The preacher was nearly black, with close woolly hair. His figure was slight, he seemed to be about thirty years of age, and the expression of his face indicated a refined and delicately sensitive nature. His eye was very fine; bright, deep, and clear; his voice and manner generally quiet and impressive.
The text was, “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory;” and the sermon was an appropriate and generally correct explanation of the customs of the Olympian games, and a proper and often eloquent application of the figure to the Christian course of life. Much of the language was highly metaphorical; the figures long, strange, and complicated, yet sometimes, however, beautiful. Words were frequently misplaced, and their meaning evidently misapprehended, while the grammar and pronunciation were sometimes such as to make the idea intended to be conveyed by the speaker incomprehensible to me. Vulgarisms and slang phrases occasionally occurred, but evidently without any consciousness of impropriety on the part of the speaker or his congregation.
As soon as I had taken my seat, my attention was attracted by an old negro near me, whom I supposed for some time to be suffering under some nervous complaint; he trembled, his teeth chattered, and his face, at intervals, was convulsed. He soon began to respond aloud to the sentiments of the preacher, in such words as these: “Oh, yes!” “That’s it, that’s it!” “Yes, yes—glory—yes!” and similar expressions could be heard from all parts of the house whenever the speaker’s voice was unusually solemn, or his language and manner eloquent or excited.
Sometimes the outcries and responses were not confined to ejaculations of this kind, but shouts, and groans, terrific shrieks, and indescribable expressions of ecstacy—of pleasure or agony—and even stamping, jumping, and clapping of hands were added. The tumult often resembled that of an excited political meeting; and I was once surprised to find my own muscles all stretched, as if ready for a struggle—my face glowing, and my feet stamping—having been infected unconsciously, as men often are, with instinctive bodily sympathy with the excitement of the crowd. So wholly unintellectual was the basis of this excitement, however, that I could not, when my mind retroverted to itself, find any connection or meaning in the phrases of the speaker that remained in my memory; and I have no doubt it was his “action” rather than his sentiments, that had given rise to the excitement of the congregation.
I took notes as well as I could of a single passage of the sermon. The preacher having said that among the games of the arena, were “raaslin” (wrestling) and boxing, and described how a combatant, determined to win the prize, would come boldly up to his adversary and stand square before him, looking him straight in the eyes, and while he guarded himself with one hand, would give him a “lick” with the other, continued in these words: “Then would he stop, and turn away his face, and let the adversary hit back? No, my brethren, no, no! he’d follow up his advantage, and give him another lick; and if he fell back, he’d keep close after him, and not stop!—and not faint!—not be content with merely driving him back!—but he’d persevere! (yes, glory!) and hit him again! (that’s it, hit him again! hit him again! oh, glory! hi! hi! glory!) drive him into the corner! and never, never stop till he had him down! (glory, glory, glory!) and he had got his foot on his neck, and the crown of wild olive leaves was placed upon his head by the lord of the games. (Ha! ha! glory to the Lord! etc.) It was the custom of the Olympian games, my brethren, for the victor to be crowned with a crown of wild olive leaves; but sometimes, after all, it wouldn’t be awarded right, because the lord of the games was a poor, frail, erroneous man, and maybe he couldn’t see right, or maybe he wasn’t an honest man, and would have his favourites among the combatants, and if his favourite was beaten, he would not allow it, but would declare that he was the victor, and the crown would descend on his head (glory!) But there ain’t no danger of that with our fight with the world, for our Lord is throned in justice. (Glory!—oh, yes! yes!—sweet Lord! sweet Lord!) He seeth in secret, and he knoweth all things, and there’s no chance for a mistake, and if we only will just persevere and conquer, and conquer and persevere (yes, sir! oh, Lord, yes!) and persevere—not for a year, or for two year, or ten year; nor for seventy year, perhaps; but if we persevere—(yes! yes!)—if we persevere—(oh! Lord! help us!)—if we persevere unto the end—(oh! oh! glory! glory! glory!)—until he calls us home! (Frantic shouting.) Henceforth there is laid up for us a crown of immortal glory—(Ha! ha! HA!)—not a crown of wild olive leaves that begin to droop as soon as they touch our brow, (oh! oh! oh!) but a crown of immortal glory! That fadeth not away! Never begins to droop! But is immortal in the heavens!” (Tremendous uproar, many of the congregation on their feet, and uttering cries and shrieks impossible to be expressed in letters.) The shabby gentleman by my side, who had been asleep, suddenly awakened, dropped his stick, and shouted with all his might, “Glory to the Lord!”
The body of the house was filled by the audience; there were galleries, but few persons were in them; on one side, two or three boys, and on the other, on the seat nearest the pulpit, about a dozen women.
The preacher was drawing his sermon to a close, and offering some sensible and pertinent advice, soberly and calmly, and the congregation was attentive and comparatively quiet, when a small old woman, perfectly black, among those in the gallery, suddenly rose, and began dancing and clapping her hands; at first with a slow and measured movement, and then with increasing rapidity, at the same time beginning to shout “ha! ha!” The women about her arose also, and tried to hold her, as there appeared great danger that she would fall out of the gallery, and those below left their pews that she might not fall upon them.
The preacher continued his remarks—much the best part of his sermon—but it was plain that they were wasted; every one was looking at the dancing woman in the gallery, and many were shouting and laughing aloud (in joyful sympathy, I suppose). His eye flashed as he glanced anxiously from the woman to the people, and then stopping in the middle of a sentence, a sad smile came over his face; he closed the book and bowed his head upon his hands to the desk. A voice in the congregation struck into a tune, and the whole congregation rose and joined in a roaring song. The woman was still shouting and dancing, her head thrown back and rolling from one side to the other. Gradually her shout became indistinct, she threw her arms wildly about instead of clapping her hands, fell back into the arms of her companions, then threw herself forward and embraced those before her, then tossed herself from side to side, gasping, and finally sunk to the floor, where she remained at the end of the song, kicking, as if acting a death struggle.
Another man now rose in the pulpit, and gave out a hymn, naming number and page, and holding a book before him, though I thought he did not read from it, and I did not see another book in the house. Having recited seven verses, and repeated the number and page of the hymn, he closed the book and commenced to address the congregation. He was a tall, full-blooded negro, very black, and with a disgusting expression of sensuality, cunning, and vanity in his countenance, and a pompous, patronizing manner—a striking contrast, in all respects, to the prepossessing, quiet, and modest young preacher who had preceded him. He was dressed in the loosest form of the fashionable sack overcoat, which he threw off presently, showing a white vest, gaudy cravat, and a tight cut-away coat, linked together at the breast with jet buttons. He commenced by proposing to further elucidate the meaning of the apostle’s words; they had an important bearing, he said, which his brother had not had time to bring out adequately before the congregation. At first he leaned carelessly on the pulpit cushion, laughing cunningly, and spoke in a low, deep, hoarse, indistinct, and confidential tone; but soon he struck a higher key, drawling his sentences like a street salesman, occasionally breaking out into a yell with all the strength of extraordinarily powerful lungs, at the same time taking a striking attitude and gesturing in an extraordinary manner. This would create a frightful excitement in the people, and be responded to with the loudest and most terrific shouts. I can compare them to nothing else human I ever heard. Sometimes he would turn from the audience and assume a personal opponent to be standing by his side in the pulpit. Then, after battling for a few minutes in an awful and majestic manner with this man of Belial, whom he addressed constantly as “sir!” he would turn again to the admiring congregation, and in a familiar, gratulatory, and conversational tone explain the difficulty into which he had got him, and then again suddenly turn back upon him, and in a boxing attitude give another knock-down reply to his heretical propositions.
His language was in a great part unintelligible to me, but the congregation seemed to enjoy it highly, and encouraged and assisted him in his combat with “Sir” Knight of his imagination most tumultuously; and I soon found that this poor gentleman, over whom he rode his high horse so fiercely, was one of those “who take unto themselves the name of Baptist,” and that the name of his own charger was “Perseverance-of-the-Saints.”