Rev. J. W. Jackson, Pastor Eufaula Baptist Church.
CHANGE IN THE SOCIAL STATUS OF THE SOUTH.
The master and the slave were each pulled from his place as by a mighty force—a force which did no little tearing on both sides, especially on the side of master. For this reason the master was sore. The South had grown rich in slaves. This property the war pulled from its fists, and left in its midst. The Southern people who were rich one day were poor the next day. That the presence of the former slave, clothed in the sovereignty of citizenship, amidst his ex-master’s poverty, should chafe and madden the master, there can be no wonder. Well, it did madden him, and because of this fact the pioneer Negro leader often found himself “headed off” or hindered with reference to some church or school project in his mind. Often did he hide or turn from his course to escape punishment or death by the hands of persons who suspicioned him as a bad man to be among “the Negroes of the neighborhood.” The writer has had many narrow escapes and painful experiences.
We needed help, but whither should we go to obtain it? Thank God for the few white people who had grace in such a time to extend a helping hand to us in our and in their time of weakness.
II. HOW WE HAVE COME.
(a) Not long since a white merchant of this state remarked to me: “No people have ever improved so much in so short a time as your people have.” I replied: “I think no people ever had a more faithful, self-sacrificing leadership.” I think it may be said of us that we have done what we could. The work began when we owned neither land for home nor land for church house—when there was no church, no association, no mission board to offer any pay for labor. I speak of course of the rule. True, there were a few colored churches in “slavery time,” three missionary and one primitive; but what were three churches in the midst of such a vast population, scattered over so much territory? What could they do in their poverty and want of training to support 400 or 500 pioneer organizers? We went to the battle at our own charges. With homeless mothers and fathers, with homeless wives and children, and with oppression on every side—with all these burdens and much more which cannot be told, upon us—we bravely undertook the work of building the walls of Zion. The writer knows a minister who, (between 1866 and 1875, especially between ’66-’77, during the reign of the “K. K. Klan,” when the people could not in many places be induced to open their doors after dark for fear of being shot), has endured some of the severest privations and performed some of the hardest toils known to the ministry, at his own charges. This case is only one in hundreds. Our ministry, whatever the faults and imperfections which have attended them, have wrought nobly and wrought to good results.
The following will serve to show why the writer is inclined to believe these early pioneers were often especially favored of God in controlling the people for good: On one occasion two preachers met for the first time. The younger man spoke, and the elder was one of the hearers. The sermon was ended. The two preachers, approaching each other and grasping hands, spoke to each other thus: The younger man: “I feel the Lord wants me to preach, but I am not able to preach.” The elder man: “God has called you to preach the gospel, but you are not now in the spirit of the ministry. You are proud and ’pend too much upon yourself. You get self out so God can fill you up with his spirit. Go and pray to God for the spirit of the gospel ministry.” This advice was heeded and the end revealed the correctness of the elder man’s views. Another case:
A young man of some attainment in letters, who taught school under the “Freedmen’s Bureau,” being anxious to rid himself of a sense of duty to preach the gospel, decided to go off to another state where his church connections were unknown. He did so. After he had quit the train and put down his baggage at the home of a family who had consented to entertain him, and as evening drew on, he was requested by his hostess to attend the preaching which was to come off at a neighbor’s house that evening (there was no church house). The young man went. A pen picture of the preacher is given after this fashion: Lean, brown skin man, whose shirt showed much of his breast; whose feet were sockless and in shoes which left the toes uncovered; whose stiff locks held a comb. He told us of a wicked city that was laying beneath the pending judgments of God.
It needed a message of warning—only this, and it would face about and clothe itself in humble penitence. God had the message, and He imparted it to the messenger and ordered him to go. Here the preacher drew a picture of Jonah: He is shrinking from his glorious charge—has his back toward Nineveh, and is fleeing in an opposite direction; is boarding a ship that he may go to regions over the sea; is going down into the hold of the ship; is fast asleep. Here the storm and the raging deep receive notice: A cloud rises and quickly covers the skies; winds attend it with a fury hitherto unknown to the shipmen, who seem at once to discern in the storm the tokens of judgment; the sea is wild; the sailors, as a last resort, awake Jonah and cast lots; the lot falls upon Jonah, and he is cast into the maddened sea, where a sea monster swallows him. At this point, changing his voice more into the imperative tone, the preacher said: “I ’spect there is a Jonah here to-night, and I warn him to take the message of his God and carry it to poor, lost sinners who do not know their right hands from their left; I warn him to go before he shall be in the belly of hell.” The reader is left to imagine how this affected the young school teacher who was fleeing from his duty. In some parts of Limestone county the people use an improvised lamp, the oil vessel of which is a snuff bottle. This is a rough vessel, but it holds the oil which feeds the flame. This reminds us of Mr. Spurgeon’s beer-bottle candlestick. Well, I want to say that God used these men, whatever were their imperfections—they had power. But we have had help from without.
(a) Our white neighbors—some of them, at least—have aided us. They have helped us build our church houses and, in some cases, contributed to our schools. They have taught in our Sunday schools, preached in our pulpits, helped us in the work of organizing associations, etc. They have taught ministers’ classes and held ministers’ institutes among us. The writer once held the position of teacher of institutes under the appointment and support of the white Baptist Convention of Alabama, and Dr. McAlpine now serves under the appointment of the Southern Board. Several of our best men were enabled to attend the Home Mission schools on money given by their white brethren.