this or that church party. In seeking to advance national good feeling, may we not wisely pursue something of the same course? If any persons can take up this line of talk without being accused of having been bulldozed by Southern blandishment, it may be those who were the early abolitionists, and especially those who endeavor to prove their faith by their works in going down among the lowly and despised ex-slaves to try to raise them up by the appliances of education and of the Gospel.

1. One such common possession is that of our English inheritance. We are, characteristically, of the Anglo-Saxon stock. We speak the English language from South to North. We have that glorious speech that swallows up and overmasters the Babel of tongues that fall upon our ears. We think that, led by our incomparable Webster and Worcester, we use our English with even more of correctness than does the mother country. We inherit the great principles of constitutional government, of trial by jury, habeas corpus, and of civil and religious liberty. We are joint heirs to the matchless English literature, and to a history that has made England the leading nation of Christendom.

2. We hold in common the glories of our Revolutionary period. We share in the joys of the birth of a new nation. We have the same traditions of patriotism. We are mutually proud of the memory of Washington and Jefferson and the Adamses, and of the other fathers of the Republic. Our National Centennial gave occasion for a revival of our national feeling. Masses of our brethren who had been estranged were glad of the opportunity thus afforded to share in the thrill inspired by the world’s recognition of our national greatness.

3. We share in the essentials of the Reformed Church life. The Pilgrims and the Puritans settled in New England. Much of the blood by which the Southern States were stocked was of the Reformed quality. In the celebration, at Chicago, of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, Dr. Bacon said that the Presbyterians were Puritans. The South has had a large portion of this moral and theological leavening. The Scotch and the Scotch-Irish element in that region has been large and largely influential. Through them Puritan notions have been planted and propagated. The Huguenots, who were the contribution of France to the Reformation, have had a large representation in the South. Sixty years before the Pilgrims landed, they made, on the Carolina coast, two settlements, which were annihilated by the persecuting power of Rome that followed them to the wilderness continent. They tried again and made a lodgment where Charleston now stands, and to this day “The Huguenot Church” abides in its integrity of language and of character. From this same source that city has received a large infiltration of blood and of principle. Out in the State, and at other places in the South, the Huguenots have given names to towns and tone and caste to society. The South has had but a small portion of the foreign emigration, and so has felt less the influence of the Continental views as to the Sabbath. One of our professors, who has been many years in the South, says that the Holy Day is more strictly observed in that part of the country than at the North. The intellectual orthodoxy of the South is well known. It may be because of the lack of activity in theological discussion, but the fact is apparent to such a degree that a more ethical and practical preaching is what the Christian people are hungering for thereaway.

4. We have a common sympathy in Protestantism. The early Spanish and French occupation in Louisiana and in Baltimore has made those strong Catholic centres. But Romanism is not so generally a prevailing power in the South as in the North. The drift of foreign emigration has made this difference. Rome’s chance at the South is now not with immigrants, but with natives, Africo-Americans; and she is bound to make the most of it. But just here comes out our unity in Protestant views. Southern Christians are anxious lest the display and the mystery of the Roman system should captivate these simple children of nature. They are as solicitous as we that the same Providence which delivered our land from the early domination of Romish nationalities, may save it from coming under the supremacy of that spiritual despotism. When the Catholic bishop at Richmond opened his cathedral, Sunday nights, to a free service in behalf of the colored people, it made a tremendous stir among white as well as colored Protestants.

5. Have we not had a common responsibility for the existence of slavery? Striking in its upas roots at Jamestown, it was allowed to spread over all the colonies. Samuel Hopkins, thundering at the gates of the pens of the slave-trade in Newport, must yet reverberate among those empty dens still standing. In 1872 I saw in Connecticut an aged disciple who had once been a slave in that State. My childish ears tingled with my father’s stories of slave life as known to him in New Jersey. The system, by implication, was recognized in the Federal Constitution. The Government allowed it to sweep out over yet other empire areas at the South and West. We had Federal laws, resting upon Northern public sentiment, to protect the institution. We allowed our churches and our literary institutions and our benevolent societies to come under the common paralysis of conscience. Without any interest in slaves as personal property, we allowed our great commercial affairs to be brought under bondage to that system. Our measure of complicity in that national wrong was indicated in part by the awful retribution meted out in the sacrifice of half a million of precious lives and by the offering of billions of treasure. We have had occasion to join our brethren at the South and say, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother.”

6. Have we not now a common obligation to make restitution to these new-made citizens? We are not only by legislation to recognize their rights of manhood and of citizenship, but to uphold them in the same. We are to secure them in the enjoyment of the blessing of our American educational system and of the best Christianizing processes. As we have endowed them with the sacred elements of citizenship, we must help them to the means of making them citizens worthy of the nation. This common duty was indicated by Hon. John Goode, of Virginia, when he said, in Congress, “Can the Government bestow civil and political rights upon these wards of the nation, and at the same time avoid the solemn obligation to provide for their mental and moral improvement?” That is the responsibility of citizens, North and South, as well as of the Government. And so let the people join hands, irrespective of sectional lines, in doing the just, the right thing by these native Americans, the providential significance of whose existence in our country is a problem calling for solution.

REMINISCENCES.

“It’s the color that tells”—“Jes hear dem niggers read”—Candle and half-bushel—“Age up country,” &c.—Sad words making glad—“Frosty arms.”

After the full accounts you have been giving your readers of late of the Commencement Exercises, with their attendant essays and orations, brief reminiscences of a few years ago, when the Freedmen knew little of Greek and Latin, but were intent upon “blue-back” spellers and the easy parts of the Bible, may not come amiss.

It happened once that in a dimly-lighted school-house, about nine o’clock at night, filled with men and women of various hue, from white through brown to black, there was one class of nine young men spelling words of three syllables. They were very earnest, and in real old-fashioned way were going “up and down” in the class. At the head stood Joseph, very black; then three nearly as dark, followed by four light ones, with the very darkest of the whole class at the foot. All went well till the upper light one missed and the word passed down; Joseph, seeing it likely to pass from the light ones to the very dark face at the foot, in excitement and joy burst forth with, “Spell it, Dave, and cut up here; it’s the color that tells.” Dave spelt it, and the color did tell.

One man who made his appearance in night-school about the middle of the winter, I shall never forget. His entrance was quite overpowering—a big man, big cane, big hat, and a big shawl thrown over his shoulder, Arab style. I happened to be at leisure, so I went at once to ask him if he intended coming regularly to school. Saying that he did, my next question was, “What’s your name?” “I’m Lucy’s husband, over there.” As I didn’t know Lucy, I was not much the wiser, and had to repeat the question with the emphasis on the your. Wishing to classify him, I asked, “What book do you read in?” “The Bible mostly, ma’am.” “Can you read in the First Reader?” “Yes, first, second, third, fourth and all the other elementary books.” Thinking I might gain some information where to assign him, I looked at the books he had brought with him. There were four: a large family Bible; another book of some size, but very fine print, on “Presbyterian Ordination Refuted;” a “Child’s Scripture Question Book,” and a small geography.

But if the night-schools were amusing, the afternoon schools for the women were not less so. Old women and young women, many of them in fantastic attire, with hats, caps and dresses that would have been considered prizes by an antiquary; the dark faces peering from under the white or speckled turban; old women wiping their spectacles, vainly endeavoring to get “more light” on the subject, while picking away at the letters in some old Primer, as if they were to be transferred bodily to the head. Aunt Chloe Fisher must have been seventy-five or eighty years old, but still she was bright and original. She came into school one afternoon very anxious to learn to read “de way, de troof, and de life.” Seeing some women in another part of the room reading, she exclaimed, “Jes hear dem niggers read! If dis nig can’t read, too, won’t she fight ’em?” and then she vigorously applied her finger to the pages of the Gospel of John which she had with her, finding the words Lord and God, which were about all she knew. She believed in both faith and works, for she used to pray most earnestly that God would help her know the words, and then get up in the middle of the night and light a pine knot to see if she had a word right. Old Aunt Chloe was always happy. I never saw her otherwise but once, and then she was greatly troubled for fear she should lose her place in the grave-yard. One special place she had chosen, and young people were dying so fast she was afraid she should not die soon enough to lie there. She would get happy over her wash-tub or anywhere else, and her hands and her feet would keep time with some negro hymn in a most amusing manner.

One old Aunty was reading the fifth chapter of Matthew, when she came to a passage, which she read thus; “Neither—do—men—light—a—half-bushel—and—put—it—under—a—candle-stick.” On being stopped and told to look again, pointing with her finger all along the lines of the page, with a look of half despair she said, “Bress you, honey, I can’t find either candle or half-bushel now.” Those simple words were quite a sermon for me, and I’ve thought of them many a time since. Are not we, as Christians, in danger of losing our candles? Our good Aunty’s candle was soon found for her; but will ours, once lost, be as easily recovered?

In those days, even in the day-schools, there were many difficulties that could hardly be encountered now. I remember hearing one teacher say that it was almost impossible to get the ages of her scholars. They would say, “My age is up country;” or “Ole missis has my age in the Bible, and she’s gone away.” The trick of giving one name to one teacher and another to the next was practiced. On giving a second name once, one little fellow was brought up with, “Why, I thought your name was George Johnson?” “I done got tired of that name,” was his cool reply.

Perhaps the most interesting prayer-meeting that I ever attended among the Freedmen was in Alabama, where the Ku Klux outrages lasted so much longer than in other places, and where the missionaries looked to their guns and their rifles before retiring. I reached there just the evening of the weekly prayer-meeting at the school-house. ’Twas a stormy night, but with waterproofs and umbrellas we ventured. Wholly unused to bullets, I must confess there was a little trembling under one waterproof, as we wended our way along the little path through the woods, and across the one plank bridge over the Branch; but once within the building all fear vanished. The room was filled with the finest looking colored people I had ever seen. They had, many of them, been house servants in the best families in this aristocratic place. The pastor opened the meeting, and they carried it on with a liveliness that was truly refreshing. Two or three usually rose at once, with words right on their lips. This church had only been organized a little over a year, and then numbered about eighty. There had been much to dishearten all along. They had no church building, and had been striving hard to build; but no sooner would they begin to see little light through the clouds than the white people, fearing that the men with dark skins might acquire too great a hold on this world’s goods, would remove work from the most prosperous, and thus the clouds would gather again. Referring to this method of keeping down, one of the members once said, “No ’count niggers can rub along here well enough, but smart niggers had better look out for other quarters.” Even at that time the danger of their being obliged to disband from outside violence was hardly over, and as they told of their love for their church, one could hardly help thinking of the stories of the early Christians, when persecutions only increased their zeal. There was an undertone of sadness through the remarks of several, for they felt peculiarly uncertain as to what a day might bring forth. But one suddenly rose and changed the key. “I was sad,” he said, “when I first came in here, but your words of sadness have made me glad, for they have shown me how much we all love our church, and such love, with the love of God for us, which is even much greater, will carry us through fiery trials. I never felt as strong as I feel to-night. ’Tis true, I don’t know what may come upon us, but I do feel that the Lord will help us through.” Then he told what he hoped for the future, in such cheerful words, that as he sat down, they burst forth almost with one voice in a song of praise, and then one after another kneeled down, and in the most simple words of faith asked their Father to help His children in this their day of trouble, and I do not think there was one present who had the slightest doubt of His doing so.

Even before the Kansas fever, there were States in the North that were synonyms for all good things to the colored people. I remember a Thanksgiving Day, when a minister was addressing one of the schools, and telling the children what they had to be thankful for, that he burst forth with the question, “Is there any other country so blessed as this?” “Yes, sir,” said a little urchin before him. “Why, what one?” “Massachusetts,” was the reply.

I once heard a colored minister pray heartily for the teachers in this wise, “May God throw around this institution His frosty arms, and bear the teachers from this to another vale of tears.”

The good old days have gone; the better ones, perhaps, have come.

TENNESSEE.

A Remarkable Conversion and Triumphant Death.

MISS HENRIETTA MATSON, NASHVILLE.

How often have God’s dealings with His children seemed strange and sad, when those who were just ready to do valiant service for Him, here amid the need of a lost world, are called up higher—called to rest, rather than toil—to wear the crown, rather than longer bear the cross.

But God’s ways are not ours, and since we know that He ever cares for His own cause, we may believe that He calls the loved one to a higher usefulness. Such were some of the thoughts that came to our hearts when, on a beautiful June morning during the summer vacation, we read the words, “E. J. Park died yesterday afternoon,” followed by an account of the triumphant death of a student of Fisk University, who had gone to Texas to teach school.

Eugene Park came to Fisk University several years ago, a pleasant, careless boy, who had never bestowed a thought upon his eternal interests. For a long time he was but little moved; both the warnings and the entreaties of the Gospel seemed to fall unheeded upon his ear, and we often felt that he became only more careless and indifferent.

At last, however, the Spirit strove with him, and he began to ask, “What must I do to be saved?” though at first there was not in him that fixed purpose which would lead him to arise and go to his Father. And so he halted for months, wavering and undecided, until a mighty conviction seized him that he must find God, and that speedily. Sin, in all its enormity, was revealed to him, and he seemed indeed to realize that he was lost, unless the Saviour should interpose and deliver him.

He then gave himself entirely to seeking God. He could not study, and there were many long hours in which he could neither eat nor sleep, so powerfully was he wrought upon. One morning in Chapel, at devotional exercises, while in this intense state of mind, the reading of the Scriptures so affected him that he sobbed aloud. Hoping to calm him, and at the same time point him to Christ, the hymn was sung, “Oh, the blood, the precious blood!” but he was so overcome that his friends were obliged to take him away, and a few of us gathered and prayed with him. Still the light from the Sun of Righteousness did not break in; the precious blood was not applied to his soul until the next day, when Jesus Himself drew near, and the Lord of Glory revealed Himself as the One altogether lovely, and the Chief among ten thousand. His soul seemed in a rapture of joy for days. He came to the school with his Bible always in his hand, as though he could not be parted from it even for a moment.

Then followed years of ripening in the Christian life, with frequent seasons of such blessing that he could not speak of Christ without tears. He early gave himself to the ministry, feeling that to preach the everlasting Gospel would be his highest joy, and was pursuing his studies with this in view. He was not, however, without temptations to a worldly life, though we are assured that the dear Saviour kept His own, even unto the end. His death was a beautiful illustration of the triumph of the Gospel of Christ. Far from friends and home, yet he was not alone, for that Friend that sticketh closer than a brother was near.

He had been ill for several days, and one morning he told those about him that he should go home at three afternoon, and precisely at the hour named the summons came. He had sent messages to his mother and friends. “Tell them,” he said, “that Jesus is with me and saves me. Oh, how sweet it is to die in the arms of Jesus.” He then sung, “Washed in the blood of the Lamb,” “Safe in the arms of Jesus,” and “Sweeping through the gates to the new Jerusalem.”

And now we, in our sorrow, think of him as thus “safe.” We hoped he would labor long and successfully for the Master; but he has been called up higher, and is now, we believe, among the ransomed in the New Jerusalem, where he has learned the new song, even praise unto our God.

GEORGIA.

First Impressions.

REV. P. W. YOUNG, BYRON

I feel the necessity of writing you this morning concerning my work, though my time is much occupied. I am happy to say that I found some very earnest members here, notwithstanding they were like sheep without a shepherd when I came. There is an opportunity for a great deal of Christian labor here, as in many other places.

I preach on the Sabbath at 11 o’clock and at 8 o’clock in the evening. We have a very good Temperance Society also. Its members manifest great interest in the cause. The people are beginning to see that intemperance, if continually practiced, will bring them to degradation. I delivered a lecture to the society last Sabbath in the afternoon, having about 250 persons present. I told them in the plainest words of the great harm that had been done by intemperance among the colored people. When I closed my remarks they said they wished I could speak an hour longer on the same subject, showing their hearty approval of what I had said.

The religious interest seems to be good generally. There are four converts to unite with the church.