[2] Semple, History of the Baptists in Virginia, p. 355.
[3] Semple, History of the Baptists in Virginia, p. 356.
[4] The Negro Year Book, 1918-1919, p. 236; Benedict, History of the Baptists, 376.
[5] By way of comparison, be it further remembered, that the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was originally a member of the St. George Society, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he and others withdrew from that body of white persons in 1787; but it was not until 1794, that Bishop Francis Asbury constituted the Bethel A. M. E. Church at Philadelphia, which claims to be the oldest Negro Methodist church in the country. The Zion Church, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion connection, New York City, was founded in 1796, while the first church of Negro Episcopalians, the St. Thomas Church, Philadelphia, was planted by Bishop William White in 1794. The Lombard Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, the oldest organization of Negro Presbyterians in America, was constituted in 1807, and not until 1829 was the first church of Negro Congregationalists, the Dixwell Avenue of New Haven, Conn., constituted.
[6] Richard Kennard's History of the Gillfield Baptist Church, p. 16.
[6] Let me quote here a paragraph from Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, Vol. VI, p. 583, (Ed. 1860, published by Robert Carter and Brother, New York.) The paragraph appears in an article which the publisher takes from Taylor's Memoirs.—Missionary Heroes and Martyrs.
"In 1850, the late Rev. Eli Ball of Virginia, visited all the Liberian Baptist Missionary Stations, as agent of the Southern Baptist Missionary Convention, and, with considerable difficulty, ascertained the spot where Lott Cary was buried. The next year, a small marble monument was sent out, and placed over the grave, with the following inscription:—
"On the front of the monument was—
LOTT CARY
Born a slave in Virginia,
1780,
Removed from Richmond to Africa, as a
Missionary and Colonist,
1821,
Was Pastor of the First Baptist Church,
and an original settler and defender
of the Colony at Monrovia.
Died Acting Governor of Liberia
Nov. 10th, 1828.
His life was the progressive development of an
able intellect and firm benevolent heart,
under the influence of
Freedom and an enlightened Christianity;
and affords the amplest evidence of the capacity
of his race to fill with dignity and usefulness
the highest ecclesiastical and political stations.
Of a truth God is no respecter of persons,
But hath made of one blood all nations of men.
On the reverse—