Pray, sister, pray fer me,
Pray, Lawd, until I die,
You mus’ shroud my body, Lawd,
An’ lay it away.
But death holds no terror for the Negro. He maintains that death’s stream “chills the body but not the soul,” and he believes that
’Way up in the Rock of Ages
In God’s bosom gonna be my pillah.
As of old, heaven is the greatest theme of his religious song. He used to sing:
When I git to heaven gonna ease, ease,
Me an’ my God gonna do as we please.