One of the most serious jars of Jasper’s life was his conflict with some of his brethren in connection with his notable and regrettable sermon on the motion of the sun. Intelligent people do not need to be told that Jasper knew nothing of natural science, and that his venture into the field of astronomy was a blunder. It was a matter that did not in the least involve his piety or his salvation, nor even his ministerial efficiency. His whole bearing in the matter was so evidently sincere, and his respect for the Bible, as he understood it, was so unmeasured that it set him off rather to an advantage than to a disadvantage. It is told in another place how he was drawn into the preaching of that sermon which gave him an odd, and yet a genuine, celebrity. It was no love for sensation and no attempt to show his learning, but simply an attempt to vindicate the Bible as he understood it. When the sermon was first delivered it created a wide-spread sensation. Some of the coloured ministers of Richmond were shocked out of their equanimity, and they felt that something must be done. It was a case of hysterics. In a fit of freakish courage some of them made an attack on Jasper. A letter was written to a Richmond paper and signed by several prominent negro Baptists, one of them being the pastor of a strong church. In this letter Jasper’s sermons were bitterly denounced, and they were spoken of as “a base fabrication,” out of time and place, and doing more harm than good. It was said further that those sermons had drawn such crowds that it had resulted in the injury of a number of persons, and that a better way for the author of these sermons would be for him to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Some time after this the Ebenezer Baptist Church called a conference to consider the situation and to see if matters could not be adjusted. Jasper was an ardent believer in the independence of the individual Baptist church, and he was summoned to appear before that conference. He refused to go, saying that he did not recognize the authority of the church to interfere with him. Thereupon they sent a committee to him inviting him to come and make any statement that he wished to make concerning the question at issue.
He went. The point in the published letter concerning Jasper that was most offensive to him was the statement as to “base fabrication.” That hit him between the joints of the harness. His soul was stirred with a furious resentment, and when he got before that council and fell afoul of the three men who had charged him with “a base fabrication” it was a day not to be forgotten. When he had got through it would be hard to say how many baskets would have been required to hold the fragments. The man who had really written the letter suddenly discovered that it had no reference on the earth to Brother Jasper. It was intended to answer something that had been said in a paper in New York. Attempts were made to refresh his memory. Quite a respectable minister reminded this letter writer that they had talked together concerning this letter, and that the attention of the writer was called to the “base fabrication” part of it, but the memory of the brother could not be revived. No stimulant could reach the case. Other folks might charge Brother Jasper with base fabrication, but not this man. It was a lamentable and discreditable conclusion. He was crippled in both feet and respected by none. This ended the matter. Jasper strode away from the council with the marks of victory about him; and while bad feeling could not die at once, yet the attacks on Jasper went entirely out of fashion. Let it be added that there were multitudes who shared the prejudice against this old warrior, but little cared he. On he went his fine way, growing in nobleness, and loving the God in whom he believed.
Jasper’s pleasures were of the meditative sort. For a long time his church gave him an ample vacation in the summer. He retired to the country and courted its quiet. His only sport was fishing along the streams, and that suited his task. If the fish didn’t bite, his thoughts always did. Like the fish they ran in schools, but unlike the fish they ran in all weathers and in all seasons. But Jasper never achieved marked success in the art of recreation. Go where he might, his fame was there to confront and to entangle him. Demands for him to preach always came in hot and thick, and there was hardly a Sunday when Jasper was in the country that he was not surrounded by a crowd and preaching with ever-glowing fervour and delight. Indeed, Jasper was sought after to dedicate churches, deliver lectures and to preach special sermons in every part of Virginia, and often beyond it. It was said that he preached in almost every county and city in Virginia. He was the one ever sought Virginia preacher, and in that respect he stood unmatched by any man of his race.
As a rule, Jasper did not preach very long sermons. His Sunday afternoon sermons very rarely exceeded fifty minutes in length, but on extraordinary occasions he took no note of time. Jasper was not a sermon-maker. He did not write them, and homiletics was a thing of which he had never heard. He was fond of pictorial preaching and often selected historical topics, such as “Joseph and His Brethren” or “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” or “The Raising of Lazarus.” He had quite a large stock of special sermons,—sermons which had grown by special use, and which embodied the choicest creations of his mind. These he preached over and over again and in his own pulpit, and without apology to anybody. But after all the themes which interested him most profoundly and on which he preached with unsurpassed ardour and rapture were the fundamental doctrines of the Scriptures. The last sermon he ever preached was on Regeneration; and on many phases of the Christian system he preached with consummate ability. He believed fully in the doctrine of future punishment, and his description of the fate of the lost made the unbelieving quake with terror and consternation. His preaching was of that fervid, startling, and threatening sort, well suited to awaken religious anxieties and to bring the people to a public confession. He was his own evangelist,—did chiefly the work of bringing his congregation to repentance, and the growth of his church consisted almost entirely of the fruit of his own ministry. His church on the island began with nine members, and it was reported that there were over 2,000 at the time of his death. He had uncommon caution about receiving people into his church. He was not willing to take people to count, and he preached searchingly to those who were thinking of applying for membership.
Just two little and yet important things call for a place in this chapter. Jasper was an inexorable debt-payer. The only debt that he could tolerate was a church debt, and he could ill tolerate that. The unsettled account of his great new church building grappled him like a nightmare. It was his burden in the day and his torturing dream at night. Even during his dying days the church debt haunted and depressed him, and loud among his parting exhortations was his insistent plea that the church debt should be speedily paid.
In his early life Jasper contracted the use of tobacco,—as, indeed, almost his entire race did, and he was also quite free with the use of alcoholic drinks,—though never, so far as is known, to the extent of intoxication. No question as to his sobriety has ever ridden the air. But these habits lingered with him long after he entered the ministry, and even until he was winning enviable and far-spreading favour as a preacher. So far as known, these facts did not becloud his reputation nor interfere with his work. Of course, he never entered a barroom, and never drank convivially, but he kept liquor in his house, and took it as his choice dictated. But gradually it worked itself into his conscience that these things were not for the best, and without the least ostentation or even publicity he absolutely abandoned the use both of tobacco and alcoholic drinks. He made no parade about it, and took on no fanatical airs. Just as he thought it was wrong to owe money which he could not pay and therefore hated a debt, so he felt that these habits, useless at best, might really be harmful to him and to others, and therefore he gave them up.
MONUMENT OVER JOHN JASPER’S GRAVE
His moral and religious ideals were very lofty, and he lived up to them to a degree not true of many. Not long after his death a really magnificent monument was erected over his grave. It was quite costly, and the money for it was raised by his church people and other lovers of whom he had legions. While he lived, legislators, judges, governors, and many men of eminent distinction, went to hear him preach. Many of the most distinguished white ministers of the country made it a point to go to his church on Sunday afternoon whenever they were in the city, and he was justly ranked as one of the attractions of Richmond.