The History of the Negro Church

by Carter Godwin Woodson

Ward became more of a platform orator than a preacher. His aim seemed to be not so much to preach the gospel of heaven as to preach the gospel of this world that men calling themselves Christians might learn to respect the natural and political rights of their fellows. In the interest of this cause he traveled through much of this country, visited England in 1852, and then went to Jamaica, where he finally resided until he died at an early age. Referring to the death of R. B. Elliot, Frederick Douglass, Ward's most famous contemporary, remarked: "I have known but one other black man to be compared with Elliot, and that was Samuel R. Ward, who, like Elliot, died in the midst of his years. The thought of both men makes me sad. We are not over rich with such men, and we may well mourn when one such has fallen."

No better example of the varying interests of the Negro can be mentioned than that of Hiram R. Revells, who after the Civil War became one of the two Negroes who have served in the United States Senate. Revells was born a free man at Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1822. There he passed his boyhood and then went to Indiana, because the laws of North Carolina in 1835 forbade the establishment of schools for persons of color. He had experienced some educational development by private instruction and was prepared to profit by the advanced training received in a Quaker school in Indiana. He then moved to Darke County, Ohio, where he remained for some time. He was subsequently graduated at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. Revells then entered the ministry as a preacher of the African Methodist Church at the age of twenty-five, holding his first charge in Indiana. He filled important posts in Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, and Kansas, but did not succeed so well in St. Louis, where the church developed into a turmoil, resulting in the resignation of the pastor.

Upon the outbreak of the war, Revells directed his attention to other matters. He assisted in raising the first Negro regiment in Maryland and the first one in Missouri. He then returned to Mississippi in 1864, settling at Vicksburg and later at Jackson, where he had charge of congregations. He also assisted in the extension of the work of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in other parts and in establishing a school system. His health having failed, however, he returned to the North after the close of hostilities and remained there eighteen months, at the expiration of which he again came to Natchez, Mississippi, where he preached regularly to large audiences. Entering politics, he was appointed alderman by General Ames, who was then military governor there. In 1869 he was elected to the State Senate and the following year to the United States Senate.

BISHOP DANIEL A. PAYNE

CHAPTER IX THE CIVIL WAR AND THE CHURCH

THE outbreak of the Civil War was also an outbreak in the church. The versatile minister then proclaimed war and sometimes donned the uniform. One half of the nation had preached that God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth; the other half insisted that the plan of the Creator was a caste system by which one element of the population should be made hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other. The ordeal of battle was then on, and it was believed that the exhibition of the greater force on one of the two sides would determine the will of God. Men of both sections fought for what they believed to be right. Sermons resounded with the ring of freedom, the Bible was quoted to strengthen the belief in a just war, and songs of a militant tone made the welkin ring with that enthusiasm with which the Christian boy was inspired to give his life as a sacrifice, fighting for freedom or defending his section from the invasion of the ruthless foe. God was here; God was there; in fact, he was, as the participants would have it, fighting the battles of all.

Negroes realized that the Christianity of America was being subjected to a test. They had entered the church themselves but only with the belief that this liberal doctrine of the power of God to free a man's soul from sin meant also that such power would eventually be adequate to free the body. They had borne the burden in the heat of the day, even walked through the flames of that fiery ordeal of death; but they had never lost faith in God. Here and there an old hero in the midst of his martyrdom had prophesied upon his dying bed that God would deliver his people from the hands of the oppressors; a heroine of vision had dreamed that her Maker had poured healing oils upon her lacerated back, assuaged her excruciating pain, and made her free. Patience had been the watchword of the Negro. God was moving in a mysterious way to perform wonders which in the near future would make all things plain. Stand still, therefore, and see the salvation of the Lord.

Would these dreams come true? Evidently they would, the Negroes thought, when they heard of churchmen denouncing slavery in no uncertain terms, memorializing the State legislatures and Congress for its abolition, and assuring the nation of their heartiest support in the suppression of the rebellion occasioned by the effort to save the tottering institution. The Negroes could not fail to see the hand of God in the declaration of these churchmen that our national sorrows and calamities had resulted from our forgetfulness of God and the oppression of our fellowmen. Chastened by the affliction of the Civil War, many like the Methodists hoped that the nation might humbly repent of its sins, lay aside its haughty pride, honor God in all her future legislation, and render justice to all who had been wronged. They honored Lincoln for his proclamation of freedom and rejoiced in the enactment of the measures designed to reach this end. And so impressed with this militant service of the church, Lincoln had to say in reply to this denomination: "The Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is, by its greater numbers the most important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, more prayers to Heaven, than any. God bless the Methodist Church! Bless all the Churches! And blessed be God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches!"