USA > Delaware > Methodism of the peninsula, or, Sketches of notable characters and events in the history of Methodism in the Maryland and Delaware peninsula > Part 11
USA > Maryland > Methodism of the peninsula, or, Sketches of notable characters and events in the history of Methodism in the Maryland and Delaware peninsula > Part 11
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169
HYMENEAL AND BAPTISMAL.
At a camp-meeting once held at Lloyd's Spring, for Easton Circuit, the pastor, Rev. Dr. T. J. Quigley, appointed the hour of one P. M., of Tuesday, for a great baptismal service. A promiscuous and motley crowd, gathered mostly from the out-of-the-way swamps and thickets, was in attendance. It was a baby-show that would have deprived the great American showman Mr. Barnum, of his prestige. There were
Babies great and babies small ; Babies, short and babies tall ; Babies fat and babies lean ; Babies soiled and babies clean ; Babies romping, tumbling, falling ;
Babies crowing-babies squalling : Candidates for Church probation Full enough to stock a nation.
Two young ministers, Revs. C. I. Thompson and J. Frank Chaplain, were in attendance on the dignified Doctor of Divinity ; the one to bear the baptismal water, and the other to preserve a list for the Church Registry. The service proceeded, with becoming decorum, to a point where the officiating minister said to the little, comical- looking grand-dame who presented her screaming young hopeful : "Sister, name this child."
Her reply-"Mary 'Lizabeth, after its mammy" -- upset the gravity of the young ministerial attendants ; but they still stood their ground, and the good old Doctor applied the water, solemnly saying, "Mary Elizabeth, I baptize thee." 8
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METHODISM OF THE PENINSULA.
The next case, however, was a stunner. Taking the young rooster in his arms, Dr. Quigley, for the fortieth time, said, "Sister, name this child."
"Peter Tomato Pickler," was the reply.
"What !" propounded the astonished parson.
"Peter Tomato Pickler," reiterated the mother.
" What did you say ?"
Again the matron, indignant at the preacher's apparent dullness of comprehension, deliberately and emphatically answered : " Peter-To-ma-to-Pick-ler !"
" Peter ; I baptize thee," said the protesting dignitary, and reached for the water ; when he discovered the bowl upside-down in the straw, and his convulsed attendants making their hasty exit over the altar fence.
On a certain occasion, Rev. John Henry, the cele- brated Irishman, whose unique peculiarities are else- where delineated in these sketches, was engaged to baptize the child of a lady of some prominence on the Maryland side of the Peninsula. The service was in a church, at the close of the Sunday morning preaching. The old colored nurse-the indispensable appurtenance of a baby moving in good society, in "ye goode, olde times " of slavery-was on hand in the gallery, of course, to grace the occasion with her presence and to see the work well done. The lady-like mother had an unfortunate lisp; and when she presented little Lucy at the baptismal font, and Mr. Henry propounded the question as to name in the usual form, the response was : "Luthy, thir."
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HYMENEAL AND BAPTISMAL.
"What did you say, sister?" exclaimed the aston- ished Irishman.
"Luthy, thir," reiterated the innocent, but confused lady.
"Why, sister," said Mr. Henry, "Lucifer is the name of the Daivel! You must not so disgrace the boy." And, hastily selecting a name himself, he proceeded with : "John Wesley, I baptize thee;" and was about to apply the water, when the old nurse aforesaid con- vulsed the already amused audience by screeching out from the gallery : "O, Mistah Preachah ! Stop-don't ! He's a gal !"
The necessary explanations were then made by the lady's husband, and little Lucy was appropriately "christened."
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METHODISM OF THE PENINSULA.
CHAPTER VII.
WHITE SOULS IN COLORED ENVELOPES.
N many places, in the Peninsula, in the ante bellum days, the soil had become greatly impoverished by the system of farming begotten of the " peculiar institution."
Sometimes large slaveholders were profligate, or fond of gaiety and sporting, giving no personal attention whatever to their plantations, but leaving everything to 'overseers, or to a "foreman " selected from the "gang" of field hands.
If a few hundred dollars were needed to meet some exigency, at no very distant point could be found some Jim Vaughn, Marcy Fountain or Patty Cannon, ever ready to supply the coveted money in exchange for "likely" negroes. Thus the improvement of the soil, so constantly depleted, was neglected; the crop of slaves became the matter of prime importance; and, if the exhausted fields produced sufficient to keep this human harvest in luxuriant condition, it mattered little to the gay lords of the soil whether there was aught else for the market.
This condition of affairs was quaintly, but aptly described by Col. A. J. Willis, himself a Caroline County slaveholder, in a speech delivered in the Mary-
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WHITE SOULS IN COLORED ENVELOPES.
land Senate a year or two before emancipation was effected. Advocating some measure proposed by what afterwards became the emancipation party, he said : "Gentlemen on the other side of the Senate seem dis- posed to test every measure introduced by its probable effect upon slavery. If they can have their way, they will soon damn their pet institution. What is slavery worth to us now, Mr. President? Fields; corn; hogs; 'niggers.' It takes a big field to raise a little corn; the hogs eat up all the corn; the 'niggers' eat up all the hogs; and what have you got on hand at the end of the year? Just what you had to begin with-fields and 'niggers.' Mr. President and gentlemen of the Senate: I'd rather have a string of a dozen herrings than a dozen negroes !"
When the persecuted fields became so impoverished that they would no longer produce "nubbins," they were planted in black-eyed peas; and when the soil was "so poor it wouldn't sprout peas," it was "turned out" to grow up in scrub pines. It not infrequently happened that peas were more plentiful than corn; in which case, as pigs could not be persuaded to eat the former, it fell to the lot of the slaves to consume vast quantities of them. Poor Tom, one of Gen. P-'s field hands, having dined on black-eyed peas daily for four months, at last reached the point of indignant protest. Coming into the "Quarters" one day, he was confronted, for the one hundred and twentieth time, with the inevitable bowl of smoking peas seasoned with rusty bacon; and
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being ignorant of the fact that his master was just at that moment passing by, he broke forth in the following emphatic strain :
"Now, Mary Liz, mind what I tells ye. De Oberseer's done gone got to change de livin'. We's eat peas till we's as po' as the ole field whar dey growed-we's jest turned to pea mush! Dis nigger's a gwine ter try to 'vour dis one mo' stinkin' mess ; an' den Is'e a gwine ter quit, ef I dies. Mars Gen'l may save a few dollahs on co'n ; but I specs he's a gwine ter lose a thousan' dollah niggah some o' dese days! Fo' I tells ye, I aint a eatin' no mo' peas, ef I has to"-
" Who's that, aint a goin' to eat peas ?" stormed the General, at the same moment confronting Tom with the glare of a tiger.
"Not dis nigger, Mars !" answered Tom, as he scooped in a small ladlefull between sentences. " Dis nigger 'vours de peas to all tarnations !"
Despite his condition of physical and mental bondage, the negro was not incapable of moral distinctions and logical conclusions, albeit he sometimes followed the latter until he lost sight of the former. Jerry and Hercules, who belonged to Mr. C., a leading farmer of Caroline county, Md., will serve as an example. Said Jerry to his fellow-servant :
"Herc; you know de Book it say ye mustn't steal. Now, you an' me 'longs to meetin'; an' so we mustn't steal. What am stealin', Herc? Gim' me your 'pinion as a resorter in de Church."
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WHITE SOULS IN COLORED ENVELOPES.
"Well, sah ;" replied the sage Hercules, "it am takin' on de sly, fo' you own use, what am anodder man's goods."
"Now, Herc ; fo' de 'lustration, s'pose dis case : Dere am Mars Jimmy's turkeys up de ole apple tree. You an' me is Mars Jimmy's niggers. Dat is, turkeys an' niggers bofe 'long to Mars, don't dey ?"
"Dat am sho'ly so," responded Hercules.
"Well, now den," resumed Jerry, "s'pose Mars Jimmy's niggers, Herc and Jerry, eat one o' Mars Jim- my's turkeys to-night, what harm dat be to Mars Jimmy ? What he lose from de apple tree, he gains in de health an' strength ob de boys, don't he? Turkey still his'n, aint he ?"
"Dat's so, Jerry," was the reply ; "it am all in de family."
But next morning when the old turkeys counted their children, they were not "all in de family." One had fallen a victim to Jerry's moral philosophy ; and the consciences of the logical twain were about as comfort- able as their capacious and well-stuffed stomachs. Even to this day, despite the better teachings of the public school and the Christian pulpit, it is to be feared there are some among our colored population, who reason themselves into the belief, that because, in the days of slavery, they or their fathers wrought in uncompensated toil, for the benefit of others, and for the general pros- perity ; therefore the families thus benefited, or the community in general, have no moral or equitable right
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to complain if they "collect de wages owin' on de ole score." With some, the law of limitations is ineffective to bar this twenty-two-year-old debt ; unless the limita- tions be prison walls. Such cases, however, are growing more and more rare, as the years of our higher civiliza- tion roll on; and, in the Maryland counties of the Peninsula, it is no unusual thing for the jails to be without a tenant charged with theft for many months together. For some reason-perhaps because the gov- erning power in Delaware denies education to the negro unless he pays for it out of his own hard earnings ; and denies to him the right of suffrage, even when he and his party are willing to pay for it-we cannot say so much for the Delaware counties. There accusations are numerous ; convictions follow almost as a matter of course; and the whipping-post has many victims. Juries are composed almost wholly of the governing class ; and it would not be wonderful if they should have the acute- ness to see that every colored man convicted of crime is an opposition voter permanently disfranchised.
In the days of slavery but few of the colored preachers and religious teachers were able to read. By the laws of most of the slave-holding states, teaching negroes was constituted a penal offence. To them learning was contraband, and to be obtained only as some of them were wont to obtain their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys-by stealth. The old time local preachers and ex- horters among the colored people had, therefore, to depend largely upon their powers of memory to recall appro-
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priate texts of Scripture, as bases for their discourses, or as illustrations of religious doctrine and experience.
One of these ebony-skinned sons of nature in the lower part of the Peninsula, renowned in his day for a punctilious observance of dignified ministerial forms, always used the Hymn-book and Bible in his announce- ment of hymns and texts; as he explained to his white pastor, "fo' de 'pearance ob de thing to de 'sembly ;" carefully turning the pages, and scrutinizing the books, with an immense pair of brass-bowed spectacles astride his nose. It was his custom, before going into the con- gregation, to avail himself "ob de larnin' ob brudder Aaron," a fellow-servant and member of the same con-
gregation, in order to insure accuracy. One day, after considerable manipulation of the pulpit Bible, he settled down somewhere about the middle of the volume; and with a great show of confident ceremony, thus announced his text: "Preach de Gospel. Bees instantly work in de season, an' outen de season ;- dat is, ef dey kin-'prove, 'buke, 'zort; all along a sufferin'. Dese words, bree- thering you'll 'scover in de second varse ob de fourth chapiter ob de second 'pistle of Saul o' Tarshis to Clover." This was more than " Brudder Aaron" could stand; who at once interposed with : " Uncle Zeke, dat are a mistake. Dere am no such a 'pistle in de Book. It am Paul de 'Postle's 'pistle to Timothy." Instantly Uncle Zeke, nothing daunted, responded : " Dat's a fac', Uncle Aaron ; it's kinder dark in heah. I seed it war some sorter grass : I 'scovers now, it am Timoty an' not de Clover."
8*
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METHODISM OF THE PENINSULA.
Another old colored brother, residing in the neigh- borhood of Chestertown, Maryland, and who was en- vironed by similar disadvantages, one day announced for "de tex fo' de 'scourse ob de casion," the follow- ing unique scripture: "Whar ders two or three gits togedder in my name, an' I'm dar too, ders six or seven ob us."
In those days of yore, the simple faith of the unlet- tered African oftentimes attached to the Deity a very decided, and really a kind of corporeal personality. What, with others of better culture, would have been irreverent or bordering on the idolatrous, was, with him, but the legitimate outcome of a most reverent and anxious feeling after God. He accepted the terms and words in which, in accommodation to human concep- tions and consciousness of need, God has been pleased to speak of himself and of his relations to his children, as being strictly literal in their import; and, not unfre- quently, in his innocent ignorance, did he exaggerate and distort them. At a camp-meeting held on. Kent Island in 1856, the writer one day heard a manifestly sincere and earnest colored man, in his address at the throne of grace, make the following petition : "O, Lord ! O, Lord ! We is mighty po' an' helpless critters ! O, Lord ! we needs ye pow'ful bad ! O, Lord ! Don't take no time to git ready; but come 'long anyhow, jest as ye is, in de ole workin', ebery-day close-we's in sich a bad way an' big hurry! O, Lord! O, Lord! Harness a pow'ful strong an' mighty white hoss to de
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WHITE SOULS IN COLORED ENVELOPES.
ark; an' git out yer sharp, flashin' sword; an' ride an' cut an slash all ober de camp-groun'!"
In the old-time Peninsula camp-meetings, the colored people were always provided for ; a portion of the circle to the rear of the preacher's stand being invariably set apart for their occupancy and use. Here they drew up their covered carts, and erected their nondescript tents. The latter often consisted of poles stuck into the earth, and bent and tied together ; over which they spread such articles of bed-clothing as they might happen to possess, to afford the needed shelter. Not infrequently their tents were of patchwork, after the pattern of Joseph's coat, or a modern crazy-quilt; and added a ludicrous feature to the weird scenery of the primitive encamp- ment.
In front of their tents, and generally in the most open and sunny spot obtainable, was their shouting-ground, or meeting-place ; where, after the sermon, they were wont to gather for the great revival effort. This service was usually opened by the formal announcement of some solemn hymn, such as, "And am I born to die ?" or, "Hark, from the tomb the doleful sound;" which was sung to a melancholy minor, in the slowest time possible, and slurred and tremoloed into all sorts of fantastic shapes, until the author of old "Mear" or "China," had he listened from the other world, would surely have been unable to recognize his own production. When this opening piece had at last dragged to its conclusion, "Brudder Jacob Isr'el Potter," or "Isaier Ishm'el
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Carter," or some other recognized dignitary, was called on to "lead in de revotions at de throne ob grace."
Beginning in slow and measured sentences, in indis- tinct monotone, the petitioner was wont to rise by degrees from apparent formalism to warmth; from warmth to earnestness ; from earnestness to intense enthusiasm and excitement; when the prayer and the responses struggled with each other for the mastery in the midst of a con- fused babel of glowing metaphor and red-hot exclama- mation; and the conflict was finally terminated by the surrender of the tired lungs and wrecked voice of the leader, to the overpowering noise of superior numbers. The "amen" said, one of the younger and more active "brethering" would spring to the lead in the song-ser- vice ; and the transition from E flat to C marked the beginning of the jubilant era of "de meetin'." As the leader struck the first notes of the song, peculiar motions, confined to no particular portion or member of the body, indicated the time in which the piece was to be rendered; and significant glances in the direction of the chief "men- singers and women-singers" brought them, one by one, into position for effective action, in hollow circle facing inward. The space thus inclosed was devoted to peni- tents; and there, kneeling on the bare ground-ofttimes prostrate in the dust-many a wounded spirit, from the double bondage, human and satanic, found the liberty of Christ and the "balm in Gilead." Many of the most jubilant songs of the negroes pointed with glowing met- aphor to this blessed, spiritual freedom, and to the coming
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good time when the Immortal Liberator should break their last fetter. The following stanza and chorus, heard a thousand times in my boyhood, will serve as an illustration :
"O ! sinner; run to Jesus; Wid a mighty hand he frees us; An' ole Satin neber tease us, Ef de Lord do appear.
Chorus : Den you will git free In de year ob jubilee ; Yes, childring, we'll be free When de Lord do appear !"
Under the inspiration of sentiments like these, what wonder if ebony faces shone with somewhat of the super- natural fire that illumined Moses' countenance! What wonder if the suddenly unfettered spirit signalled the glad occasion by "walking, and leaping, and praising the Lord !"
Usually the tide of enthusiasm, on the colored side of the encampment, arose and intensified as the days and nights rolled by ; and reached the climactic point on the last night of the meeting. By general consent, it was understood that, as to the colored people, the rules requiring quiet after a certain hour, were, on this last night, to be suspended; and great billows of sound from the tornado of praise and singing rolled over the encampment, and was echoed back from hill and wood for miles away, until the morrow's dawning. To those in the tents, this hour was usually signalled by the sound
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of hammer and axe, knocking down the plank partition walls separating the white and colored precincts; and, in a few moments, the grand "march 'round de' campment" was inaugurated, accompanied with leaping, shuffling, and dancing, after the order of David before the ark when his wife thought he was crazy; accompanied by a song appropriate to the exciting occasion. Some of my readers will recognize the following couplets :
"We's a marchin' away to Cana-ann's land; I hears de music ob de angel band.
Chorus-"O come an' jine de army ; An' we'll keep de ark a movin'; As we goes shoutin' home!
"Come, childering, storm ole Jericho's walls ; Yes, blow an' shout, an' down dey falls ! Chorus-"O come, etc.
"We's all united heart an' hand ; An' fully able to 'sess de land. Chorus-O come, etc.
"When we gits dere we'll all be free; An' oh, how joysome we shall be ! Chorus-" O come," etc.
The sound of the hammer aforesaid became the signal for a general arising all around the camp; and, in a few moments, curtains were parted; tents thrown open ; and multitudes of faces peered out into the early dawning to witness the weird spectacle. Sometimes the voices of the masters and veterans among the white people would
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echo back, in happy response, the jubilant shout of the rejoicing slaves.
At the old time camp-meetings, seats were provided for the colored people in the rear of the preachers' stand ; and no part of the congregation was more reverent in demeanor or more attentive to the preaching of the Word. However it might be in front of him, the preacher was always sure of a sympathetic and apprecia- tive audience in the rear. Many a timid, trembling messenger was inspirited and saved from disastrous failure by the demonstrative prayers and sympathies of the colored part of the congregation. Whatever might be the feelings of the speaker with respect to the assem- bly, at least the colored portion thereof were sure to be en rapport with the speaker.
Exclamations such as, "Help, Lord !" "Lor' bress de preachah !" "Send de powah, Lord !" with signifi- cant nods and motions, and guttural grunts peculiar to the race and impossible to represent phonographically, were sure to greet the preacher from the rear of the stand. And if the preacher " got on de rousements," as the colored patriarchs expressed it, " Amen !" and " Hal- leluyer !" would come rolling in from the African rear- guard, and quite frequently would be echoed back again from the more impressible and enthusiastic in front, un- til a general shout of victory crowned the hour, and scores of awakened souls were weeping and pleading for mercy. Many a discourse, really but a moderately good exhorta- tion, was metamorphosed into a great sermon; and many
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a commonplace speaker into a mighty Boanerges, by a volley of well-timed negro shouts, poured in at a critical juncture.
But sometimes the " amen " and the shout came inop- portunely, as the following incident will illustrate. Rev. Henry White, an old-time Presiding Elder, was once preaching on a quarterly-meeting occasion. The gallery was crowded with colored people. His theme was the judgment of the great day, and the discourse almost over- whelmingly solemn. Becoming mightily stirred, some of the old negroes began to indulge in their favorite ex- clamations while the preacher was picturing the "great white throne," the " awful Judge," and the banishment of the finally disobedient. So utterly inappropriate were " amen !" and " hallelujah !" amid such solemn associa- tions, that the effect of the sermon was thereby put in jeopardy. Mr. White paused, and explained the mean- ing of these exclamations to the colored people; and cautioned them against saying amen or hallelujah in the wrong place. All was quiet along the lines in the gallery, until the Elder neared the culminating climax, in which he pictured the redeemed, having passed the judgment ordeal, filing through the heavenly gates and up the gold-paved aisles of glory ; when old uncle Mal- achi, who was ready to burst with the effort to conceal his enthusiasm, could stand it no longer. Fearful of "'sturbin' de meetin'," he sought a hurried exit by way of the steps leading down outside; but, impeded by the crowd, and the strain intensifying beyond endurance, he
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yelled out, as his old, grey head disappeared adown the winding retreat, "Amen, at a venter!" But the sermon was already a great success; and, besides, had reached the point where the shout appropriately came in ; and old Malachi's " amen" fired the train for a general explosion and a great spiritual triumph.
Sometimes the old colored patriarchs were wont to manifest their interest in the sermon by interjecting remarks commendatory or suggestive between the preacher's sentences. Generally this habit was no annoy- ance, but rather helpful, to the minister who was accus- tomed to African .peculiarities. In one well attested incident, however, it proved far otherwise.
At a camp-meeting once held at McNeal's Woods, near Easton, Md., a somewhat timid young minister of moderate ability was struggling hard to work out a sermon on the cure of Naaman the leper. "Uncle Jeems" King, an old, lame negro, whose piety and zeal were proverbial throughout Talbot County, had taken his position next the stand, where he could eye the preacher and give him the benefit of his accustomed
exclamations and interjections. When the young man announced his text, Uncle Jeems spoke out : "Lor', bress de preachah !" As the brother groped and stum- bled along his introduction, the old negro uttered a sig- nificant groan and said : "O, Lord ! we's all pow'ful weak po' critters : help de preachah !" Getting under way finally, the young minister reached the point where Naaman, seated . in his royal chariot at the Prophet's
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gate, awaited his response to his servant's call. "See how proud and lazy this miserable leper was!" said the preacher. "He was so dignified and conceited that he could by no means get down from his luxuriant cush- ions, and go in to see the man of God; but, while coming to beg a favor of a man whose lineage and whose God he despised, he must needs put the Prophet to the inconvenience of coming out to him. His vanity and impudence outraged all proprieties, and merited only defeat." A moment's pause, just at this point, enabled Uncle Jeems to put in a word of extenuation for poor Naaman's conduct; when he grunted out, so as to be heard by most of the congregation: "Umph, Lord ! He was po'ly !"
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