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One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; or, The Centennial of African Methodism:
Electronic Edition.

Hood, J. W. (James Walker), 1831-1918.

Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the electronic publication of this title.

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Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2001.

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Source Description:
(title page) One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; or, The Centennial of African Methodism.
Hood, J. W. (James Walker), 1831-1918.
xxii, 625 p., ill.

A. M. E. Zion Book Concern, 353 Bleecker Street, New York City
1895
Call number C287.8 H77o (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

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Illustration

JAMES VARICK
FIRST BISHOP OF THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH.

        

Illustration

[Title Page Image]

        

Illustration

[Title Page Verso Image]

ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF THE
AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL
ZION CHURCH;
OR,
THE CENTENNIAL OF AFRICAN METHODISM.

BY

BISHOP J. W. HOOD, D.D., LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF
The Two Characters and Two Destinies.

A. M. E. ZION BOOK CONCERN,
353 Bleecker Street, New York City.
1895.

Page ii

Copyright, 1895, by
J. W. HOOD,
FAIRFIELD, N. C.

Page v

INTRODUCTION.

BY REV. WILLIAM HOWARD DAY, A.M., D.D.
General Secretary of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Connection.

        SELECTED out of the thousands of Zion's ministers to write the Introduction for Bishop Hood's notable History, I confess my shrinking from the task; not because my heart is not in perfect sympathy with Bishop Hood's noble aim, that is, to place before the world what has never yet been written, a complete, reliable account of the rise and progress of one of the least known but one of the most prosperous, most aggressive of the many branches of God's Church; or because I have any doubt concerning the ability of Bishop Hood, the author, to perform his task: but for fear that, with all my love for my Church; with all my confidence that it has been and is now, in the hand of God, a grand leader in, and a blessing to, the world; with all my heartfelt desire to do in the best way the necessary work of simply "an armor-bearer," I may not be able to single out with sufficient clearness the essential points of that History, that the truths thereof may be intensified and burned into the thought and life of the millions who, in this time of Christian activity, worship at our Church's altars.

        An Introduction is not really a review, and yet is a review in advance. The Introduction must know what it has to introduce. Neither is an Introduction to be a

Page vi

repetition simply of the History itself. The Introduction simply points the way, like the signpost at the crossing of the roads, and like the signpost it may suggest consideration of the better way. The Introduction is simply the make-up of specimen pages.

        Having said thus much in order to modify any exaggerated notions of the purview of an Introduction, let us see who and what are before us.

        Naturally we ask ourselves, first, Who is James Walker Hood, D.D.? Many of us have met him. For thirty years he has been prominent in Zion Church work. We know he is a bishop, one of the leaders--the senior bishop--the captain of the Zion host. We have seen him presiding over Conferences; we have read his work, The Negro in the Christian Pulpit; we have heard him preach sometimes some wonderful sermons; and we have heard of him as we were told that he planned this or that--that this or that was the result of his maneuvering; that he is able and influential with men, and that his career seems to have the blessing of Almighty God. Yet this looks at and scans him at a distance; what, just now, we need, is an introduction near at hand.

        James Walker Hood was fortunately born to be what he is to-day, most useful in his chosen calling. He was born in a Christian family. His father was one of God's ambassadors; his mother an earnest, busy daughter and subsequently a motherly mother of the Church. He was born when among the colored citizens religion meant live Christianity; the pulses of the people were stirred by the thrilling appeals for active devotion to God; when conversion was a necessity; when the "Ye must be born

Page vii

again!" was echoed from every pulpit and preached in every sermon. He was reared as a boy when vital Christianity was the aim of Church organization. He was reared, too, when and where the doctrines of equality, political and civil, were voiced anew everywhere. He lived on the busy line of "The Underground Railroad," and with his parents and neighbors was made, under the law and over the law, a factor to "proclaim liberty to the captive," and to "let the oppressed go free." He was born into independent manly Church government, and naturally caught the spirit of Father Spencer, Father Varick, Father Rush, and of the other pioneers in pilgrimage to find place for African Methodism, tabooed, discredited, jostled aside, and disgraced because of its color. He was born early enough to know personally these pioneers of religious liberty, and naturally, about the year 1859, we find him an earnest minister of the Gospel in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Connection. Headwise, therefore, and heartwise, he, of all others, is the fitting delineator of the relation which the colored American sustained to Church government in the early day. His "speech bewrayeth him." His voice is not that of one who has simply heard another voice, but of one who lived in the seething caldron of proscription, even in God's Church; and therefore heart and brain and every interest in life are on fire in view of the work already done and to be done. And with his soul aflame he writes his burning words in this History for the Church of his choice.

        But he writes not simply as a Methodist minister, but as a scholarly Methodist minister. His statement in his

Page viii

beginning, his reasons for an Afric-American Church, his argument as to "Nimrod, the mighty hunter," his insight into Nimrod's and God's purposes, respectively, when the vain-glorious people were scattered, dispersed, because their language was confounded--all evince a thoughtful mind, a literary preparation for his work, and, as all through his History, a close study of God's eternal word.

        In his particular account of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in America, and in his statement of the case as between the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Bishop Hood not only evinces a thorough knowledge of the differences involved, but has the bravery to place on record what a man less self-conscious, or less confident of his knowledge of the case, might well shrink from; but, as unpalatable as some things which he states may seem, he writes only as his own personal experience has justified. History which is history does not seek to flatter or to tickle pleasantly the sensibility, but gives us the facts as they existed at the time of which the writer discourses. If matters referred to seem harsh, it is because they are harsh as the truth of the hour. And in the "efforts for union" between the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches, it would be to invalidate the facts to say aught else than the statement by Bishop Hood, that at no time and in no way could it be truthfully said that the failure of union could be laid at the door of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Connection.

        The truth is, as faintly hinted by Bishop Hood, the

Page ix

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Connection, because it is a Christian body, has seemed to be morbidly sensitive upon the subject of union, and especially upon the union of the two bodies named. So frequent has it been, that from various portions of the Christian field the Christian cry for union has been heard that to some who look simply on the surface it seemed as if the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Connection were afraid to go alone; that it must have some company; that it was almost begging the right to exist through the grace or good will of some other Church organization; when, if the other (surface-side) people knew the truth, they would find that the African Methodist Episcopal Zion people were only avoiding unchristianity by the Christian position we assumed, and were--during every moment of talk and thought and negotiations--marching onward in the work of God and winning victories in Christ's kingdom.

        But this book was not written to explain this matter. It is simply an incident in the Church's history which must be mentioned and commented upon, like a hundred other matters which the History must record.

        In the description of the Connection's early struggles and the subsequent connectional division Bishop Hood is particularly happy, for he gives the events as they occurred. The able argument and defense of the Right Rev. William H. Bishop is slightly out of place, because it was not at hand when the main facts of this portion of the History were being recorded, but it is to be found in the volume toward its close, and thus completes the argument of each side of that controversy long since passed away and largely forgotten, except as history.

Page x

        The history of the lives of the pioneers and executives of the Church, from Varick to and including Walters, is not only of interest, but is thrilling. It is not only the record of men, but of men bent upon serving God according to conscience. As completely as Martin Luther stood in his day for defense of the truth he believed; as firmly as John Knox and Calvin stood for Presbyterianism, or the Scotch Covenanters defended their religious rights, listening to the truth

"By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured in gentle stream,"

        leaning on their pikes, so devoted that in some cases the moorlands of Scotland were dyed red as their heatherbell, so these new defenders of religious liberty in this professedly free land rose up out of the environments of bondage, where in many instances they were held in chains of iron, and out of a public sentiment which was a clamor for exclusion, stronger even than chains of law, and walking out upon the promises of the Lord of hosts made their demand for exercise of the right to worship God without molestation and according to the dictates of their consciences. And, living or dying, they have left to us a legacy of principle and purpose and piety which during the Church's march of one hundred years has glistened in our path and pointed our way.

        If a resident of another world or a denizen of some foreign country should desire to know, as they will desire to know, where humanity has lifted itself highest; where oppositions have been most notably met and vanquished; where the struggle, even in God's Church, at God's altars, was successively and successfully waged in

Page xi

a Christian contest against unchristian "Christianity;" if such should wish to scan the history of men and women who have risen, risen by force of God-given ability and God-given help; risen from the discomfort and poverty of their enforced condition; risen from the clutches of the mob which sought their harmless lives; risen from the ashes of their dwellings and the embers of their churches fired by the torch of the incendiary; risen from their Golgotha and their Calvary of suffering to respectability and recognition and power, over the law and by the law, he has only to read this book from the commencement to its end to find the truth and be satisfied.

        To sum up the wonderful record of this great, struggling Church, composed of men and women, most of them reared in poverty, I can surely name this book a "History of Prodigies." I look upon the Hon. Frederick Douglass, who came up from the slave plantation, as not only the best known but the foremost, best received colored American in all the world. Read his statement in this book. Who can tell what influence the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church had in shaping his destiny? So of a hundred others, members, at some time, of Zion Church, and, in the more circumscribed sphere of each, as much a prodigy as he. Some pygmies lifted upon stilts have attempted to rob Zion Church of this honor, but Zion will live and flourish when the pygmies are forgotten. The history of some of the men and women whom Zion has helped and who have helped Zion is recorded in this volume. We challenge the world of one hundred years past to produce a brighter record of progress.

Page xii

        In these stirring times, when inquiry is awake, and the indications of the approach of justice are seen, no other book than this need be read to learn all that is necessary of the great problem of the hour in this professedly free land, and how to solve that problem.

        This work comes in the Centennial Year of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. It speaks of progress, churchwise or spiritually, but necessarily it must also delineate the moral, the social, the intellectual, the financial advancement of the classes whom it especially represents.

        In this view it is a most timely contribution to the necessary literature of this age, and a complete defense, without seeking to be so, of the Afric-American citizen.

Page xiii

THE AUTHOR'S STATEMENT.

        FOR several years there has been a call for a more complete history of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church than has yet been published. The author has been impressed with the idea that about the close of the first hundred years of the existence of the Church as an independent body would be a good time to publish such facts as he has been able to put together. He does not put this forth as anything like a complete history. He has not been able to get those interested who might have furnished him very much interesting and important matter. What he has given is very largely what has come within his own knowledge. He acknowledges indebtedness to Rev. E. H. Curry, D.D., for a sketch of the Kentucky Conference; to Rev. W. H. Ferguson for a sketch of the Tennessee Conference; to Bishop C. C. Pettey, A.M., D.D., for a sketch of the Louisiana Conference; to Rev. W. G. Strong, D.D., for some facts respecting the Alabama and Florida Conferences; to M. A. Majors, M.D., for a sketch of the Texas Conference; to Rev. B. F. Wheeler, A.M., S.T.B., for a sketch of the New Jersey Conference. His intention was to publish about one hundred biographies, including persons in every part of the connection, but he has only partially succeeded. Several who promised sketches have failed to send them.

        It was not our purpose to boom men for office, nor to

Page xiv

show what fine things we could say regardless of facts. We wanted simply to present unquestionable facts respecting the subject. We desired in the sketches to present especially three classes: 1. Those who have been distinguished by their great talents, improved and usefully employed. 2. Those who have been great workers. 3. The young people who are preparing themselves for leaders in the near future. Respecting the second class, it was our hope to be able to point to the particular church or churches organized, built, or improved by the subject of the sketch. This we have thought would prove to be among the most interesting features of the history. We have built more than fifteen hundred churches in the last twenty-five years. If we were prepared to say by whose instrumentality each church was erected it would certainly add much to the interest of the book. We have secured the facts as far as we have been able to do so. In some cases we have only been furnished the number of churches organized or built, without any statement as to where or when the work was done.

        Among those who furnished the facts just as were desired are Revs. E. H. Curry, R. H. G. Dyson, J. H. Jackson, C. A. King, J. P. Thompson, C. W. Winfield, J. M. Hill, H. B. Pettigrew, and a few others. These, it will be noticed, were great builders; they built at nearly every place to which they were appointed. We are sure that the list of this class of men, who have been making history and building their own monuments, might have been greatly extended had the author known just how to reach them.

        The work that has been accomplished and the samples

Page xv

of industry we have furnished are quite sufficient to indicate the extraordinary usefulness of our preachers. They have not only preached the Gospel faithfully, but have superintended the erection of churches, and in many cases have worked upon them with their own hands. No body of Christians were ever before found in the condition that the colored Methodists were at the close of the war. They had not been permitted to have separate churches, before the war, except to a very limited extent. At the close of the war they were not permitted to worship with the whites, so that they constituted a large body of Christians without houses of worship. No other one generation of Christians has had to build all of its churches.

        Respecting the sketches, we may remark that several of them are copied from the Star of Zion, or Quarterly, or some other paper, for which credit is given; of some we have only given an extract, because of their great length or superfluity. In requesting the sketches we stated the facts that we wanted, but some, disregarding our request, sent us what we did not ask for and failed to send what we did ask for. In such cases we have done the best we could with what we got, in harmony with our design. One splendid writer sent us a sketch in which he made his subject the "Colored Phillips Brooks." We should not seek to be anybody but ourselves, nor permit anybody to make us other than ourselves; you belittle your subject when you have to go outside of him to find material to build him out of. One of the beauties in the character of Bishop Jones was that he was great in himself. His idea was not to be a Webster, nor a Phillips,

Page xvi

nor a Sumner, but a Jones. A man who amounts to anything is at his best when he is himself. David discarded Saul's armor; the sling and smooth stone were his. In the case we are considering the biographer had no occasion to go outside of his subject for matter. He was writing of a man who has splendid abilities of his own, and we could not permit him to lose his identity; so if the biography does not appear just as it was written, both the writer and the subject will understand the reason why. And some little changes in others may be accounted for in the same way. If anyone should think that we might have gone a little further in the same direction, it must be borne in mind that there are some privileged characters in everything under human control.

        While the book is mainly a history of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a little outside matter is thrown in to heighten the interest. The second chapter is a sketch of the origin and greatness of the ancient ancestors of the Afro-American race.

Page xvii

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Page xviii

Page xix

Page xx

Page xxi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page xxii

Page 1

ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF THE
AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL ZION CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.
EARLY RACE DISTINCTIONS.

        AT the birth of Methodism in this country its handful of votaries were so simple and honest, and so free from any thought of race distinctions in the divine presence, that no special notice was taken of the fact that there were colored people present to their disparagement. When Captain Webb and his associates met in a sail loft in 1765, on what was then known as the Battery, at the south end of New York city, they thought not of the complexion of the attendants, but rather of the salvation of their souls. And four years later, when John Street Church was built to accommodate the congregation of that first formed Methodist Church in America, there were no Negro pews nor back seats nor gallery especially provided for the dark-skinned members. They were welcomed in common with other members to all the privileges of God's house and worship.

        This happy state of affairs, however, did not long continue. As the little despised body of Methodists grew

Page 2

larger and extended its borders, among the increasing numbers Negro haters crept in, and in the course of time affected the entire body with that plague, and, as all know, eventually resulted in division. Previous to the secession of the Southern portion of the Church in 1844 there had been several smaller secessions resulting from the Negro question. In fact, the Negro question has affected every Church in America. Although the Protestant Episcopal Church stood the shock of the antislavery agitation, yet one of the great questions in that Church to-day is the Negro question.

        American slavery for its own aggrandizement attempted to chattelize the whole of one of the three great branches of the human family. To do this effectually it was necessary to deny its consanguinity to other races, and in every way possible to crush out its manhood and make the impression upon the American people that the Negro was of an inferior order of beings. Some went so far as to deny that the Negro had a soul; it was claimed by some that he sprang from some species of the monkey, gorilla, or orang-outang. If those who advocated these notions really believed them they placed the proud Caucasian race in a very unenviable position; for the females of this race, who were thus represented as she animals without souls, were ofttimes the bosom companions of white men and the mothers of their children. Then the question arises, What portion of a soul did the offspring have? The father had a soul, the mother none; did the offspring have just half a soul? But these inconsistent and nonsensical ideas were put forth to quiet the conscience of the American people and

Page 3

to prevent the uprising of a sentiment which would endanger the accursed institution.

        This purpose to maintain the inferiority of the Negro was seen in the effort to close the door of every social organization against him. The door of masonry was so effectually barred against him by American lodges that he is wholly indebted to the English army lodges and to the Grand Lodge of England for the privileges of that ancient fraternity. He has likewise been barred from nearly every social organization in America, at the bidding of the slave power.

        It is easy, therefore, to understand how this same influence would affect the Negro in his Church relation. There was not the same universal disposition to keep him out of the Church; he was wanted in the Church for the support he gave it, for the numbers he enabled sectarians to claim in exhibiting their strength, and, with the minority, who were truly pious, he was wanted there for the good of his soul. For these and other reasons he was not kept entirely out of the Church. But in the Church he was hampered and regulated. His privileges were proscribed and limited; every possible effort was made to impress him with a sense of inferiority. Preachers were selected who delighted in discoursing to him upon such texts as "Servants, obey your masters," and who were adepts at impressing the Negro with his inferiority in the most ingenious and least offensive way. This state of things was not confined to any one particular branch of the American Church, but it was found in every denomination and in every community in which there was any considerable number of the black race.

Page 4

        The first outcropping of this wicked spirit which we have noticed in Church history is recorded in the Minutes of the Methodist Conference which was held in Baltimore in 1780. The twenty-fifth question propounded in that Conference was as follows:

        Question 25. Ought not the assistant [Mr. Asbury] to meet the colored people himself, and appoint as helpers in his absence proper white persons, and not suffer them to stay late and meet by themselves?

        Answer. Yes.*

        * See Compilation of Minutes by Daniel Hitt and Thomas Ware, in 1813.



        This, no doubt, was the origin of that regulation throughout the South which forbade any considerable number of blacks meeting together without the presence of a white person. It was many years after 1780 before this stringent measure was placed upon the statute books of many of the States, but here we find it adopted by a Christian body against a portion of its own members. If they were members in common with others they ought to have been permitted to meet in common with others. It seems that they were not, but had separate meetings, even at that early day, at least in Baltimore and some other Southern cities. If they were obliged to have separate meetings they ought to have been permitted to have leaders of their own. This they were denied, and this denial was a subservience to the proslavery proclivities of the times. This state of affairs did not only exist in the Methodist Church, but in all Churches which had any considerable number of colored members. So that about the close of the eighteenth century there was a general restlessness among the colored members of all denominations, which resulted in a movement unparalleled

Page 5

in the history of the Christian Church; a movement which resulted in the establishment of the Negro Church, not of one denomination only, but of all denominations to which any considerable number of colored people belonged. We can trace the origin of every important branch of the Afro-American Church back to the latter part of the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century. The movement was widespread and nearly simultaneous. In 1796 the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York; in 1804 the Abyssinian Baptist Church was organized in New York; the Joy Street Baptist Church was organized in Boston in 1805; in 1806 the Colored Methodist Church was organized in Wilmington, Del., which resulted seven years later in the organization of the African Union (Methodist) Church in the same city; the First African Presbyterian Church was organized in Philadelphia in 1807; about 1809 the First Colored Methodist Church was also organized in Philadelphia, which resulted seven years later in the formation of the (Bethel) African Methodist Episcopal Church. This was a most remarkable movement, and, we repeat, unparalleled in the history of the Christian Church. It was a general exodus of the colored members out of the white Churches for reasons never before known. Secessions from Churches are generally the result of differences of opinion on doctrine or Church government. But it was neither of these which caused this movement. The seceders in every case formed Churches of the same faith and order, and the same form of Church government as that from which they separated.

        This movement took place when means of travel and

Page 6

of communication were limited and poor. There was but little opportunity for consultation, and yet the race moved as a unit. To one unacquainted with the state of affairs the question would naturally arise in the mind, What could have given rise to this movement of a whole scattered race, of one accord, with one mind and purpose, and in one direction?

        Nothing but the desire for the freedom which was denied them in the white Church could have produced this general exodus. Like causes produce like effects wherever they operate, and the disposition to cramp and proscribe the black brother, operating in all denominations, had the same general effect. The oppression being general, the desire to escape it became general.

        There has been a disposition on the part of several branches of the Negro Church to claim priority in this movement; at least five denominations claim to have moved first. We shall not at this point enter into the controversy on that question; the mind's eye rests upon a higher and grander view; the general movement towers up with such inexpressible grandeur that in comparison with it the consideration of any one branch dwindles into insignificance. Besides this, we have concluded that in one sense each may have been first; that is, in its inception the movement was one. God moved at once upon the heart of the race, and from that time there was a restlessness which resulted in the establishment of the Afro-American Church in general. How else can we account for the conflicting claims? We desire to be strictly fair, and to our mind this was not a Presbyterian or Baptist movement; it was not a Bethel, Union, or Zion

Page 7

movement; but it was a grand united Negro movement. It was the race that was oppressed, it was the race that moved. It was a movement by which a race, hampered, proscribed, regulated, and oppressed, gave a grand united exhibition of its determination to find in its own organizations that religious liberty which was denied it in the white Church.

        In forming these organizations there were many difficulties to be overcome. The ministers of the several denominations were opposed to the movement, especially the Methodist ministers, including a majority of the bishops; and the episcopal form of government was favorable to the purpose of the Methodist ministers to hinder the success of the colored brethren in their effort to be free. The Presbyterians and Baptists had only to find three friendly presbyters in order to secure ordination; but in the Methodist Church the authority to ordain was vested in the bishops and Conferences. The Conference elects and the bishop conducts the ordination. This being the case, it was much more easy to hedge up the way of the colored Methodist. By magnifying the importance of particular forms it was an easy matter to sow discord in the ranks of the blacks, and this was freely done. Much is now said about the folly of having so many branches of the African Methodist Church, but the mother Church is almost wholly responsible for this folly. If she had granted the request of Zion Church when it was first formed, to ordain her ministers, they would have gone forth and built up a connection, and no other could have been formed. We shall have more to say on this point in another place. When we think of the

Page 8

indignities which were heaped upon the Negro in the white Church we cannot wonder that he came out.

        The following address, issued by the founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, who were among the most conservative Christians of their day, gives an epitome of the disadvantages to which they were subjected in the white Church, and certainly justifies their action.

FOUNDERS' ADDRESS.

To the Members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in America:

        BELOVED BRETHREN: We think it proper to state briefly that, after due consideration, the official members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Asbury Churches, in the city of New York, have been led to conclude that such was the relation in which we stood to the white bishops and Conference relative to the ecclesiastical government of the African Methodist Church or Society in America, that so long as we remained in that situation our preachers would never be able to enjoy those privileges which the Discipline of the white Church holds out to all its members that are called of God to preach, in consequence of the limited access our brethren had to those privileges, and particularly in consequence of the difference of color. We have been led also to conclude that the usefulness of our preachers has been very much hindered, and our brethren in general have been deprived of those blessings which Almighty God may have designed to grant them through the means of those preachers whom he has from time to time raised up from among them, because there have been no means adopted by the said bishops and Conference for our preachers to travel through the connection and promulgate the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they have had no access to the only source from whence they might have obtained a support, at least, while they traveled. Under these circumstances they believe that the formation of an itinerant plan and the establishment of a Conference for the African Methodist preachers of the United States would be essential to the prosperity of the spiritual concerns of our colored brethren in general, and would be the means of advancing our preachers (who are now in regular standing in connection with the white preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church), whenever it should be found necessary, for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom among our brethren, to bring forward for ordination those who are called of God to preach the Gospel of our Lord, which may be done from time to time, according to the best of our judgment of

Page 9

the necessity thereof, and not according to the method which it is natural to suppose our white brethren would pursue, to determine upon the necessity of such ordination. We are under strong impression of mind that such measures would induce many of our brethren to attend divine worship who are yet careless about their eternal welfare and thereby prove effectual in the hands of God in the awakening and conversion of their souls to the knowledge of the truth.

        And whereas, Almighty God, in his all-wise and gracious providence, has recently offered a favorable opportunity whereby these societies may be regularly organized as an evangelical African connection, we have therefore resolved to embrace the said opportunity, and have agreed that the title of the connection shall be the AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN AMERICA, and we have selected a form of Discipline, from that of our mother Church (with a little alteration), which selection we recommend to you for the Doctrines and Discipline of our Church, hoping that the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, the all-wise and gracious God, will be pleased to approve of the above measures and grant that we may obtain and preserve those privileges which we have been heretofore deprived of; that thereby we may unite our mutual efforts for the prosperity of the Redeemer's kingdom among us and for the encouragement of our colored brethren in the ministry.

        Earnestly soliciting your prayers and united endeavors for the same, we remain your affectionate brethren and servants in the kingdom of our ever-adorable Lord,

ABRAHAM THOMPSON,

JAMES VARICK,

WILLIAM MILLER.


        The great respect that these men had for the mother Church is seen in the care they took not to use language which might be offensive. This is not only seen in this address to their own people, but it characterizes every document emanating from them during the twenty years or more that they were in correspondence with the bishops and Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, trying to get that body to assist them in their effort to establish in a regular way an ordained ministry in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

        Like those separating from the white people of other denominations, it was the design of the Zion and Asbury

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Churches to maintain the same doctrine and set up the same form of government as the Church from which they sprung, and they were especially desirous that the bishops of that Church should ordain their ministers. They had no fault to find with the doctrine or form of government; the only trouble was that they could not, in that organization, on account of their color, enjoy the privileges it offered to others. The teaching from the pulpit was, that God is no respecter of persons. The practice was, that the black people were proscribed and hindered from exercising themselves with that freedom which the form of government held out to white members. Both the masses and also those who were favored with special gifts and callings were discriminated against. The colored members were not permitted to come to the sacrament until all the white members, even children, had communed. The line was also drawn at the baptismal font.

        We have heard a story told of a minister who was baptizing children. When he had gotten through with the white children he looked up to the gallery and said, "Now you niggers can bring your children down." A sister brought her child and presented it, when the minister said, "Name this child." The mother said, "George Washington." The minister looked at her for a moment as though she had been guilty of some great crime, and said, "George Washington, indeed! Cæsar's his name. Cæsar, I baptize thee," etc. Now, Cæsar is no mean name; but that mother thought she had a right to select from the list of dignitaries the name most pleasing to herself, and what right had the minister

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to deny her this privilege? A few of those called were licensed to preach among their own people, but were not permitted to receive holy orders nor to join the itineracy. There were many other little vexations to which they were subjected.

        The things which we have been considering as causes leading to the establishment of the Afro-American Church are what was seen upon the surface of this movement. It has been remarked that beneath a rough and almost useless surface valuable mines have been discovered. We have a notion that beneath this rough and unchristian usage to which the founders of the Afro-American Church were subjected there was a divine purpose, in the unfolding of which the race subjected to this ill treatment is destined to enjoy blessings more precious than silver or gold. In the unfolding of that Providence which underlaid the human meanness which produced the general exodus of the Afro-American race from the white Church, there have come and still are coming to the proscribed race benefits so rich, abundant, and glorious that the sufferings incident are not worthy of mention. They are simply the crucible in which the refining process is carried on, by which the race comes forth as gold tried by fire.

        History frequently repeats itself. We see Joseph sold into Egyptian slavery as the result of the envy of his brethren; that was God's way to exalt Joseph and to provide for a seven years' famine. We see the Egyptians oppressing Israel; that was God's way to get Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where he could form them into a people for himself--that he

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might make them an elect race--that he might, through them, make himself known to the nations of the earth. Likewise we see the black man oppressed and fettered in the white Church, his life made bitter and his condition rendered intolerable; that was God's way to get him out of the white Church and into an organization of his own, that he might have a field for development untrammeled. Had he remained in the white Church he would have become dwarfed to such a degree that ages must have elapsed before he could have risen to any eminence in the world.

        This is seen in those who have remained in the white Church; you can almost at a glance see the shadow of the white man resting upon them. The argument against making a black man a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church is that no man has risen among them with the necessary qualifications. That is the best evidence which can be produced that the Methodist Episcopal Church is a poor soil in which to raise black episcopal timber. It dwarfs them. One of their dwarfs once said, "No Negro ever originated an idea." Only one reared in hopeless bondage to the idea of the white man's superiority could exhibit such shameful ignorance of the excellencies of his own race. This was a man possessing a splendid intellect and fine culture; he was a natural giant; he had originated scores of ideas himself; but he belonged to the white Church, and the shadow of the white man was upon him so that he could not discern even his own brightness.

        If such is the condition of the black man in the white Church, notwithstanding the existence of the African

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Church, which modifies the white Church to a very large degree, what must have been his condition if there had been no African Church?

        It is a remarkable fact that the development of the black man has come almost wholly through his Church. This cannot be said of any other race on the globe. Possibly the Jew ought to be excepted, as he was developed in the same way. There is so much likeness in the history of the black man to that of the Jew that we are impressed with the idea that God has some great purpose respecting the Negro race; whatever that purpose may be, we feel assured that the Negro Church is, and will continue to be, the most important factor.

        If there had been no Negro Church he would have had no opportunity for the development of his faculties, nor would he have had any platform on which to exhibit his vast possibilities. The Negro Church was one of the powerful instrumentalities by which the accursed system of American slavery was overthrown; it was an agency of the Underground Railway, by which communication was kept open between the North and the South; it was a magazine from which antislavery missiles were drawn to be hurled against the ramparts of the doomed institution; it afforded a platform upon which antislavery agitators cried aloud and spared not. No mortal can tell how much the Negro Church contributed to the emancipation of the slave.

        But we regard this as only incidental, the main purpose having been to give the Negro a field for development. Without the Church he was absolutely without the opportunity to rise above the lowest condition in life.

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We have already mentioned the fact that he was shut out from the social organizations; he was likewise shut out from the literary institutions, from the mechanical arts, and from every learned profession. The common schools in most parts of the country were closed against him, and even in a free State a white lady was mobbed for teaching colored children. We repeat, he neither had the opportunity to develop nor to exhibit his capacity for development. He was shut in on every side, like Israel at the Red Sea; behind him was the slave power, blacker in wickedness and more terrible than the hosts of Pharaoh which pursued Israel; on either side were the mountains of caste prejudice, and before him was the sea of difficulties necessarily attendant upon an effort to form an organization of his own. But he heard the voice of God saying, "Go forward!" Into the wilderness? Yea, but free! He has found it a wilderness of strife within and opposition from without. Not only has he had to contend against the world, the flesh, and Satan, but powerful religious organizations have thrust their forms athwart his way. Nevertheless the God of Israel has led him, not only forty years, but for one hundred years, and still leads him.

        The cramped and hampered condition of the race in general which we have described continued, to a large extent, up to the time of the Emancipation. There was no opportunity for the black man except what his Church gave him. The Church was not only his pillar and ground of truth, but it was all he could lay claim to in all this broad land. For development it was to him what the Church and all other institutions were to the

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rest of mankind. It was his common school, his lyceum, his college, his municipal council, his legislative hall, and his Congress. Through it he had to learn everything he did learn respecting the laws and usages of society and the art of government. Hence it was that there were comparatively few learned or distinguished black men, except among the ministry. And the few distinguished men who were not ministers were in some way developed through the instrumentality of the Church. If they were professional lecturers the Church made them, brought them forward, and gave them a platform and audience and the opportunity for development.

        Fred Douglass, one of the most remarkable men that the race has produced, admits that he is indebted to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New Bedford, Mass., for what he is. As sexton, class leader, and local preacher in that Church he got his inspiration, training, and send-off, which have made him the wonder of his time.

        It must be evident to all who think on the subject that without the African Church at the period at which four millions of bondmen were freed they would have been absolutely without trained leaders of any considerable intelligence. And what must have been the state of things? The white ministers of the South, as a rule, for the first five years after emancipation took no interest at all in the religious instruction of the freedmen; thousands of them have not yet conquered their indifference. We repeat, what must have been the condition of things if the African Church had not been prepared to take hold of the mass of sin and ignorance which was turned loose

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upon the nation? The Northern white Church was not prepared for the work; white men were not suited to this work, and the situation forbade them undertaking it. To care for the spiritual welfare of people you must be of them and among them. No white man could have lived among the colored people, as it is necessary for a pastor to do, and yet retained the respect, or even toleration, of the white people in most sections of the South. The Methodist Episcopal Church has done a grand, a glorious, yea, a praiseworthy work, in its schools in the South. If it had confined its work to this line it would have been an unmixed blessing to our people. But in its attempt to establish churches among the colored people it has in many places done more harm than good. It has, in many places, hindered us from doing what it could not do; hence in such instances nothing worth naming has been done where much might have been accomplished.

        If that Church had left the Church work among the colored people to the African Church, and spent one half the money through them that it has spent in trying to establish its own Church among the colored people, it would have had five times as much to show as the result of the output, and its work among the white people of the South would have been five times as great; and possibly there would have been by this time a reunion between the Northern and Southern Churches. By its well-meant but mistaken policy it has hindered both itself and us.

        But I presume that an attempt on our part to show that Church the state of things as we see it would be a waste of time. Its policy has always been to retain the colored people, and its agents have not always been very

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scrupulous as to the means employed, as we may have occasion to note.

        The African Church is the source from which the freedman has received his truest and most efficient leaders. The idea of a Church of his own, for the support of which he was wholly responsible, gave the freedman an object lesson on the importance of self-reliance which he could not by any other means have learned so soon. The agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church came to the freedmen and said to them: "Come to the old mother Church, and she will build your churches for you and she will support your ministers. If you go to Bethel or Zion you will be taxed to death to support the connectional institutions. Come with us and we will give you all you need." Many were thus persuaded to join the Methodist Episcopal Church, and churches planted by this means many years ago are not self-sustaining to-day. The people got used to being carried, and they have not learned to walk yet. Many of these churches are at a standstill, while African churches planted alongside of them, without any outside help, are growing and flourishing. It is impossible to estimate the harm that has been done the freedmen by those who, with zeal minus judgment, have pursued a course which has rendered many of our people indifferent to the importance of supporting their own institutions. The necessity of the situation compelled the African ministers to urge upon the people the importance of supporting the Church and its institutions; and the good effect is seen in the vast number of churches they have erected, and also in a few flourishing institutions of learning.

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        There was a complaint in the South for a time that the African ministers were generally politicians. This complaint originated in two causes: 1. The suspicion on the part of politicians that black ministers would use their influence with their congregations in favor of the Republican Party. But there are many things about the freedmen which are not known to any except those who have been closely associated with them through all these years; and one of these things is the freedmen's intuitive knowledge of the political situation. They needed no persuasion from their leaders to induce them to vote for the party of liberal ideas; they were often more radical, because less thoughtful, than their leaders. And what was known as the white man's party took no great pains to hide from the black man its purpose to limit, at least, his political privileges. The history of the Negro-hating party for twenty-five years preceding the emancipation was very much better understood by the black people than the white people supposed. Its record has been the support of every measure that was passed to the injury of the black man.

        Reading the articles published in the Christian Index for four or five years from about the year 1870, one naturally got the impression that the purpose of establishing the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was to control the colored people in politics; but if such was the purpose it was a lamentable failure. In many places, especially in North Carolina, we have known instances in which the leaders in that Church had to vote the Republican ticket to prevent their people from leaving them. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the colored

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ministers, as a rule, have dabbled largely in politics; within the range of our observation not one in twenty have been active politicians.

        2. The second cause for this complaint was that in the state of things already narrated, in the want of opportunity for development, the few colored ministers who came South during or soon after the war were the only well-informed leaders the people had, and, whatever their inclination, they were, at that early period, compelled at times to accept positions as representatives to prevent the people from being misrepresented by men too ignorant to do them credit. Here, again, we see the importance of the African Church and the gracious results of a superintending and overruling Providence, in that it was the means of preparing men for that emergency. Far better would it have been for the freedmen, and the nation as well, if there had been many more upright and intelligent leaders at that period. But the Afro-American Church, the only instrumentality for the development of this race, had done what it could during the dark period in the God-appointed work of developing men for the time.

        The wonders they have accomplished in building up the thousands of churches throughout the South, without any means except what they could collect from the freedmen themselves, attests their devotion and sagacity, as also the presence of the Lord among them and his gracious favor toward them. The Negro Church to-day, in its several denominations, has millions of souls under its care, and it is doubtful if any other race has so large a proportion of church-going people. Its institutions are

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now preparing men and women to go into the dark parts of the world, bearing the lamp of Gospel light to the millions yet in darkness.

        While, therefore, on the surface of this subject we see the black brother driven out from the white Church by a wicked prejudice, underlying this we see the wisdom of a superintending and overruling Providence, molding, fashioning, and moving, and thus preparing a race for its own development, and at the same time making the wrath of men to praise him.

        In the white Church the black man was deprived of the privilege of exercising his spiritual gifts; coming out, he got his pulpit, in which he has developed into a workman of whom none need be ashamed; a divider of truth, who giveth to each one his portion in due season. To reach the top the black man must go up on his own plane, must climb his own ladder. The white man will never step aside to make room for him. We need hardly state that the feeling of superiority is inherent in the white race in this country. No white man will charge us with a misstatement in this, for he boasts of his superiority; we do not admit it; we deny it, but he claims it. With such feelings and such a claim no degree of merit on the black man's part could entitle him to the first position in the white man's estimation. But while white men may not feel it their duty to assist in the exaltation of one whom they look upon as belonging to an inferior race, yet when a black man, on his own merit, and upon his own ladder, has reached the first position, there are many white men who will grasp his hand in recognition, and even in

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congratulation, because they do not have to stoop to take his hand.

        Hence it came to pass at the Centennial Conference of Methodists in Baltimore, Md., in 1885, black bishops presided in common with others. But if there had been no black bishops there would have been no black men in the position to preside over that body; and if there had been no American Church there would have been no black bishops. A race is judged by its distinguished men, but where there is no opportunity for distinction it is impossible to judge a race by that method. This was for a long time the black man's great difficulty, and is to some extent yet. When the opportunity has been afforded he has made his mark; but his enemies have determined that his opportunity shall be minimized to the last possible degree, and they have to a great extent been able to stop his progress. But the African Church has set before him an open door which no man can shut; has opened for him an avenue which no man can close, and has put him on a line of march for the front by which he may, if he will, reach the acme of human usefulness, and those are only truly great who are truly useful.

        Dr. J. C. Price, without any effort on his own part or that of his associates, was offered an appointment to represent this government at a foreign court. And why? Because the African Church had raised him up and had given him the opportunity to distinguish himself. Black bishops have been invited to fill pulpits in white churches in sections where the same courtesy has not been extended to other ministers of equal ability. The difference

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shown is because of the distinction. The exalted position the bishop holds in his own Church--a recognized portion of the holy catholic Church--opens the way for him. We have heard white men say that they went to hear black men for the purpose of criticising, and we think it altogether fair that the ability of a race should be tested; but where there is no opportunity for development and no platform for the exhibition of capacity the possibilities of a race can never be known. Such for a long time was the condition of the black man in this country, and such it would have remained if God had not come to his help by the formation of the African Church. That the Negro has military genius is evident from the great conquerors the race has produced; but blinded by prejudice, and, we might add, largely on account of shameful ignorance, the present generation reads of those ancient black heroes without a thought of their having been black. That the black race possesses statesmanship is seen in the fact that it ruled the world for many hundreds of years; but the present generation has passed over this fact without noticing it. We might also speak of his legal lore, of his skill in physics, and of his diplomatic ability; but you might as well make signs to the blind as to attempt to convince this generation of the Negro's capacity by pointing to what he has been. It must be demonstrated by the exhibition of what the race can achieve now.

        Thank God, who has opened the way by which he has given the oppressed race the Church, the best thing he has on earth, as a field for development, and also as a means for the exhibition of his capacity for development. Not

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only has this instrumentality opened the way for the development of the race in a material and intellectual sense, but the salvation of souls is also involved.

        The black man is much more sensitive to insult than he is supposed to be; there are thousands, yea, tens of thousands, of black men who would not attend church at all if they had to endure proscription. If limited to the gallery or certain back seats they would refuse to accept the means of grace thus offered, and consequently perish in their sins. This is a fearful thought, but such would have been the end of thousands now safe in heaven had there been no African Church. Besides this, with the present state of feeling the presence of black people in the white church frequently puts many white people out of frame for worship. In the city of Portland, State of Oregon, we found as little race prejudice as in any place in this country. We could have had our choice of any unoccupied rooms at hotels, could have lunched at any of the restaurants, or gone at will wherever a door was open for the public. And yet even there a lady told us of an incident happening to herself which illustrates the point we make. She was a Baptist, but there was no colored church in Portland except the Zion Methodist. She therefore, to be with her own people, attended the Zion Church generally; but to receive the sacrament among people of her own faith she retained her membership in the white Baptist church and regularly attended the communion there. On one Sabbath she went early and took a seat on a bench upon which no one was sitting. Pretty soon a gentleman entered who was but little lighter than herself (for she was nearly white). He was

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about to take a seat beside her, but on observing who she was he walked out into the aisle and found a seat elsewhere. The lady felt very unpleasant over it; several persons noticed it, and they felt badly. Possibly there were a dozen or more persons put out of the frame for worshiping the Lord during that service. The African Church, to a large extent, prevents such scenes in God's house. The Negro Church is the rock of hope for the race; it gives it a distinguishing place in the divine plan for the evangelization of the world. In the holy crusade by which the nations of the earth are to be brought to Christ the African Church forms one of the three grand divisions of Emanuel's army. It is placed upon the left to withstand the right wing of the opposing forces, the host of darkness. The fiery ordeal through which it has already passed has prepared it for this important position.

        Formalism and skepticism have ever been among the most powerful oppositions with which genuine Christianity has had to contend; but the spirituality of the black man makes him the natural opponent of formalism; his religion becomes a part of him. His soul is filled with it. It sparkles out of his eyes, it bursts forth from his mouth, and his hands and feet declare the rapture of his heart. You seldom see a cold and lifeless Negro Church. Neither is he affected with skepticism. The holy fire is kept so continually alive on the altar that both formalism and skepticism are consumed. Ever since Simon the Ethiopian bore the cross of Christ, the Negro, whenever sufficiently enlightened, has stood by it.

        In Egypt, where Christians have been oppressed for

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ages, and Christianity has been almost crushed out, the Copts, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians or Mizraimites, still cling to the cross, even in that dark land. While skepticism, adventism, universalism, annihilationism, probationism, and many other pernicious isms are gaining ground among the white people the masses of black Christians are still earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints.

        It was probably the purpose of Jehovah in maintaining the identity of the race in this country, and forming the African Church, to make it a stronghold of pure and undefiled religion. A single black preacher is said to have kindled the fires of Methodism at Fayetteville, N. C., about a hundred years ago, which burned throughout that State and into the adjoining State of South Carolina. He first began to preach among his own race and formed a church. Finally, out of curiosity, the white people began to attend his meetings, and many of them were converted, which ultimately resulted in the formation of many churches in that section. His spirit still lives in Fayetteville, and that vicinity has produced more preachers than any other seven towns of its size within our knowledge. Not less than fifty preachers have started out from that section in the last twenty-five years; among the number are three bishops, Lomax and Harris, of Zion Church, and Beebe, of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. There is at least one white preacher who takes pleasure in telling that his father, who was also a preacher, was converted through the labors of Father Evans, the pioneer black preacher. Bishop Capers speaks of him as one of the most remarkable men

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he ever knew. The Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, whenever it meets in Fayetteville, occupies some time in eulogies of Father Evans, and the speakers refer to him as the Father of Methodism in North Carolina. If such was the abundant yield of that root out of dry ground, what may we not expect as the results of the labors of the cultured sons and daughters of Ham who are now being prepared through the instrumentality of the Afro-American Church to go forth bearing the unadulterated word, free from all pernicious isms?

        The Church having opened the way for the development of the black man, other means have followed, and still others will follow, until his opportunities are equal to those of any other race and his rights and excellencies are acknowledged by all. Possibly there may then be a union of all who are of the same faith and order, without race distinctions. The African Church will then have accomplished its special work--not till then. Till then there must be no faltering, no looking back to the fleshpots of Egypt; every branch of the African Church must use all the means within its reach, to the end that the race may stand in the front ranks of civil and religious liberty.

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CHAPTER II.
THE NEGRO RACE.

        SINCE we have asserted the ancient greatness of the Negro race, and since assertion is lame without proof, a chapter here on this subject may not be out of place. It is the impression with many that the Negro has no history to which he can point with pride. There could be no greater mistake than this. If it had been in the power of modern historians of the Caucasian race to rob him of his history it would have been done. But the Holy Bible has stood as an everlasting rock in the black man's defense. God himself has determined that the black man shall not be robbed of his record which he has made during the ages. And here again we acknowledge with humility and thanksgiving our great obligation to God for his goodness toward the race. At every step in this investigation we see plainly the hand divine interposed on our behalf; and the more we investigate the subject the more deeply do we feel the obligation the race is under to love, fear, and serve that God who has so carefully watched over our destiny.

        The first and most illustrious of earth's historians has left on record statements which set forth the fact beyond reasonable doubt that an ancestor of the Negro race was the first of earth's great monarchs, and that that race ruled the world for more than a thousand years; and the statements of Moses are confirmed by the testimonies of

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the earliest secular historians whose writings have come down to our time. Ethiopia and Egypt were first among the early monarchies, and these countries were peopled by the descendants of Ham, through Cush and Mizraim, and were governed by the same for hundreds of years.

        Palestine was peopled by Canaan, the younger son of Ham, upon whom the curse was pronounced, and, notwithstanding the curse, his posterity ruled that land for more than seven hundred years. They were in it when the promise of it was made to Abraham, and four hundred years later, when Israel came out of Egypt, they were still in full possession of it. And although the land was promised to Israel, yet two tribes, the Jebusites and Sidonians,*

        * The Sidonians were never driven out by the Israelites.


resisted the attacks of Israel for more than four hundred years after they entered upon their promised possessions. Neither Joshua nor the judges of Israel could drive them out; not until David became king were the Jebusites driven out from the stronghold of Zion. It was from this ancient seat of the Jebusites, also called Salem, the seat of royalty and power, that Melchizedek, the most illustrious king, priest, and prophet of that race, came forth to bless Abraham, as seen in Gen. xiv, 18, 19. There have been many wild notions respecting this personage, for which there is no good reason. As Dr. Barnes says:

        "The account of this man in Genesis is as simple an historical record as any other in the Bible. In that account there is no difficulty whatever. It is said simply that when Abraham was returning from a successful military expedition this man, who, it seems, was well known,*

        * So well known that no particular account of him was deemed necessary.


and who was respected as a priest of God Most High, came out to express his approbation of
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what he had done and to refresh him with bread and wine. As a tribute of gratitude to him and a thank offering to God, Abraham gave him a tenth part of the spoils which he had taken.

        "Such an occurrence was by no means improbable; nor would it have been attended with any special difficulty if it had not been for the use which the apostle makes of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Yet on no subject has there been a greater variety of opinions than in regard to this man. The bare recital of the opinions would fill a volume. But in a case which seems to be plain from the Scripture narrative it is not necessary even to enumerate these opinions. They only serve to show how easy it is for men to mystify a clear statement of history, and how fond they are of finding what is mysterious and marvelous in the plainest narrative of facts.

        "That he was Shem, as the Jews supposed,*

        * That is, some of the Jews, not all; for their ablest historian, Josephus, as Dr. Barnes remarks, states that he was a pious Canaanite.


or that he was the Son of God himself, as many Christian expositors have maintained, there is not the slightest evidence. That the latter opinion is false is perfectly clear; for if he was the Son of God with what propriety could the apostle say that he 'was made like the Son of God'--that is, like himself; or that Christ was constituted a priest 'after the order of Melchizedek'--that is, that he was a type of himself. The most simple and probable opinion is that given by Josephus: that he was a pious Canaanitish prince, a person eminently endowed by God, who acted as the priest of his people. That he combined within himself the offices of priest and king furnished to the apostle a beautiful illustration of the offices sustained by the Redeemer, as he was, in this respect, perhaps the only one whose history is recorded in the Old Testament who would furnish such an illustration. That his genealogy was not recorded, while that of every other priest mentioned was carefully traced and preserved, furnished another striking illustration.*

        * What Dr. Barnes here mentions is evidently what the apostle means by his being without father, etc. His genealogy was not recorded.


In this respect, like the Son of God, he stood alone; he was not in the line of priests; he was preceded by no one in the sacerdotal office, nor was he followed by any. That he was superior to Abraham and consequently to all who descended from Abraham; that a tribute was rendered to him by the great ancestor of the fraternity of Jewish priests, was also an illustration which suited the purpose of Paul."--Dr. Albert Barnes, "Notes on Hebrews," chap. vii.


        We have copied so much from Dr. Barnes's Commentary for two reasons: 1. Because his opinion agrees with what appeared to us to be the natural conclusion when we

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first read the account of Melchizedek in Josephus, more than thirty years ago. 2. Because we wished to show that in the opinion we have advanced we are supported by one of the ablest Bible expounders of our time. Barnes is a standard author; his Commentaries have been adopted by the Presbyterian Board. Those who wish to see what further he has to say can consult his notes on Heb. vii, also his notes on Psalm cx, 4. It seems impossible to reach any other conclusion than that Melchizedek was king of the Jebusites; they took possession of that land when the posterity of Noah was dispersed from Babel. At the time that Abraham met Melchizedek they had been in possession of it for nearly three hundred and fifty years, and they remained in possession of it for eight hundred years more.

        Salem, the seat of government, was the same which was also called Jerusalem. Josephus positively states this, and Dr. Barnes says it is the almost universal opinion. The change, it is generally agreed, comes from the name of the inhabitants--the Jebusites--Jebus being changed to Jerus, and that to Jerusalem. In Psalm lxxvi, 1, 2, Jerusalem is called Salem: "In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion."

        Rahab and Tamar were both Canaanites, and both, also, the ancestors of the world's Redeemer. It is not quite certain that the Canaanites were black; but there can be no doubt that they descended from Ham, the father of the black race; and "Cussed be Canaan" is a favorite text with those who delight in the idea of Negro inferiority. One may remark that some have

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claimed that the curse upon Canaan extended to the whole race of Ham; upon what grounds this claim is set up we have never been able to discover except the desire to have it so. The natural conclusion, it seems to us, if we want to make anything more of it than the simple historical statement that Noah cursed his grandson for his son's misconduct, would be that Noah was led to take this plan to avoid the idea that the rest of Ham's posterity was affected by the curse. In naming the younger son we would naturally get the idea that the curse was to fall upon the smaller portion of Ham's race. To our mind this was a prediction which was fulfilled when Joshua led Israel into the promised land, "Servant of servants shall he be." To whatever extent the Canaanites served the Israelites, who themselves had just come from servitude, this prediction was fulfilled, and that was to no very great extent. They were driven out of the land and exterminated to a considerable extent, but they were not made slaves in any considerable numbers.

        The promise of God was not that Israel should make slaves of them--he has never sanctioned slavery--but his promise was to drive them out, not all at once, but little by little. "I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee. . . . Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin

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against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee." See Exod. xxiii, 28-33.

        And yet Israel did make a covenant with them, and in that the prophecy of Noah was fulfilled. Israel did serve their gods, and they were ensnared, and therefore were never able to drive out all the Canaanites. Respecting the covenant that Israel made with the Canaanites (see Josh. ix), the inhabitants of Gibeon came to Joshua and made him believe that they lived in a country far from him, and he made a covenant with them by which the princes of the Israelites agreed to spare their lives, and they agreed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for Israel; and thus of their own volition they became the servants of a people who had just come from bondage. And thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Noah, "Servant of servants shall he be," etc.

        This, however, was a very small portion of Canaan's race; enough, indeed, to fulfill the prophecy, but not enough to make the noise about that Negro haters have been making for the last two or three hundred years.

        God promised to drive out the Canaanites, that Israel might inhabit the land free from the snares of idolatry, but God's promise was conditional. To avoid the dangerous increase of wild beasts a portion of the Canaanites were permitted to remain until Israel had sufficiently increased to populate the land. During this period of joint occupancy the Israelites were required to keep themselves from idolatry and from all entangling alliances with the Canaanites. The Israelites failed in both these requirements; they worshiped the idols and married the sons and daughters of the Canaanites. Hence God

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did not drive out all of the Canaanites, and Israel could not drive them out. "And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died" (Judg. ii, 20, 21).

        We have already mentioned the fact that the Jebusites held their stronghold till David came to the throne; their dislodgment was then necessary to the accomplishment of the divine purpose; but the Sidonians, descendants of the elder son of Canaan, including the Tyrians, were never driven out by the Israelites. They, with their kindred, the Carthaginians, were the most powerful maritime nations of their time. The Philistines, who gave Israel more trouble than any other of the nations in that land, were the descendants of Ham through Mizraim.

        As an evidence of the strength and valor of the nations with which Israel had to contend in the land of Canaan, we have the fact that, during the four hundred years in which the judges ruled, Israel was in bondage more than seventy years to those nations. It was not weakness nor the want of courage on the part of the Canaanites, nor the superiority of the Israelites, which gave Israel a habitation in that land; but God had a purpose in the interest of humanity, and the idolatry of the Canaanites rendered them suitable objects upon which to operate in the carrying out of that purpose.

        Historians tell a story of the Tyrians and Carthaginians

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which is most creditable to both: "When Alexander was besieging Tyre the Tyrians took that which they valued most highly, their wives and little children, and sent them to Carthage, and although the Carthaginians were engaged in war they received them and succored them with parental care." Caucasian civilization can point to nothing that exceeds this gallantry on the one side and generosity on the other. Considering the period at which this occurred it indicates a marvelous degree of advancement in the knowledge of what is due to the family.

        Carthage has contributed to the honor of the Negro race not only in this, but also in producing one of the most renowned warriors that has ever appeared upon a field of battle. Of course we refer to Hannibal; but besides him there was another, less renowned, it is true, but greater in that he was both statesman and warrior. We refer to Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal. He took Hannibal at nine years of age and taught him the art of war. He had the ability to unite the forces for victory; the lack of this was Hannibal's misfortune and the ruin of Carthage. But in boldness, in courage, and in the splendid management of his forces Hannibal has had no superior and but few equals since man began to fight.

        Hannibal also possessed some ability as a statesman. History informs us that upon one occasion by a persuasive speech he brought the Carthaginian senate to a unanimous agreement on an important matter on which there had been a disagreement. He feared that if the senate was not unanimous there would be dissensions among the people.

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        Carthage also gave to the world in the persons of St. Augustine and St. Cyprian two of the ablest ministers of which the Christian Church can boast. The simple mention of these names is all that any man at all acquainted with Church history needs. That the Phoenicians, who were the founders of Carthage in union with original Africans, were the descendants of Canaan, there ought to be no question; but since everything honorable to the Negro race is questioned we will simply give the testimony of Rollin.*

        * Rollin, book i, p. 160.


He says: "The Canaanites are certainly the same people who are called, almost always, Phoenicians by the Greeks, for which name no reason can be given, any more than the oblivion of the true one." Thus it is seen that up to Rollin's time there was no question as to the fact that the Phoenicians were Canaanites. Rollin did not know why this, instead of the true name, was given; neither do we know; but we may easily conjecture that, since it was the Greeks that gave this name instead of the true one, it may have been their purpose to hide the fact that the people to whom they were so greatly indebted were the descendants of the accursed son of Ham. This would be in perfect accord with the conduct of the Caucasian race to-day.

        We have also the testimony of Dr. Barnes that the Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites. In his notes on Matt. xv, 22, of the woman of Canaan who met Jesus on the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he says: "This woman is called also a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth (Mark vii, 26). Anciently the whole land, including Tyre and Sidon, was in the possession of the

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Canaanites, and called Canaan. The Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites. The country, including Tyre and Sidon, was called Phoenicia, or Syrophoenicia; that country was taken by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and these cities in the time of Christ were Greek cities. This woman was therefore a Gentile, living under the Greek government and probably speaking that language. She was by birth a Syrophoenician, born in that country, and descended therefore from the ancient Canaanites."

        On the same text Dr. Abbott says: "The term Canaan was the older title of the country, and the inhabitants were successively termed Canaanites and Phoenicians, as the inhabitants of England were successively called Britons and Englishmen."

        Of Carthage we may remark that through all the hundreds of years of its existence as an independent government it remained a republic. Rollin, speaking of its government, says:

        "The government of Carthage was founded upon principles of most consummate wisdom; and it is with reason that Aristotle ranks this republic in the number of those that were had in the greatest esteem by the ancients, and which were fit to serve as a model for others. He grounds his opinion on a reflection which does great honor to Carthage by remarking that from the foundation to his time (that is, upward of five hundred years) no considerable sedition had disturbed the peace nor any tyrant oppressed the liberty of the State. Indeed, mixed governments, such as that of Carthage, where the power was divided betwixt the nobles and the people, are subject to the inconveniences either of degenerating into an abuse of liberty by the seditions of the populace, as frequently happened in Athens and in all the Grecian republics, or in the oppression of the public liberty by the tyranny of the nobles, as in Athens, Syracuse, Corinth, Thebes, and Rome itself under Sylla and Cæsar. It is therefore giving Carthage the highest praise to observe that it had found out the art, by the wisdom of its laws and the harmony of the different parts of its

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government, to shun during so long a series of years two rocks that are so dangerous and on which others so often split. It were to be wished that some ancient author had left us an accurate and regular description of the customs and laws of the famous republic."


        While we agree with Rollin in his lament of the want of a more complete history of that ancient Negro republic, yet if those Caucasians who are wont to arrogate to themselves all the excellencies of this world, and to deny that the Negro ever has been great or ever can be, would take time to read what has been written, with sufficient care to understand it, they would lose some of their self-conceit and add much to their store of knowledge.

        Having touched briefly upon the history of the posterity of Ham through his younger son, we shall now take a brief view of the greatness of that posterity as it is seen in his descendants through his second son, Mizraim. That the ancient Egyptians were black both the Holy Scriptures and the discoveries of science, as also the most ancient history, most fully attest. But as some profess to have doubts on this point we shall take some testimony which we think no fair-minded man will attempt to dispute.

        The psalmist calls to memory the wonders which God wrought for his people, and celebrates in song his dealings with Israel in Egypt, and frequently calls Egypt the land of Ham. How can this be accounted for if Egypt was not peopled by the posterity of Ham? But he goes further than this; he calls their dwellings the tabernacles of Ham. He "smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham"

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(Psalm lxxviii, 51). "Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham" (Psalm cv, 23). "He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron whom he had chosen. They set among them his signs, and wonders in the land of Ham" (Psalm cv, 26, 27). "They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt; wondrous works in the land of Ham" (Psalm xvi, 21, 22).

        The man who, after reading these passages, can doubt that the Egyptians, to whom Israel was in bondage, were the descendants of Ham is beyond the reach of reason. The repetition seems designed to settle this fact beyond question. We might add, if it were necessary, that the Book of Canticles is an allegory based upon Solomon's affection for his beautiful black wife, the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt.

        In the sixty-eighth psalm we have a prophecy which connects Egypt with Ethiopia, as follows: "Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God."

        Rollin, in speaking of the fact that all callings in Egypt were honorable, gives this as a probable reason, that "as they all descended from Ham,*

        * Rollin calls him "Cham."


their common father, the memory of their still recent origin occurring to the minds of all in those first ages, established among them a kind of equality, and stamped, in their opinion, a nobility on every person descended from the common stock."*

        * See Ancient History, by Charles Rollin, vol. i, p. 152.


        Again, treating of the history of the kings of Egypt, Rollin says: "The ancient history of Egypt comprises

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two thousand one hundred and fifty-eight years, and is naturally divided into three periods. The first begins with the establishment of the Egyptian monarchy by Menes or Mizraim, the son of Ham, in the year of the world 1816.*

        * See vol. i, p. 161.


        On the next page he says of Ham: "He had four children, Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan." After speaking of the settlement of the other sons he returns to Mizraim and says: "He is allowed to be the same as Menes, whom all historians declare to be the first king of Egypt."

        In speaking of the settlement of the sons of Ham, Rollin says: "Cush settled in Ethiopia, Mizraim in Egypt, which generally is called in Scripture after his name and by that of Cham (Ham), his father; Phut took possession of that part of Africa which lies westward of Egypt, and Canaan of that country which afterward bore his name."

        That ancient Egypt was the seat of the arts and sciences there can be no doubt; the evidences of this still remain. The cities built by the early kings of Egypt have been the wonder of all succeeding ages.

        Sesostris stands at the head of the list of the great Egyptian warriors. Rollin says:

        "His father, whether by inspiration, caprice, or, as the Egyptians say, by the authority of an oracle, formed the design of making his son a conqueror. This he set about after the Egyptian manner; that is, in a great and noble way. All the male children born on the same day with Sesostris were by the king ordered brought to court. Here they were educated as if they had been his own children, with the same care as was bestowed on Sesostris, with whom they were brought up. He could not possibly have given him more faithful ministers nor officers who more zealously desired the success of his arms. The chief part of their education was inuring them from infancy to a hard and laborious life, in order that they might one day be capable of sustaining with ease the toils of war.

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        "Sesostris was taught by Mercury, a native Egyptian, whom the Greeks pronounced thrice great. The instruction included politics and the art of government. His first venture in war was against the Arabians, whom he subdued; a nation which had never before been conquered. He next invaded Libya and subdued the greater part of that country. At the death of his father he felt himself capable of undertaking the greatest enterprises. . . . He formed no less a design than the conquest of the world. But before he left his kingdom he provided for his domestic security in winning the hearts of his subjects by his generosity and justice, and a popular, obliging behavior. He was no less studious to gain the affection of his officers and soldiers, whom he wished to be ever ready to shed the last drop of their blood in his service, persuaded that his enterprises would all be unsuccessful unless his army should be attached to his person by all the ties of esteem, affection, and interest. He divided the country into thirty-six governments (called Nomi), and bestowed them on persons of merit and the most approved fidelity. In the meantime he made the requisite preparation, levied forces, and headed them with officers of the greatest bravery and reputation; and these were taken chiefly from among the youths who had been educated with him. He had seventeen hundred of these officers, who were all capable of inspiring his troops with resolution, a love of discipline, and a zeal for the service of their prince. His army consisted of 600,000 foot and 24,000 horse, besides 27,000 armed chariots. "He began his expedition by invading Ethiopia, situated on the south of Egypt. He made it tributary and obliged the nations to furnish him annually a certain quantity of ebony, ivory, and gold.

        "He fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail and ordered it to advance to the Red Sea, made himself master of the isles and cities lying on the coast of the sea. He himself leading the army, he overran and subdued Asia with amazing rapidity, and advanced farther into India than Hercules, Bacchus, and in after times Alexander himself ever did; for he subdued the countries beyond the Ganges and advanced as far as the ocean. One may judge from hence how unable the more neighboring nations were to resist him. The Scythians, as far as the river Tonais, as well as Armenia and Cappadocia, were conquered. He left a colony in the ancient kingdom of Colchos, situated to the east of the Black Sea, where the Egyptian customs and manners have been ever since retained. "Herodotus saw in Asia Minor, from one sea to the other, monuments of his victories. In several countries was read the following inscription engraved on pillars: 'Sesostris, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, subdued this country by the power of his arms.' Such pillars were found even in Thrace, and his empire extended from the Ganges to the Danube. . . . The scarcity of provision in Thrace stopped the progress of his conquests

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and prevented his advancing further into Europe. . . . He returned, therefore, laden with the spoils of the vanquished nations, dragging after him a numberless multitude of captives, and covered with greater glory than any of his predecessors; that glory, I mean, which employs so many tongues and pens in its praise; which consists in invading a great number of provinces in a hostile way and is often productive of numberless calamities. He rewarded his officers and soldiers with a truly royal magnificence, in proportion to their rank and merit. He made it both his pleasure and duty to put the companions of his victory in such a condition as might enable them to enjoy during the remainder of their days a calm and easy repose, the just reward of their past toils. With regard to himself, forever careful of his own reputation, and still more of making his power advantageous to his subjects, he employed the repose which peace allowed him in raising works that might contribute more to the enriching of Egypt than the immortalizing of his own name; works in which art and industry of the workmen were more admired than the immense sums which had been expended on them."


        In the face of these indisputable facts of history, Mede says: "There never has been a son of Ham who hath shaken a scepter over Japheth; Shem hath subdued Japheth and Japheth subdued Shem, but Ham never subdued either."

        Mede's historical researches must have been barren of results, or he must have forgotten many things. It is amazing what an amount of ignorance and stupidity race prejudice, conceit, and arrogance are responsible for.

        Gardner says: "It is to the Caucasian race that the history of the world must mainly confine itself, for with that race originated almost all that ennobles and dignifies mankind."

        Another outburst of Caucasian wind. These thoughtless scribes shut their eyes to the fact that the race of Ham dominated the world for nearly, if not quite, fifteen hundred years. They shut their eyes to the fact that for fifteen hundred years more dominion was constantly

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shifting, and no one race held undisputed sway. For the last two thousand years the ascending star of empire has been with the Caucasian races; Japheth, the last, has become first.

        The facts recorded by Rollin concerning Sesostris are not at all liable to the suspicion of having been colored by his admiration of that great prince. Rollin indicates very clearly the absence of admiration; he not only questions that kind of glory which historians accorded to Sesostris, but also criticises his vanity, as follows:

        "Sesostris might have been considered as one of the most illustrious and most boasted heroes of antiquity had not the luster of his warlike actions, as well as pacific virtues, been dimmed by a thirst of glory and a blind fondness for his own grandeur which made him forget that he was a man. The kings and chiefs of the conquered nations came at stated times to do homage to their victor and pay him the appointed tribute; on every other occasion he treated them with sufficient humanity and generosity, but when he went to the temple or entered his capital he caused these princes to be harnessed to his car, four abreast, instead of horses, and valued himself upon his being thus drawn by the lords and sovereigns of other nations. What I am most surprised at is that Diodemus should rank this foolish and inhuman vanity among the most shining acts of this prince."


        Thus it is seen that Rollin was ready to censure even where others praised Sesostris. As a Christian, Rollin was compelled to condemn this unparalleled exhibition of human vanity. At the same time his statement of the fact indicates the high esteem in which this prince was held. That the lords of those conquered nations submitted to thus dishonor themselves to do him honor shows how completely he was master of the situation. It indicates more than this: it indicates the wonderful wisdom and power of that black prince, in that he was able, through a long reign, to hold these chiefs in faithful allegiance without a single revolt.

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        The record given by Rollin indicates that Sesostris was among the wisest, as well as among the most powerful, monarchs of earth. Napoleon was a great warrior, but he died in exile, a prisoner of war. Alexander was a great general, but he made a foolish march across a desert country, almost to the destruction of his army, for the foolish purpose of worshiping at the shrine and of being called the son of Jupiter Ammon. This so discouraged his forces that he never accomplished the object of his ambition. For this many of his command despised him.

        Sesostris made no such blunders in his campaigns. He went forth conquering until he met a providential interposition; his climax of wisdom was displayed in his turning back when he discovered that not merely mortal beings, but the great Immortal, opposed his further conquest. He returned to his own country to enjoy, in peace and prosperity, the fruits of his unparalleled victories. His conduct toward those cities which resisted his attacks most stubbornly was in striking contrast to that of Alexander; as Alexander advanced to invade Egypt he found at Gaza a garrison so strong that he was obliged to besiege it. It held out a long time, during which he received two wounds; this provoked him to such a degree that when he had captured the place he treated the soldiers and inhabitants most cruelly. He cut ten thousand men to pieces and sold all the rest, with their wives and children, for slaves. His treatment of Betis, the commandant of the forces, was the most shameful of anything recorded in history. Sesostris, on the other hand, was pleased with those who defended their possessions most bravely; the degree of resistance which he had to

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overcome was denoted by him in hieroglyphical figures on monuments. The more stubborn the resistance the greater the achievement and the more worthy the people to become his subjects. Respecting the foolish march of Alexander which we have mentioned, the following, from Rollin, will explain:

        "At Memphis he formed a design of visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon; this temple was situated in the midst of the sandy deserts of Libya, and twelve days' journey from Memphis. Ham, the son of Noah, first peopled Egypt and Libya after the flood; and when idolatry began to gain ground in the world some time after he was the chief deity of those countries in which his descendants had continued. A temple was built to his honor in the midst of these deserts, upon a spot of pretty good ground, about two leagues broad,*

        * About five miles.


which formed a kind of island in a sea of sand. It is he whom the Greeks call Jupiter and the Egyptians Ammon. In process of time these two names were joined, and he was called Jupiter Ammon.

        "The motive of this journey, which was equally rash and dangerous, was owing to a ridiculous vanity. Alexander having read in Homer and other fabulous authors of antiquity that most of their heroes were represented as the sons of some deity, and as he himself was desirous of passing for a hero, he was determined to have some god for his father. Accordingly, he fixed upon Jupiter Ammon for this purpose, and began by bribing the priests and teaching them the part they were to act. . . . Alexander had a journey to go of sixteen hundred stadia, or eighty French leagues, to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and most of the way through sandy deserts. The soldiers were patient enough for the first two days' march, before they arrived in the extensive, dreadful solitudes; but as soon as they found themselves in vast plains, covered with sands of prodigious depth, they were greatly terrified. . . . "They were several days in crossing these deserts, and upon arriving near the place where the oracle stood they perceived a great number of ravens flying before the most advanced standard. These ravens sometimes flew to the ground when the army marched slowly, and at other times advanced forward, as if it were to