The Presbyterians did not let the negroes preach as much as the Baptists and Methodists did. These denominations had real preachers with their congregations, but the Presbyterian conception of the character of a preacher practically excluded the negro. They had, however, negro exhorters. In fact, the negroes did not want a preacher they could understand. Even a white preacher, if he tried to simplify his language to suit them, would become unpopular with them. They liked big words, and would always praise the Lord when a high-sounding word was used. Rev. McNeilly tells of a young theologian who began his sermon to the negroes thus, “Primarily we must postulate the existence of a duty.” After a short pause, some old colored patriarch fervently responded, “Yaas, Lord, dat’s so. Bless de Lord.”[162]
The Tennessee Presbyterians voted against the Spring Resolutions in the general assembly at Philadelphia, and participated in the convention at Atlanta in August, 1861, which adopted among other resolutions, the following: “Our connection with the non-slaveholding states, it cannot be denied, was a great hindrance to the systematic performance of the work of evangelization of the slave population. It is true that the northern portion of the Presbyterian Church professed to be conservative, but their opposition to our social economy was constantly increasing.”[163] The synods of Memphis and Nashville, together with various Presbyteries, participated in the convention at Augusta, Georgia, in December, 1861, which organized the Southern Presbyterian Church. Tennessee has remained a strong center of Southern Presbyterianism to the present.
VI. The Episcopalians.
The Episcopal Church from the beginning of its work in America stressed the improvement of the condition of the slaves. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was incorporated under William III, in 1701, and on investigation it was decided that the work in America “consisted of three great homilies: the care and instruction of our people settled in the colonies, the conversion of the Indian savages, and the conversion of the negroes.” Rev. Samuel Thomas, the first missionary, who was sent to North Carolina in 1702, reported that “he had taken much pains also in instructing the negroes and learned twenty of them to read.”[164] The Episcopal Church, like the Presbyterian, did not report as a rule separate statistics for colored members of the church. In 1817 there were 828 colored members in the Episcopal churches at Charleston.[165] In 1822 there were 200 colored children in their Sunday Schools.[166]
The Episcopal Church had a sort of philosophical attitude toward the negroes. It was never the church of feeling, like the Methodists and Baptists. In 1823 Rev. Dr. Dalcho of the Episcopal Church at Charleston issued a pamphlet entitled, “Practical Considerations, Founded on the Scriptures, Relative to the Slave Population of South Carolina.” The church was vitally interested in the welfare of the slave throughout the South.
The Episcopal Church did not establish itself in Tennessee until anti-slavery feeling was on the wane. The first Episcopal Church in Tennessee was established at Franklin, Williamson County, August 25, 1827, by Rev. James H. Otey.[167] He began to preach occasionally at Columbia and Nashville, and by 1830 there were two additional clergy. In this same year, on July 1, the first convention of the church was held at Nashville, and in this year the Diocese of Tennessee was formed. There were about fifty communicants at this time in Tennessee.[168]
The church grew very slowly. The state was still in a frontier condition. The inhabitants were democratic, and were already members for the most part of the Methodist and Baptist churches. What aristocracy there was belonged to the Presbyterian Church. There was no American bishop in the Episcopal Church to consecrate candidates for the ministry. They were forced to go to England for the laying-on of hands. Again, the War of 1812 had further intensified the prejudice against the English church.
Rev. Otey was a persistent worker, and after his consecration in 1834 he began to lay the foundation for educational and religious expansion of this church. Mercer Hall, a school for boys, was opened in his home in 1836. Columbia Female Institute was founded in the same year, and preparations were begun to found a university the same year, but were not successful until 1857, when the University of the South was established in the Cumberland Mountains about ten miles from Winchester at Sewanee, Tenn. Bishop Otey became its first president.
By 1844 there were thirteen resident clergymen in the state besides Rev. Otey. The number of communicants had grown from 117 in 1834 to 400.[169] In 1860, the last year of the Journal of the Convention for the South until after the war, there were 27 members of the clergy, 26 parishes, and 1500 communicants.