Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/57

Rh derstand, and the reason that the Methodist is so successful in converting and awakening the colored people, it is the plain doctrine and having a good discipline. Sure am I that reading sermons will never prove so beneficial to the colored people as spiritual extempore preaching.” He was wise. Say what you will about it, the Negro is an emotional being, when he does not give approval or disapproval to what he likes or dislikes in amens, applauds, and nos, he is ceremonious, and not himself. Born amidst the sunshine and flowers, basking in natures plenty, housed under the blue smiles of the equator, with long days, and silvery moonlight by nights, with no chilly winds, nor biting sleets to ruffle the temper or chill the nature, we are born God’s instrument with a heart warm to melt the world to sympathy and tears and mold the nations into a deeper spiritual belief in God; in that the prophecy “Ethiopia shall yet stretch forth her hands to God,” is bound to come to pass.

The African Episcopal Church desired to obtain Allen’s services as their pastor in 1793. He refused on the ground that he was a Methodist. Be what you are; make no com