It may betoken the regard in which Jasper was held by the white people if I should be frank enough to say that I was the pastor of the Grace Street Baptist Church, one of the largest ecclesiastical bodies in the city at the time of Jasper’s death, and the simple announcement in the morning papers that I would deliver an address in honour of this negro preacher who had been carried to his grave during the previous week brought together a representative and deeply sympathetic audience which overflowed the largest church auditorium in the city. With the utmost affection and warmth I put forth my lofty appreciation of this wonderful prince of his tribe, and so far as known there was never an adverse criticism offered as to the propriety or justice of the tribute which was paid him.
It is of this unusual man, this prodigy of his race, and this eminent type of the Christian negro, that the somewhat random articles of this volume are to treat. His life jumped the common grooves and ran on heights not often trod. His life went by bounds and gave surprises with each succeeding leap.
II JASPER HAS A THRILLING CONVERSION
Let us bear in mind that at the time of his conversion John Jasper was a slave, illiterate and working in a tobacco factory in Richmond. It need hardly be said that he shared the superstitions and indulged in the extravagances of his race, and these in many cases have been so blatant and unreasonable that they have caused some to doubt the negro’s capacity for true religion. But from the beginning Jasper’s religious experiences showed forth the Lord Jesus as their source and centre. His thoughts went to the Cross. His hope was founded on the sacrificial blood, and his noisy and rhapsodic demonstrations sounded a distinct note in honour of his Redeemer.
Jasper’s conviction as to his call to the ministry was clear-cut and intense. He believed that his call came straight from God. His boast and glory was that he was a God-made preacher. In his fierce warfares with the educated preachers of his race—“the new issue,” as he contemptuously called them—he rested his claim on the ground that God had put him into the ministry; and so reverential, so full of noble assertion and so irresistibly eloquent was he in setting forth his ministerial authority that even his most sceptical critics were constrained to admit that, like John the Baptist, he was “a man sent from God.”
And yet Jasper knew the human side of his call. It was a part of his greatness that he could see truth in its relations and completeness, and while often he presented one side of a truth, as if it were all of it, he also saw the other side. With him a paradox was not a contradiction. He gratefully recognized the human influences which helped him to enter the ministry. While preaching one Sunday afternoon Jasper suddenly stopped, his face lighted as with a vision, a rich laugh rippled from his lips while his eyes flashed with soulful fire. He then said, in a manner never to be reported: “Mars Sam Hargrove called me to preach de Gospel—he was my old marster, and he started me out wid my message.” Instantly the audience quivered with quickened attention, for they knew at once that the man in the pulpit had something great to tell.
“I was seekin’ God six long weeks—jes’ ’cause I was sich a fool I couldn’t see de way. De Lord struck me fus’ on Cap’tal Squar’, an’ I left thar badly crippled. One July mornin’ somethin’ happen’d. I was a tobarker-stemmer—dat is, I took de tobarker leaf, an’ tor’d de stem out, an’ dey won’t no one in dat fac’ry could beat me at dat work. But dat mornin’ de stems wouldn’t come out to save me, an’ I tor’d up tobarker by de poun’ an’ flung it under de table. Fac’ is, bruthr’n, de darkness of death was in my soul dat mornin’. My sins was piled on me like mount’ns; my feet was sinkin’ down to de reguns of despar, an’ I felt dat of all sinners I was de wust. I tho’t dat I would die right den, an’ wid what I supposed was my lars breath I flung up to heav’n a cry for mercy. ’Fore I kno’d it, de light broke; I was light as a feather; my feet was on de mount’n; salvation rol’d like a flood thru my soul, an’ I felt as if I could ’nock off de fact’ry roof wid my shouts.
“But I sez to mysef, I gwine to hol’ still till dinner, an’ so I cried, an’ laffed, an’ tore up de tobarker. Pres’ntly I looked up de table, an’ dar was a old man—he luv me, an’ tried hard to lead me out de darkness, an’ I slip roun’ to whar he was, an’ I sez in his ear as low as I could: ‘Hallelujah; my soul is redeemed!’ Den I jump back quick to my work, but after I once open my mouf it was hard to keep it shet any mo’. ’Twan’ long ’fore I looked up de line agin, an’ dar was a good ol’ woman dar dat knew all my sorrers, an’ had been prayin’ fur me all de time. Der was no use er talkin’; I had to tell her, an’ so I skip along up quiet as a breeze, an’ start’d to whisper in her ear, but just den de holin-back straps of Jasper’s breachin’ broke, an’ what I tho’t would be a whisper was loud enuf to be hearn clean ’cross Jeems River to Manchester. One man sed he tho’t de factory was fallin’ down; all I know’d I had raise my fust shout to de glory of my Redeemer.