Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/321

 prayer and zealous exhortation. I entered and saw an assemblage of negroes, principally women, who were much edified and affected in listening to a negro who was preaching to them with great fervour and great gesticulation, thumping on the table with his clenched fists. The sum and substance of his sermon was this—“Let us do as Christ has commanded us; let us do as he wishes, let us love one another. Then he will come to us on our sick beds, on our death beds, and he will make us free, and we shall come to him and sit with him in glory!”

The discourse, spite of its exaggerated pathos and its circumlocution, could not have been better in its aim and in its application. And it delighted me to hear the doctrine of spiritual freedom promulgated by a slave among slaves. I have since heard that the Methodist missionaries, who are the most influential and effective teachers and preachers among the negroes, are very angry with them for their love of dancing and music, and declare them to be sinful. And whenever the negroes become Christian they give up dancing, have preaching meetings instead, and employ their musical talents merely on psalms and hymns. This seems to me a very unwise proceeding on the part of the preachers. Are not all God's gifts good, and may they not be made use of in His honour? And why should not this people, by nature joyous and childlike, worship God in gladness? I would, instead, let them have sacred dances, and let them sing to them joyful songs of praise in the beautiful air, beneath the blossoming trees. Did not King David dance and sing in pious rapture before the ark of God?

I went on still farther through wood and meadow, into the wild, silent country. When it began to grow dusk I turned back. I repassed the same slave village. Fires blazed in the little houses, but everything was more silent and stiller than before. I saw a young negro with a good and handsome countenance, standing thoughtfully under