Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/71

 ning a strange young man with a deep baritone voice—the quality reminded her a little of Paul Robeson's—and a simple faith had sung Spirituals. Mary, recalling, softly murmured:

Funny thing about the Spirituals, Mary reflected. I'm not religious. Nobody I know is really religious. We are, for the most part, pagans, natural pagans, but when we were slaves we turned naturally and gratefully to a religion which promised joy everlasting and a reunion with relatives—sold up and down the river—in the life to come. Now, when oppression has been removed from some of us, we revert quite simply to paganism. Those from whom it has not been removed—the servant-girls and the poor—are glad to continue to pray and shout, but I don't believe they really feel faith—except as an escape from the drudgery of their lives. They don't really stop playing Numbers or dancing on Sunday or anything else that their religion forbids them to do. They enjoy themselves in church on Sunday as