USA > Virginia > Henrico County > Henrico County > The first century of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia. 1780-1880 > Part 12
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About the year 1855, it was found to be necessary to send out a colony from the First African Church. Its number of members had grown to three thousand, and its house was quite inadequate to their accommodation. By the cordial assent and co-operation of the brotherhood, a lot was purchased in the neigh- borhood of Bacon Quarter Branch, and a neat edifice was built. It was dedicated the fifth Sunday in May, 1858, and the Ebenezer Church, consisting of four hundred members, was soon afterwards constituted. This property, which cost a little over eight thousand dollars, was paid for and deeded to Trustees for the benefit
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of the Church just before the close of the late war. These two churches-the mother and the daughter, have cherished mutual harmony in their efforts to advance the cause of God.
From October Ist, 1841, to July Ist, 1865, the additions by baptism to the First African Church were three thousand eight hundred and thirty-two. Of this number, no larger a pro- portion fell away from the belief and practice of the truth, than is usual in our average churches. It was thought best to discourage a hasty profession of religion among them. The applicants for admission were required to bring testimonials of good or improving characters. They were then examined by some Deacon or experienced member, and kindly admonished as to the responsibility about to be assumed. They were then brought before the Pastor, who satisfied himself in regard to their intelligence and their fitness for the new relation. Had the persuasive, instead of the restraining, policy been pursued, the number of the baptized might easily have been doubled. It seemed very important to impress especially the younger candidates with a deep sense of the fearful guilt of trifling with their souls and with their God.
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In respect to the popular feeling of Rich- mond towards the Church, the Pastor takes leave to say that among the highest circles of society he believes there was the kindest in- terest felt in its welfare and permanence. To say that no suspicions were cherished-that no surmisings were expressed-that no diminution of respect and appreciation was shown by some persons, would be going beyond the limits of truth. It sometimes requires a little moral courage to obey the dictates of conscience. But let all this pass. Of the resident clergy of the city, Dr. Jeter excepted, no one evinced more sympathy with, and more regard for, the well-being of the Church than the late Bishop Johns. He often preached for us, and seemed quite gratified when, on one occasion, he was complimented as a "first-rate nigger preacher." All the annual meetings of the several de- nominations, when convened in the city, were invited to supply the pulpit, not only on Sun- days, but on the secular days-and those sent preached with great acceptance, and expressed themselves as delighted with the order and de- corum of the assembly.
At the close of the war, the constitution and rules of order were so far modified, as to adapt
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them to the new relations which the colored people sustained to society. The Pastor then offered his resignation, from a belief that they would naturally and justly prefer a minister of their own color. This resignation was proposed and accepted with mutual kindness and good will. It has always seemed incongruous that a Baptist minister should argue stoutly in behalf of the popular election of church-officers, and then complain if he is not chosen or continued in office.
A few general remarks will finish what I have to say.
It is a misconception of the African race, which many Anglo-Saxons cherish, that all negroes are alike. While the whole human family are depraved, and the sameness of condition, sur- rounding a particular tribe, will impress on it a peculiar type of character, still there is as much individuality-as much variety of intellectual and moral temperament-among the negroes as there is among persons of any other race. I have witnessed as bright examples of godliness, of disinterested kindness, of real gentility of manners, and of native mental shrewdness among them, as among other people. Many of the old men and matrons were brought up in
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the best families, and understood all the proprie- ties of life. Their manners were polished, and their principles correct. This, to a partial ex- tent, was true of some of the young people of both sexes. Say you this was the result of
imitation ? Very well. And do not our child- ren get all their refinement by imitation ? Let me give you specimens of the traits just enu- merated.
Nicholas Scott was an old man, whom some of the present citizens will remember. He was the owner and driver of a hack, and before the day of railroads, used to take John Marshall, William Wickham, B. Watkins Leigh, and other distinguished lawyers, to the court-houses in the adjoining counties. He was highly esteemed by them for his upright and obliging temper, and caught their dignified bearing and courtly manners. He had always something to say for their amusement, calling himself Old Nick. Having returned from the North, after a sojourn there of a year or two, he met one of these gentlemen on the street, and, after the mutual greetings, being asked why he had come back to Old Virginia, he said: "Oh, sir, the North is no place for a gentleman." I knew him only as a matured Christian. While he was hearing
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the gospel, his face was radiant with intelligence and joy. He came up to the College once to see me when sick, and brought me a little basket of eggs. I could not but notice the delicacy with which he offered his present, and the modesty and skill with which he administered the comforts of religion. I called to see him in his last illness. He was lying on a bed whose sheets, pillow-cases, and counterpane were mar- velously white and clean, and in an humble chamber of corresponding neatness. He seemed perfectly rational, fully aware of his approaching end, and more than willing to depart. "I am all packed up and ready to start on my long journey," said he, alluding to his former mode of life; "but I don't want to go one moment sooner, or stay one moment longer, than the Master wills." Thus he died. And I witnessed many similar deaths among those people. "The Lord knoweth them that are his."
Aaron Lee was a coarser, rougher, more ple- beian specimen of sable humanity. His master had such entire confidence in his honesty, that he used to send his checks by him to the bank for deposit. One day, Aaron reached the bank just after it was closed, and he had to hold his check till the next morning. Happening to be
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caught out that night by a policeman, after the lawful hour, he was lodged in the watch-house, and the next morning taken before the mayor. Being asked by his Honor, with some surprise, why he had been caught on the street without a " pass " at an unseasonable hour, he answered that he had a pass, but it was in the same pocket with a large check, and, as he did not know what sort of a man the officer was, he chose to go to the lock-up, rather than to pull out his pass and check together to be inspected by the officer.
The sexton of Dr. Jeter's Church was a member of the African Church. One Lord's Day afternoon, Dr. Jeter and I exchanged pul- pits, and the sexton went down to his own con- gregation, expecting to hear me. After closing the exercises at the First Church, I walked down to see that the people were retiring quietly, and to ask if everything had gone on smoothly. Meeting with the young sexton, I inquired : " Who preached for you this after- noon ?" " Dr. Jeter." " What was his text?" "The same he took at his own Church this morning "-repeating it. " Did he preach the same sermon?" " Just the same, except that he left out one paragraph addressed to the rich,
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because he thought we had no rich people down here."
One of my members went, on a certain occa- sion, to hear a learned gentleman, then a Pastor of this city. I do not vouch for the justice of the criticism, but, being asked how he liked the sermon, he said : " He preaches too much out of the dictionary."
A prominent preacher among his brethren was making an address at our communion, and said : " There was no death among the ancient people of God during the days of Moses. He made a brazen serpent and put it up on a high pole. And whosoever looked upon it was saved from death. And I reckon they all must have looked upon it, for Paul says 'death reigned from Adam to Moses.' And if he reigned from Adam to Moses, he could not have reigned after Moses came."
Sometimes I was called on to decide contro- versies on knotty points of interpretation. Two young men brought a disputed case about the five barley loaves, mentioned in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. One of them contended that the loaves were made of barley as we make bread of wheat and corn. The other, more given to abstruse speculation, maintained
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that the loaves were so small that they were barely loaves.
To vary the exercises, so as to take them out of the deep-worn ruts, I sometimes stood up in the pulpit and invited any one to interrogate me on points of doctrine that might be bearing on his mind. A brother rose up one Sunday and said: "Prophecy foretold that a bone of Christ should not be broken. Suppose the soldiers, who broke the legs of the two male- factors, had tried to break the legs of Christ, do you think they could have done it?" These are specimens of their mental processes, and which of you, learned divines, ever struck out thoughts of greater originality than these ?
There was a spirit of inquiry among them. It came in my way, in one of my sermons, to state and expose some of the learned nonsense of Baron Swedenborg. The next day I hap- pened in a book-store, and the merchant told me that the young man whom I met going out had just inquired for the works of Baron Swe- denborg.
A sort of club among the young men of a certain section of the city met every Sunday night to talk over the sermons of the day. One was called on to give the text, another the
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divisions, a third the doctrine, duties, etc., of the discourse, until, by one or another, the whole sermon, if it was worth anything, was re- produced.
I often witnessed cases of disinterestedness that were really touching. Having spent the night with a gentleman in Hanover, during one of my vacation-trips in the interest of the Col- lege, I observed, next morning, that my horse was nicely combed and curried, and, as was usual in those days, I offered the boy a dime for his attention. He stepped back and said, with an air of the greatest kindness: "I couldn't possibly take anything from my Pastor." In- deed, that spirit pervaded the whole Church. As my salary had been fixed by the Superin- tending Committee, and as I was afraid they might feel oppressed by the sum, having other burdens to bear, I proposed, at the close of the second year, to the Board of Deacons, that they should reduce the sum to four hundred dollars, and requested them to have a separate meet- ing, and, after consulting the brethren general- ly, to decide and report by the next month. They resolved, unanimously, that the salary should not be reduced.
Strangers may ask how they raised the
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means for all these church expenditures. I an- swer: 1. Many of them, being free, were good mechanics, waiters, and drivers, and received living wages. 2. The slaves had their food, clothing, lodging, and medical attendance from their masters, and whatever money they gathered up was for other purposes. 3. All the factory hands had " tasks " assigned to them, and, if they were expert and diligent, they always did " overwork," for which they were promptly paid. Some of them told me that they sometimes received on Saturday night more wages for themselves than they had earned for their masters. 4. All the slaves had perquisites of some kind. If called on to do extra work, or to serve at unusual times, or if they showed marked fidelity, they were gen- erally recompensed. 5. My own servants, when we were about to furnish their fall or spring clothing, would often say that, by patching their old garments, they could do without new ones, and would ask us for the money instead. Of course, we had no objection to this plan, unless we suspected a vicious use of the money. I suppose other families pursued the same course. Thus the servants often bought the first shad, the first watermelon, the first strawberries, of
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the season, long before their masters could afford such luxuries for their tables. 6. Add to all this, I am happy to say, that some masters gave their servants money especially to meet their church expenses. Each attendant gave at least one cent at every meeting, and a con- gregation of a thousand, worshipping twice on the Lord's Day, will raise a thousand dollars a year without any conscious sacrifice.
And now, brethren, as I have perhaps de- tained you too long with these minute details, I will close with one remark. The negroes are now all free, and I am heartily glad of it, though I say nothing of the agencies and methods by which the event was accomplished. They are our fellow-men-our fellow-citizens- and many of them our fellow-Christians. Let us treat them in the spirit of our common Christianity. And let us remember that its leading doctrine, in respect to our relations to man, is: " Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."
FRATERNAL ADDRESSES
BY BASIL MANLY, E. W. WARREN, H. McDONALD.
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ADDRESS. BY BASIL MANLY.
I WAS startled, the other day, to find how venerable I had become. I called to see our honorable sister, Miss Lucy Courtney, in her solitude of perfect deafness and entire blind- ness-bowed under the weight of fourscore and ten years. As soon she had spelled out my name by her system of signals, she startled me, not more by the affectionate embrace with which she honored me than by designating me as "Dear Brother Manly, the oldest living Pastor of the First Church." I had never thought of it before. Though younger in years than all my successors, except the present incumbent, I am left, by the death of Dr. Jeter, the Senior Surviving Pastor.
It is difficult for me to realize that it is about thirty years since I arrived in Richmond at the call of this Church, a youth of twenty-four, with
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no pastoral experience, except for a single year with country churches in Alabama, and in frail health. It seems to me as but yesterday, when the "young men" of this Church met me at the depot, Coleman Wortham, Robert Bosher and W. H. Gwathmey, and conducted me to the hospitable Wortham mansion on Grace Street, which ever afterwards felt like a home to me. A brief sojourn in the family of James C. Crane gave me a similar freedom of intercourse with that noble brother and his household. And then my more permanent abode was taken up with Brother Archibald Thomas, to whose warm heart, sound judgment, and honest, earnest energy, not only I, but this whole Church, owe so much.
How I lament that she, who survived him, and who was so long the light of his home, and the hospitable, cheerful, generous Mother in Israel, did not live to enjoy this day, and to receive the honors which grateful hearts would rejoice to render her-one of the noblest Christian women that I ever knew, a second mother to me.
I remember that just at the time of my arrival here, Rev. James B. Taylor was passing through that critical illness which threatened to deprive. us of his valuable services. And every
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day for weeks I visited his house to inquire, and to offer my assistance in attending him. Thank God, many years of useful labor were granted to him, and of happy companionship to me.
I would gladly speak of the brethren who seemed to be pillars in those days-the Deacons; the Sunday School Superintendent, James Tho- mas; the younger active members; of D. R. Crane, with his cheering face and melodious voice; of Charles Wortham, the "eleventh hour laborer," as he modestly called himself-promi- nent and faithful, though gray-headed and infirm, in the young men's meeting; of many others, old and young, whose names and faces come freshly up to me; but time would not allow, and that duty has been appropriately assigned to others.
During the four years that I supplied this pulpit, I may truly say that the Church taught me as well as I the Church. When I came here I was a novice in Church discipline, I lacked experience and enthusiasm in Sunday- schools, I knew nothing practically of the de- tails of an active city pastorate. I addressed myself honestly to the task before me, to do what I could ; and I found difficulties lightened, and rough places made plain. The Church, instead of leaning on me, bore up my hands,
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bore with my obvious imperfections, and rallied to their young Pastor in his immense work with a unanimity which was itself a sure token of success. And the Lord granted his blessing abundantly. At almost every monthly commu- nion some received the right hand of fellow- ship, and in a few months a gracious revival began, in which about a hundred were bap- tized.
Soon, among the numerous members on Church and Union Hills, regular prayer-meet- ings were established, and occasional preaching, resulting finally in the dismissal of many excel- lent brethren and sisters to constitute Leigh Street Church.
It was not long before the effort for the en- dowment of Richmond College demanded earnest co-operation with the Agent, Brother A. M. Poindexter, and many weeks of toil were given to aid him in that work, resulting in a contribution of some twenty thousand dollars at that time from this Church.
Scarcely had this been accomplished, when the same spirit of enterprise prompted the establishment of a kindred institution for young ladies. The Richmond Female Institute grew out of the consultations and efforts of a body
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of liberal and far-seeing brethren, in 1853, called together at the instance of Brother James Thomas, Jr. Though the Richmond churches had contributed that year about seven thousand dollars towards the erection of the new Church on Leigh Street, and nearly forty thousand dol- lars the year before to Richmond College, they pressed forward to this new enterprise with such zeal, that within a year they had the satis- faction of seeing the Richmond Female Institute opened, and the amplest facilities offered which an expenditure of some seventy thousand dol- lars in grounds, buildings, furniture, and appa- ratus could procure for the thorough education of our daughters.
To this new enterprise, which from the be- ginning had engaged much of my attention, I myself was unexpectedly summoned, after we had failed to obtain the Principal to whom our minds had been first directed. Finding my health failing under the pressure of manifold labors, and yielding to the advice and solicita- tions of such honored co-laborers as Jeter, Howell, the Thomases, Ryland, Goddin, and others, I assented to the change.
Visiting the Institute the other day, I amused myself by telling the young ladies, that I wanted
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to see if there was as much beauty there, as used to be in my day. And then gravely sur- veying their smiling, blushing, mirthful faces, I assured them that I was compelled to say that there was not! The explanation of this ap- parently ungallant speech was forestalled by the promptitude and quick wit of the accom- plished Principal, Miss Hamner, who quietly said, " Dr. Manly means that there is not as much beauty, because there are not so many girls." "Precisely," I replied, "and there is good reason, in the changed circumstances, why there could not be expected as many now as then."
But may I be allowed to say it ?- as I looked upon that fair group of lovely girls, my mind went back to the others who sat in those places twenty-five years ago; and the affectionate greeting, which my heart gave to the Institute Girls, was warmed and sweetened, along with a tinge of mysterious sadness, by the recollec- tion of faces now beneath the sod. Were there ever any such girls any where as those that gathered there ?
Yes, for their daughters and sisters are springing up all around us. Thank God for the blessed young people that are coming up to take the places of the old .- I should like to
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summon the teachers of those days around us again. . One of the noblest has passed away, Prof. R. P. Latham; but Dr. H. H. Tucker still lives, full of labors and honors, and Dr. R. A. Lewis, and Prof. C. H. Winston, and Mrs. Hol- combe, and Miss Lizzie Nelson, and Misses Jane Stanard, and Mary Lathrop, and Josephine Ragland. Bless them every one, wherever they are!
But I must not protract these reminiscences. Let us look forward rather than backward. This is the end of one century; let it be the starting point of new progress for the next. Serving our own generation by the will of God is the noblest honor to which we can attain. Serving, not being served, is the true dignity of man, and entitles one to the most enduring and the most illustrious memorial.
We need be little concerned about what pos- terity may say of us. The course of conduct which most effectively secures present useful- ness will also ensure future influence; and if men erect no monuments to honor our names, that matters not. God will remember the work we tried to do, the work we wanted to do for him, the work that we did so imperfectly and feebly that we were ashamed at the time,
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and can scarcely now recall it without a painful sense of short-comings and deficiences. But it was FOR HIM. That gave sweetness to the
work then. That gives glory and permanence
to it now. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
ADDRESS
BY E. W. WARREN.
W E are here in response to the call of our venerable mother.
Though only an adopted son, yet, hav- ing received such tokens of affection, and enjoyed so frequently the attention and warmth of love due only to the children, I claim the right, with them, to bring my grateful tribute, which is cordial and unaffected.
But few mothers have lived to so great an age. Not many have been permitted to call together their sons and daughters to rejoice in the celebration of their one hundredth birth- day. We look into this maternal face, whose peaceful smile and tender greeting have so often given comfort and encouragement in the sorrows and strifes of life, and there remains still the beauty of youth gracing her brow, and increased elasticity, giving zest to her enter- prises.
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Her natural force is unabated, and her prom- ise for another hundred years of activity and fruitfulness is a thousand-fold greater than when she began her life of consecration a cen- tury ago.
Her sons have come from afar to do her honor. Ardent and efficient reapers have, for the time, left their sickles in the midst of ripen- ing harvests, and come to pay tribute of love to their spiritual Alma Mater. Her sons and daughters dispersed over the States of this Union, who are unable to be present at this happy family reunion, turning their hearts to- ward her, are saying: "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee." We, whose good fortune it is to be here, " Were glad when they said unto us, let us go up to this house of the Lord." . Our hearts united in spiritual harmony as we united in the ancient chorus, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates," O thou blessed "Jerusalem." Journeying hither, as in visions we saw her in the distance, we unitedly cried: "Beautiful for situation, the joy" of all her sons and daugh- ters, is this Zion of our spiritual nativity.
Now that we stand before these sacred altars, in the midst of these familiar scenes, and sur-
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rounded by this loving brotherhood, grateful memories of the past fill the mind, and as we are reminded of the wonderful achievements of the providence and grace of God in this place, and through this people, we exclaim with Jacob and Israel : " What hath God wrought !" As we enjoy the ever increasing fruits of these gracious agencies, we are in harmony with the sentiment of Moses; "Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children."
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