The old fellow, (who was none other than the plantation gardener,) was not one of those who fail to magnify their office. He seemed pleased at the chance to level his broadsides at two white men, and he certainly showed us no mercy. “White men might tink dey could git ’long, because dey was rich; but dey’d find demselves mistaken when damnation and hell-fire was after dem. No, my breddering an’ sistering, black an’ white, we must all be ’umble. ’Umbleness’ll tote us a great many places, whar money won’t do us no good. De Lo’d, who knows all our gwines in an’ coming out, he’ll ’ceive us all at de las’, if we behave ou’selves heah. Now, my breddering an’ sistering, white an’ black, I stand heah for de Lo’d, to say to ebery one ob you heah, be ’umble an’ behave you’selves on de yearth, an’ you shall hab a crown ob light. Ebery one ob you mus’ tote his cross on de yearth, eben as our bressed Master toted his’n.”
This was about the average style of the sermon. Part of it was delivered in a quiet, conversational tone; at other times the preacher’s voice rose into a prolonged and not unmusical cadence. He was really a good man, and wherever any meaning lurked in his numberless repetitions of cant phrases, picked up from the whites to whom he had listened, it was always a good one. The small audience sat silent and perfectly undemonstrative. The preacher once or twice remarked that there were so few present that he didn’t feel much like exhorting; it was hardly worth while to go to much trouble for so few; and finally, with a repetition of this opinion, he told them “dey might sing some if dey wanted to,” and took his seat. “D——n the old fellow,” whispered the overseer, “he don’t do no retail business, it seems. He wants to save souls by hullsale, or else not at all!”
A young man, wearing the caped, light-blue army overcoat, rose and started a quaint chant. The congregation struck in and sung the line over. The young man chanted another line, and the congregation sang it after him; another was chanted, then sung; then another, and so on. It was exactly the old Scotch fashion of “lining out,” except that instead of reading the line which the congregation was to sing, the leader delivered it in the oddest, most uncouth and sense-murdering chant ever conceived. Presently several of the older members joined the young man in the chant; then united with the chorus in thundering over the chanted line again. Meantime, a number of the women began to show signs of an effort to get up hysteric excitement. They drew up their persons to their full hight, swayed back and forth, and right and left, then gave a curious “ducking” motion to the head, bent down, seemed to writhe in their efforts to rise; then drew up and began again. Presently one came marching over toward our side, with eyes nearly shut, an absurdly-affected expression of the ugly black features, grasped my hand with effusion, and squeezed it as if it were a nut she wanted to crack. Then came a squeaking “O-o-oh!” supposed to express unspeakable delight; and she passed to the black man and brother by my side, catching both his hands in the same vice, and going through the same performance. Thus she moved from one to another around the church, while the singing grew fast and furious, and the sisters twisted their bodies about hysterically as they sang, and shouted “glory!” between the lines.
The prayers were made up in about equal proportions of “Oh-a-o-ahs,” “O merciful Father,” “Ooh-ooh-oohs,” profuse snuffling, and wiping of eyes and nostrils, and ludicrously perverted repetitions of the common forms of addressing the Deity, which they had heard among the whites. Many of them seemed almost entirely destitute of any distinct, intelligible meaning. The women furnished a running accompaniment, entirely novel to me. One, a stout negress, with lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows, set up a dismal howl through her nose. The rest joined in, in different keys, and the combination furnished a sort of chant, without one word in it, or one effort to articulate a word, which kept pace with, and sometimes drowned out, the prayer.[[78]]
Singing and prayer alternated several times. The demeanor of all was earnest; and, so far as the emotions went, there could be no doubt of their sincerity. Finally the preacher rose, announced that on “next Sunday dere would be baptisin’, an’ all dat was ready for de water mus’ be present. On de Sunday followin’ dere would be de funeral. Some forty or more had died since de las’ one, and he mus’ hab deir names now afore de funeral come off. Ef de water wasn’t too high, he would hab it outside de levee, at de buryin’ groun’; but ef de water was ober dat, dey would try an’ git ’mission of Mr. ——, (naming the overseer,) to hab it in front ob de house, for der’d be a great crowd.”[[79]] And with that, he reverently pronounced the benediction; and a few struck up a lively hymn tune, while the rest dispersed to the quarters.
It was very absurd; but, after all, who shall pronounce it valueless? Perhaps they do rise from their knees to steal—even white church members have been known to do the same. Perhaps most of them are too ignorant to comprehend religious matters—but it is on white, not black, shoulders that the sin for their ignorance rests. This very preacher had more than once been dragged from the pulpit and given forty lashes for presuming to repeat passages of the Bible, and talk about them to the slaves.
Paying Off.—Page [525].
[75]. The Yankee change of the good old English “gown” into “dress,” has been outdone by the plantation negroes in Louisiana. Instead of asking for “dresses,” they ask for “coats.” “What a splendid coat dat ’ar calico’d make!”