Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/61

Rh it when it was offered to him in 1794. Now we see him going to Brother Jones’ church to deliver the annual sermon to the African Lodge; they were on the level, they parted on religious ideas, but on the square. How different to many cases today when one differs with a brother in the lodge the difference often goes to the church and vice versa; this should not be. The fathers gave one another perfect freedom of opinion, so that if they fell out with another about a society matter, it never affected their unity in the church, or if in the church, it never hindered their relations in the society; the sore was healed where the wound was received, while reason and common sense were the balms they used for healing.

Bishop Allen was indeed a wonderful personage. In every avenue of race uplift he was in the front rank. He was a Social Service worker. When we see the efforts the Districts of the North are putting forth to help the people coming from the South, who need help until they can get on their feet, we see Bishop Allen’s spirit radiating through them, though he has been removed from us in body for nearly a hundred years. It is