THE FREEDMEN.
REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D.,
FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.
NORTH AND SOUTH.
Some Things in Common.
In efforts to promote the spirit of Christian union, it is always advised that we look for the things that we hold in common—the things that make us Christians, rather than those which make us of this or that church party. In seeking to advance national good feeling, may we not wisely pursue something of the same course? If any persons can take up this line of talk without being accused of having been bulldozed by Southern blandishment, it may be those who were the early abolitionists, and especially those who endeavor to prove their faith by their works in going down among the lowly and despised ex-slaves to try to raise them up by the appliances of education and of the Gospel.
1. One such common possession is that of our English inheritance. We are, characteristically, of the Anglo-Saxon stock. We speak the English language from South to North. We have that glorious speech that swallows up and overmasters the Babel of tongues that fall upon our ears. We think that, led by our incomparable Webster and Worcester, we use our English with even more of correctness than does the mother country. We inherit the great principles of constitutional government, of trial by jury, habeas corpus, and of civil and religious liberty. We are joint heirs to the matchless English literature, and to a history that has made England the leading nation of Christendom.
2. We hold in common the glories of our Revolutionary period. We share in the joys of the birth of a new nation. We have the same traditions of patriotism. We are mutually proud of the memory of Washington and Jefferson and the Adamses, and of the other fathers of the Republic. Our National Centennial gave occasion for a revival of our national feeling. Masses of our brethren who had been estranged were glad of the opportunity thus afforded to share in the thrill inspired by the world’s recognition of our national greatness.
3. We share in the essentials of the Reformed Church life. The Pilgrims and the Puritans settled in New England. Much of the blood by which the Southern States were stocked was of the Reformed quality. In the celebration, at Chicago, of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, Dr. Bacon said that the Presbyterians were Puritans. The South has had a large portion of this moral and theological leavening. The Scotch and the Scotch-Irish element in that region has been large and largely influential. Through them Puritan notions have been planted and propagated. The Huguenots, who were the contribution of France to the Reformation, have had a large representation in the South. Sixty years before the Pilgrims landed, they made, on the Carolina coast, two settlements, which were annihilated by the persecuting power of Rome that followed them to the wilderness continent. They tried again and made a lodgment where Charleston now stands, and to this day “The Huguenot Church” abides in its integrity of language and of character. From this same source that city has received a large infiltration of blood and of principle. Out in the State, and at other places in the South, the Huguenots have given names to towns and tone and caste to society. The South has had but a small portion of the foreign emigration, and so has felt less the influence of the Continental views as to the Sabbath. One of our professors, who has been many years in the South, says that the Holy Day is more strictly observed in that part of the country than at the North. The intellectual orthodoxy of the South is well known. It may be because of the lack of activity in theological discussion, but the fact is apparent to such a degree that a more ethical and practical preaching is what the Christian people are hungering for thereaway.