CHAPTER XXVI.
THE COLORED BAPTISTS OF AMERICA.
The Colored Baptists an Intelligent and Useful People.—Their Leading Ministers in Missouri, Ohio, and in New England.—The Birth, Early Life, and Education of Duke William Anderson.—As Farmer, Teacher, Preacher, and Missionary.—His Influence in the West.—Goes South at the Close of the War.—Teaches in a Theological Institute at Nashville, Tennessee.—Called to Washington.—Pastor of 19th Street Baptist Church.—He occupies Various Positions of Trust.—Builds a New Church.—His Last Revival.—His Sickness and Death.—His Funeral and the General Sorrow at his Loss.—Leonard Andrew Grimes, of Boston, Massachusetts.—His Piety, Faithfulness and Public Influence for Good.—The Completion of his Church.—His Last Days and Sudden Death.—General Sorrow.—Resolutions by the Baptist Ministers of Boston.—A Great and Good Man Gone.
THE Baptist Church has always been a purely democratic institution. With no bishops or head-men, except such as derive their authority from the consent of the governed, this Church has been truly independent and self-governing in its spirit. Its only Head is Christ, and its teachers such as are willing to take "the Word of God as the Man of their Counsel." From the time of the introduction of the Baptist Church into North America down to the present time, the Colored people have formed a considerable part of its membership. The generous, impartial, and genuine Christian spirit of Roger Williams had a tendency, at the beginning, to keep out of the Church the spirit of race prejudice. But the growth of slavery carried with it, as a logical result, the idea that the slave's presence in the Christian Church was a rebuke to the system. For conscience' sake the slave was excluded, and to oblige the feelings of those who transferred the spirit of social caste from gilded drawing-rooms to cushioned pews, even the free Negro was conducted to the organ-loft.
The simplicity of the Negro led him to the faith of the Baptist Church; but being denied fellowship in the white congregations, he was compelled to provide churches for himself. In Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi the Colored Baptists were numerous. In the other States the Methodists and Catholics were numerous. There were few ministers of note at the South; but New England, the Middle States, and the West produced some very able Baptist preachers. The Rev. Richard Anderson, of St. Louis, Missouri, was a man of exalted piety, consummate ability, and of almost boundless influence in the West. He was the pastor of a large church, and did much to mould and direct the interests of his people throughout Missouri. He was deeply revered by his own people, and highly respected by the whites. When he died, the entire city of St. Louis was plunged into profound mourning, and over three hundred carriages—many belonging to the wealthiest families in the city—followed his body to the place of interment.
In Ohio the Rev. Charles Satchell, the Rev. David Nickens, the Rev. W. P. Newman, the Rev. James Poindexter, and the Rev. H. L. Simpson were the leading clergymen in the Colored Baptist churches. Cincinnati has had for the last half century excellent Baptist churches, and an intelligent and able ministry. There are several associations embracing many live churches.
In Kentucky the Colored Baptists are very numerous, and own much valuable property; but Virginia seems to have more Baptists among its great population of Colored people than any other State in the South. There are a dozen or more in Richmond, including the one presided over by the famous John Jasper. One of them has, it is said, three thousand members(?). But the District of Columbia has more Colored churches for its area and population than any other place in the United States. There are at least twenty-five Baptist churches in the District, and some of them have interesting histories. The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church is as an intelligent a society of Christian people of color as there is to be found in any city in the country. Its pulpit has always been occupied by the ablest ministers in the country. The Revs. Sampson White, Samuel W. Madden, and Duke W. Anderson were men of education and marked ability. And there is little doubt but what Duke W. Anderson was the ablest, most distinguished clergyman of color in the United States. And for his work's sake he deserves well of history.
Duke William Anderson was born April 10, 1812, in the vicinity of Lawrenceville, Lawrence County, in the State of Illinois, of a Negro mother by a white father. His father, lately from North Carolina, fell under Gen. Harrison fighting the Indians. Like so many other great men he was born in an obscure place—a wigwam. At the time of his father's death he was quite a young baby. He was now left to the care of a mother who, in many respects, was like her husband, bold and courageous for the truth, and yet as gentle as a child. It is peculiarly trying and difficult for a mother who has all the comforts of modern city life, to train and educate her boys for the duties of life; and if so, how much more trying and difficult must it have been for a mother on the North-western frontiers, seventy years ago, to train her boys?
Destitute of home and its comforts, without friends or money; no farm, school, or church, Mrs. Anderson began to train her two boys, John Anderson and D. W. Anderson. Of the former, little or nothing is known, save that he was the only brother of D. W. Anderson.