First impressions of the New World on two travellers from the Old, in the autumn of 1858

by Isabella Strange Trotter

Papa became much more head-achy during the day. Mr. Erskine called to see if we wanted anything, and strongly advised my going to a negro chapel in the evening, and hearing one of the blacks preach. They are mostly Methodists, that is Wesleyans, or Baptists. He said I should hear them singing as I passed the doors, and could go in. Poor papa, by this time, was fit for nothing except to remain quiet, so Thrower and I set out in the evening, and found, not without some difficulty, an upper room, brilliantly lighted, over a grocer's warehouse. We went up two pairs of stairs, and I did so in fear and trembling, remembering what the odour is when a large dining-room is filled with black waiters: a sort of sickly, sour smell pervades the room, that makes one hate the thought, either of dinner, or of the poor niggers themselves. It seems it is inherent in their skin; to my surprise and satisfaction, however, we found nothing of the kind in this room, the windows of which had been well opened beforehand. It was a large, whitewashed apartment, half filled with blacks.

We were the only whites present; there were benches across the room, leaving a passage up the middle, the men and women occupying different sides. A pulpit was at the further end of the room, and in front of it stood a black preaching. He was in the middle of his sermon when we came in, so we did not hear the text, and sat down quietly at some distance from him, so as to be able to get out and go home to poor papa whenever we wished; a nigger came forward, and invited us to go further up the room, which we declined. The sermon went on for some time; it described the happiness felt by God's true children: and how they would cling to each other in persecution. The preacher encouraged them all in the path of holiness, and explained the Gospel means of salvation with great clearness, and really with admirably chosen words; there was a little action but not too much; and there were no vulgarities. The discourse was at least equal to the sermons of many of our dissenting ministers, and appeared to come from the lips of an educated gentleman, although with a black skin. He finished, and an old negro rose, and gave out the text:—"And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain," &c. His voice at first was faint, and I could not hear what were the various jokes he cut which produced loud laughter, so we advanced a little. He afterwards became more serious. His address was quite distinct from his text, being an earnest and very well delivered exhortation to the converted to grow in grace; at the end of every period he repeated his text as a refrain.

At first, I observed among the dark ladies a few suppressed murmurs of approbation, but as his discourse proceeded, these were turned into groans; and when he quoted a text, or said anything more than usually impressive, there was a regular rocking and swaying of the figure among them, while one or two repeated aloud the last words of his text. While he was preaching, a tall thin young woman, in deep mourning, came in, and room was made for her to sit down next to a very fat negress, whom I had observed at our own church in the morning. The latter passed her arm round the shoulder of this young woman, as they sat together, and I observed that at various solemn passages of the old man's address, they began to rock their bodies, gently at first, but afterwards more and more violently, till at last they got into a way of rocking themselves quite forward off their seat, and then on it again, the fat woman cuddling up the thin one more and more closely to her. There seemed a sort of mesmeric influence between the two, occasioning in both similar twistings and contortions of the body, shakings of the head, lookings upward, lookings downward, and louder words of exclamation and approbation. This was not continuous in its violence, though there was generally some movement between them; but the violence of it came on in fits, and was the effect of the old man's words. It was very curious that whenever he repeated the text (a far from exciting one, I thought), the agitation became most violent. The other women continued to murmur applause, and one woman in advance of the others (a very frightful one) looked upwards, and frequently smiled a heavenly (?) smile. I sat rather behind most of them, and on the side where the men were, so that unless when the women turned round, I could scarcely see their faces. After a time the old man commented upon the succeeding verses of the Chapter as far as the words, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," &c., and here he ceased, almost abruptly; a hymn was immediately given out by the first preacher, and was sung most loudly and vigorously by most of the congregation. The men's voices were very loud, but they all sang true, and with great spirit and energy. There were no musical instruments, and they sat while singing. The hymns seemed very stirring, but I am sorry I cannot give you the words of any of them, as there were no books, and they sung at first from memory, though in some of the after hymns the preacher gave them out by two lines at a time.

This being, as I was afterwards told, a Baptist class-meeting, the first man invited any brother or sister to tell the others "how the Lord had dealt with him," or "what He had done for his soul." (I quote his words.) Whereupon a tall well-dressed young negro rose from his seat, and standing up, told us that he had been a great sinner, and that he had, through many difficulties, learnt to serve God. He spoke of persecutions from within in the struggles of a sinful nature and of great and bitter ones from without. He did not describe what these had been: but told us that the victory had been his. His language, and choice of expressions, were always good, though at times there was a little of the peculiar negro pronunciation. At all descriptions of the contest having been in his favour, the women swayed their bodies; and when he, and others after him, asserted to those around that what he had felt could not have been from Satan, and therefore must have been from God, there was great agitation, especially in my two friends, and grins and murmurs from the others. The men listened quietly, sometimes grinning with delight, and sometimes leaning their heads forward on their hands, as if meditating. A few of the men who sat at the upper end of the room leant their heads against the wall, and might have been asleep.

After this young man's "experience" was ended, came another singing of hymns, and then another invitation for more "experiences;" when a tall, fat, important-looking man rose: his figure reminded one of a fat, burly London butler; and his account of himself was somewhat extravagant. "Heart was hard as stone; a great sinner; was standing in an orchard; couldn't love God or pray; seemed as if a great light came from the sky; got behind a tree; the light came nearer; seemed as if drawing me," &c. &c.; ending in the happy circumstance of his complete conversion; and he sat down, his discourse producing the same agitating effects, and of an increasing kind on all the women, specially on my fat and thin friends. Then came another hymn, and another invitation; which was followed by the preacher's going up to a young negress and speaking a few words to her in a whisper; whereupon he told us, that a young person, who had been wonderfully "dealt with by the Lord," was about to give an account of herself. The young girl, of about twenty, black, but pleasing-looking, advanced, and standing straight up before the preacher, repeated to him her experience almost as if it were a lesson she had learnt by heart. There was a cadence, or sort of chant, in her delivery; but with the most perfect quietness of manner. She had been, she said, a great sinner; and she then gave an account of herself at much greater length than the others. In speaking of the difficulties that had met her in her spiritual path, there was a very musical and touching mournfulness in her voice that made her an object of great interest. The men, at least, seemed to think so; for they all became most lively, grinned gloriously, their splendid white teeth contrasting with their dark skins; my two friends became nearly frantic, the one in mourning especially, when shaken by the agitation of her fat friend, writhed her body in all directions. They both began shouting, "Glory! Glory!" with a loud voice; and finally the younger one fell forward on her face, in a sort of trance. After a time she got back upon her seat; but I never witnessed such a state of excitement, except once, years ago, when I saw a young woman in an epileptic fit. All this was evidently in a sort of small camp-meeting style. August is the month for these meetings when out of doors; but this was a minor one. The woman in front grinned, and even laughed outright, having great hollows or dimples in her cheeks. The young girl was really interesting, so perfectly calm and so modest; never looking to the right or left. She said she felt ashamed to appear before them all, but that she should not be ashamed to appear before God: and whenever interrupted, she resumed the thread of her narrative with the utmost composure. She ended after a time, but remained standing before the preacher, who was seated, and who proceeded to examine her as to whether she thought she was really converted to God. Her answers were faint, as if from fatigue and exhaustion, her narrative having been a very long one; but still there was a quiet, unfaltering decision in her replies, which were given with much humility of manner. I could not help sometimes doubting whether the whole thing was really unprepared and extemporaneous, or whether she might not have learnt her lesson and repeated it by rote, or whether, in short, it might not have been a piece of acting. This impression lasted only for a moment, for there was such an artless and modest manner in the young girl, that I could not fail on the whole to give her the fullest credit for sincerity, and was angry only with her black male friends for requiring from her such a display of herself and her feelings in a public congregation; which made me feel much for the young girl throughout. After various warnings that she would meet with difficulties, that she was joining a "plain set of old Baptist saints," &c., she said she wished and desired to do so. The preacher then asked, almost in the words of the Liturgy, "Wilt thou be baptized?" and she answered, "I will." Whereupon he asked the congregation to show by their hands if they approved of her being baptized; and there being a sufficient show of hands, she was told she was duly elected as a candidate for baptism; when another hymn being struck up in the same vociferous style as before, we rose and left the assembly, not liking to be longer absent from papa. We came out upon the lovely, calm, moonlight night, so sweet, so exquisitely heavenly; and I felt how differently nature looked without, to those distressing sights of bodily agitation and contortion we had witnessed within. I thought of the poor young negro girl's quiet testimony, and gentle voice and manner, and wondered if she, too, would learn in time to become uproarious, and shout, "Glory! Glory!" The probability is, that she will become like her neighbours; for I can tell you later other stories about the necessity these poor nigger women seem to be under to shout "Glory!" I was glad to have seen this specimen of the camp-meeting style.

Although I have felt it scarcely possible to describe the scene without a certain mixture of the ludicrous, no feeling of irreverence crossed my mind at the time. On the contrary, my sympathies were greatly drawn out towards these our poor fellow-creatures; and there was something most instructive in the sight of them there assembled to enjoy those highest blessings—blessings of which no man could rob them. Religion seemed to be to them not a mere sentiment or feeling, but a real tangible possession; and one could read, in their appreciation of it, a lesson to one's own heart of its power to lift man above all earthly sorrow, privation, and degradation into an upper world, as it were, even here below, of "joy and peace in believing."

To-day, after posting our letters for England, papa went to General Cass, Secretary of State for the United States, and delivered his letter of introduction from Mr. Dallas, the American Minister in London. He had a long and interesting interview with him.

We went afterwards to the Capitol, and all over it, under the guidance of our coachman, a very intelligent and civil Irishman. We were quite taken by surprise at what we saw; for not only is the building itself, which is of white marble, a very fine one, but the internal fittings, or "fixings," as they perpetually call them here, show a degree of taste for which before leaving England we had not given the Americans credit. Two wings are now being added to the original building, and are nearly completed; and a new and higher dome than the original one is being built over the centre. The wings are destined to be occupied, one by the Senate, and the other by the House of Representatives: in fact, the House of Representatives already make use of their wing; but the Senate will still hold another session in the old Senate House, as the Senators have not yet quite decided upon their "fixings." The new chamber is, however, sufficiently advanced to enable us to form a judgment of what it will be; and although, perhaps, inferior in beauty to that of the House of Representatives, it is in very good taste: but the room where the Representatives meet is really most beautiful. The seats are ranged in semi-circles, with desks before each, in much the same manner as in Paris; which gives a more dignified appearance than the arrangement of the seats in our House of Commons. The floors throughout a great part of the building are in very good tesselated work, made by Minton, in England; as the tiles made in this country do not preserve their colour like the English ones. The ceilings of some of the passages are beautifully decorated; and one of the committee rooms, appropriated to agricultural matters, is remarkably well painted in fresco; all the subjects have allusion to agricultural pursuits. In the centre of the building, round the circular part, under the dome, are some very indifferent pictures, representing subjects connected with the history of America, beginning with the landing of Columbus. Two out of the eight represented incidents in the war of independence; one being the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, who seemed very sorry for himself. The view from the Capitol is fine; the gardens round it are kept in good order, and there being a great deal of maple in the woods, the redness of the leaf gave a brilliant effect to the scene.

From the Capitol we went to the Patent Office, in which are contained an endless variety of models. It is immediately opposite the Post Office, and both are splendid buildings of white marble. The Post Office is still unfinished, but it will be of great size. The Patent-Office is an enormous square building. The four sides, which are uniform, have large flights of stairs on the outside, leading to porticos of Corinthian pillars. We entered the building, and went into a large apartment, where we were lost in contemplation of the numerous models, which we admired exceedingly, though the shortness of the time we had to devote to them prevented our examining them as minutely as they seemed to deserve. Papa, indeed, was disposed to be off when we had gone through this room, as we had still much to do, and he professed his belief that we must have seen the whole. I, having my wits more about me, could not conceive how this could well be the case, seeing we had only looked at one out of four sides. There is no one in these places to show them to strangers, so we asked a respectable-looking person if there were any more rooms, when he replied, "Oh, yes! you have only been looking at the rejected models." Whereupon we entered on the second side of the square; but, to confess the truth, the rejected and accepted ones seemed to us much of a piece, and we were not sorry, on arriving at the third side, to find it shut up and apparently empty, so we beat a retreat. We were told at Baltimore that the collection was a very fine one, and doubtless it may be very interesting to a person competent to judge of the details; but the models, besides being shut up in glass-cases, and consequently very inaccessible, were generally on too small a scale to be comprehended by ordinary observers, and in this respect, the collection was of much less interest to us than the exhibition we had lately seen in the unfortunate Crystal Palace at New York, where the models exhibited were of the full size of the machines meant to be used, and consequently almost intelligible to an unprofessional person. Besides what may be strictly considered models, there were in the rooms some objects more suited to an ordinary museum. Such were various autographs, and many relics of Washington; and a case containing locks of the hair of all the presidents, from the time of Washington downwards.

When mentioning our visit to General Cass, I omitted to state the magnificence of the Treasury, which adjoins his official residence; an enormous structure, also of white marble. We counted thirty pillars in front, of the Ionic order, besides three more recently added on a wing, these three pillars of great height being cut out of single blocks of marble. We passed this building again in going from the Patent-Office to Lord Napier's, where we had an appointment with Mr. Erskine.