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 completely cut off, for at the time of which I am writing there were but three colored clergymen in all the United States in connection with the Presbyterian Church. How sad and gloomy, then, the prospects of this church, when compared with all the rest. Of the three Presbyterian ministers alluded to, Mr. Cornish was interestingly engaged in New York, in an enterprise that has, under God, established many Presbyterian Churches in that State. Mr. Hughes, as we have seen, not only left his pastoral charge and engaged in mercantile speculations, but left the city, in fact the United States, and when last heard from was in Africa, where, after a brief stay, he died. And Mr. Jeremiah Gloucester was then over the Second African Church. The Methodist churches, at this time, were in full blast. Rt. Rev. Richard Allen had recently drawn out from the Methodist Episcopal Church, and set up an independent organization, governed and controlled by black men, whither the people were flocking by thousands, as we shall see at the end of this volume. The fact that preachers in abundance were scouring the city with true missionary courage and zeal, and compelling people of all kinds, and of all characters, to come in, pressed also with no small effect upon this First Presbyterian Church.

St. Thomas' Church, also, with Rev. Absalom Jones as its pastor, the fast friend of Mr. John Gloucester, was in the glory of her strength, throwing a mighty influence in the city among the intelligent and refined. Casting a steady and intensifying heat in that direction, she drew to her communion and embrace the wealth and talent of Philadelphia; what chance then in this direction for the First African Presbyterian Church. And here I will say that St. Thomas' members (like their pastor) never forsook the old church; they were