In “The Banner of the Cross,” a Philadelphia paper, a writer, whose name is unknown, wrote, in 1842, the first description of the now famous chapel, St. John’s Church, on the pike leading from Columbia, Tenn., to Mt. Pleasant.
“It was my privilege,” says the writer, “in the month of January, 1834, to listen to the details of the progress of the Church in Tennessee from the lips of Bishop Otey, who had just been consecrated. I did not think then that in God’s providence I should ever witness in person the results of the Bishop’s labors in the then far-off country. But yesterday (September 4, 1842), which was a bright, beautiful Sabbath, I witnessed a scene gladdening to a church-man’s heart, and knowing your interest in all that concerns the Church in the Southwest, I have thought a sketch of it might be interesting.
“In this country, upon the road leading from Columbia to Mt. Pleasant, and about six miles from the former place, in a grove of majestic and towering oaks, may be seen a neat brick church of simple Gothic architecture; its interior plain and appropriate and capable of seating five hundred persons.
“It has been just completed and is the result of the joint liberality of Bishop Polk and three of his brothers, who, with a spirit worthy of commendation and imitation, have devoted a portion of the wealth with which God has blessed them to his service.
“Without aid from abroad, these gentlemen have erected and paid for this edifice and presented it, together with a plot of about six acres of land, to the diocese. The lot has been selected from an eligible portion of the bishop’s plantation, within a few hundred yards of whose mansion the church stands. It has been erected for the convenience of the few families in the neighborhood who, with a large number of negroes on their plantations, will make quite a congregation. For the latter class the bishop has been in the habit, for a long time, of holding regular services in his own house. They will now have an opportunity of worshiping in a temple which they may almost call their own.”
After referring to the services in the church on the day of its consecration, the writer continues:
“There is yet one thing which I must not forget to notice. I have said that on the adjoining plantations there are negroes for whose spiritual good this church was in part erected. By the time the white congregation was seated in the body of the church, the door, the vestibule, the gallery and staircase were crowded with blacks. Even the vestry room was filled with them, an old man sitting within the doorway, almost at the very feet of the clergy. A happier group I have seldom seen. Some of them had prayer books in their hands, but, for their general benefit in singing, the psalms were given out in the old-fashioned way—two lines at a time—and, I am sure, during the singing the loudest psalms of praise came from the sable groups.
“When the whites had commenced, a cordial invitation from the bishop was given to the blacks to come forward. At the same time he explained in a few words what was required of them in worthily partaking of that sacrament.
“Then quite a great number came, with much reverence and devotion, to that feast precious alike to bond and free. Ah! could some of our friends have witnessed that scene, how it would have silenced a suspicion that a slaveholder values not the soul of his slave. Thus does the enlarged benevolence of these men embrace a class hitherto too much neglected, a class which, in our good city of brotherly love, are suffered to grovel in ignorance, degradation and sin:
“Here will they learn to worship God in spirit and in truth; here be taught to pray with the heart and with the understanding also; and here, when death has arrested their course upon earth, will they find a resting place under the tall old oaks in their own churchyard; for the lot upon which the church is built has, for some time, been set apart for the purpose.”