Page:The New Negro.pdf/104

78 But Sister Gassoway was already by the stranger’s side, shaking his hand vigorously and with unmistakable joy; and during the next hymn she came over to old man Gassoway and whispered in his ear, whereupon he jumped up wide-eyed, looked around, and made broadly smiling toward the newcomer. Others turned to see, and many, on seeing, began to whisper excitedly into their neighbor’s ear and turned to see again. The stranger was occasioning altogether too great a stir. Reverend Ealey decided to pray.

His prayer was a masterpiece. It besought of God protection for His people in a strange and wicked land; it called down His damnation upon those dens of iniquity, the dance halls, the theaters, the cabarets; it berated the poker-sharp, the blackjack player, the dice-roller; it denounced the drunkard, the bootlegger, the dope-peddler; and it ended in a sweeping tirade against the wolf-in-sheep’s clothing, whatever his motive might be.

Another hymn and the meeting came to a close.

The stranger was surrounded before Reverend Ealey could reach him. When finally he approached the old preacher with extended hand and hollow-hearted smile, old man Gassoway was saying:

“Yas, suh, Rev’n Taylor, dass jes’ whut we goin’ do. Start makin’ ’rangements tomorrer. Martin an’ Jim Lee’s over to Ebeneezer, but dey doan like it ’tall. Says hit’s too hifalutin for ’em, de way dese Harlem cullud folks wushup; Ain’t got no Holy Ghos’ in ’em, dass whut. Jes’ come in an’ set down an’ git up an’ go out. Never moans, never shouts, never even says ‘amen.’ Most of us is hyeh, an’ we gonna git together an’ start us a ch’ch of our own, wid you f’ pastor, like we said. Yas, suh. Hyeh’s Brother Ealey now. Brother Ealey, dis hyeh’s our old preacher Rev’n Taylor. We was jes’ tellin’ him—”

The Reverend Shackleton Ealey had at last a genuine revelation—that the better-yielding half of his flock was on the wing. An old oath of frustration leaped to his lips—“God—” but he managed to bite it in the middle—“bless you, my brother,” he growled.