Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/67



Allen was ordained in 1800, by BihsopBishop [sic] Asbury, and was the first Negro ordained to the ministry in this country. He was preaching the freedom of the gospel of the soul; no wonder he desired freedom of the body for himself and his people. The noise of the cannons, and the rattle of the calvary horses’ hoofs had scarcely died out on the drum of the ears from the battle of the RevoluntionaryRevolutionary [sic] War, and the colonies were just emerging from the iron heels of the oppression of Great Britain. The Liberty bell sounded freedom sixteen years after Allen was born in the same ward in the city of historic memory, Philadelphia, the city where Negro religious liberty was also sounded, but not in clarion note of a bell, but in the words of Allen’s little band, “Just wait until prayers are over and you will have no more trouble with us.” Hence out of old St. George Church he led the Negro race, out into the street where he