Church among the Negroes.

No. 709.

N v Avvi ex- ~5

The Church
Among the
Negroes

The Church Among the Negroes

By the REVEREND SAMUEL H. BISHOP

THE work of the Church for the Negroes
in this country began in the personal care
and training of slaves by their masters
and particularly by their mistresses. In the old
registry of Bruton Parish we find thirty-three
consecutive pages devoted entirely to the record
of baptism of slaves or colored servants. This
record extends from 1746 to 1797. During that
period there were 1,122 Negroes baptized; and
during the year 1750 the record of baptism of
Negroes in Bruton Parish alone was larger by
one than the total number of infant and adult
baptisms of Negroes in the Diocese of Southern
Virginia during the year 1903. In 1724, the Rev.
William Beach reported to the Bishop of London
that he instructed and baptized (during fifteen
years) 200 slaves, and that the owners of slaves
are generally careful to bring them to baptism.
In spite of all the faults of slavery, during the
existence of that system in the south there was
carried on the most successful missionary activity
ever known in the history of the Christian reli-
gion ; and this activity was not merely incidental
or without due thought and purpose. Bishop
Meade of Virginia delegated some of his most
talented clergymen such as Casleman and Gib-
son, to instruct the Negroes and to preach care-
fully prepared sermons to them; and Dr.
Hanckel. one of the eminent clergymen of South

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Carolina, did the same work in that State. The
results of such work are evidenced in such statis-
tics as those given for Bruton Parish and in
statistics of parishes like St. Michael's and St.
Philip’s, Charleston, South Carolina. In St.
Michael’s record for the year 1818, there were
registered 130 colored communicants to 350
white; and in St. Philip’s for the same year, 180
colored to 320 white communicants. In 1856
there were in the diocese 3,022 colored to 2,971
white comunicants.

The real fact is that notwithstanding the
moral wrong of slavery, the Christian people
of the South felt deeply their responsibility
for the moral and religious training of the
Negroes; and to some measure of fulfillment of
that responsibility is due the fact that the
Negroes acquired during that period so much
of ethical character and of the spirit of Jesus
Christ as to enable the best of them to become
teachers of their teachers, and to make all of them
capable of the generous fidelity they manifested
during the war. It was not infrequent in religious
families of the South to find a white haired,
saintly old Negro ministering in the things of
God to white and black alike.

There is no way of ascertaining definitely
what proportion of the Negroes in this land were
at the beginning of the war between the states
baptized members of the Church. In 1859 there
were recorded 468.000 members of the various
churches in the South, of which it is perhaps

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fair to assume that more than 50,000 were
baptized members of our Church. There are now
about 18,000 communicants in the whole Church,
ten independent parishes, and about 200 chapels
and missions. On the other hand the Methodist
and Baptist bodies alone have nearly 4,000,000
colored members and influence eighty per cent, of
the total negro population.

Of course such statistics are not wholly
reliable as to the inferences they suggest, but
they do indicate among other things that a new
sense of responsibility is necessary if the Church
is to be of any real assistance to the Negro and
to the nation.

From the time when the Rev. Absalom
Jones, the first Negro ordained to the ministry
of the C hurch in this country, began his work in
Philadelphia in 1795, to the present time, much
devoted and heroic work has been done ; but
the present conditions must be unsatisfactory to
anyone who loves and believes in the Church, and
who realizes how critical is the need of the
Negro people in this land, and how serious the
Negro problem is likely to be, unless the Christian
forces in the country shall awaken to the fact
that this problem like all of our great social
problems, requires not so much a solvent as a
solver. That Solver we believe to be Jesus
Christ; and notwithstanding the smallness of our
numbers we believe the Church has a peculiar
work to do, one of which many of the best
colored people are conscious and which they

desire to see her do. Among- the reasons for this
belief are : The national character of the Church,
her organization, her ethical standards, her
appeal to a normal sense of form, and her medial
position among the churches.

What the Church is Doing

The Church is establishing Sunday and
Parish Schools in places where they are most
needed.

A devoted priest in Savannah established the
first kindergarten for Xegro children in the State
of Georgia ; out of that a good parish school has
grown and more than 250 persons have been
baptized and confirmed in nine years. The
parish is self-supporting and free of debt. Our
parish schools, of which there are many doing
work similar to that done by the Savannah school,
have attracted the favorable and admiring atten-
tion of the officers of the Southern Education
Board and of the Jeanes Fund. There are ten
such schools in the Diocese of Southern Virginia,
all in places where such schools are needed, not
only because of the inspiration the Church can
give, hut because proper school facilities are not
adequate. The same is true of the five schools
in North Carolina and of the sixteen in South
Carolina. Under the leadership of Bishop
Guerry and Archdeacon Cornish a most valuable
work is being done in South Carolina, in which
white Church people are interesting themselves
and to which they are giving earnest service.

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Mrs. Willet, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Mor-
gan, once rector of St. Thomas’s Church, New
Yfork, is doing a quiet but beautiful work at
Brook Green; and the work which Miss Tucker
carried on for thirty-five years at Plantersville,
is now being conducted by Miss Sparkmanu. It
was from Miss Tucker, under God, that the
Rev. Samuel Grice got the inspiration which sent
him out as a peculiarly successful worker for
Christ and his people. Mr. Grice's church and
school at Spartanburg, South Carolina, both of
which were begun by the present Bishop of
Mississippi, have steadily grown in importance
and usefulness; and Mr. and Mrs. Grice evince
that kind of practical Christianity which makes
the Church of essential value to the colored
people. In addition to the Church and day-school
work they conduct a night school for hoys who
would otherwise be on the street. Money is
greatly needed for a church building.

Mr. Perry’s work at Tarboro, North Caro-
lina, was described in The Spirit of Missions
for August, 1906, and is one of the most interest-
ing of our Church’s activities. There are now
eighty communicants, ninety-two pupils in the
Sunday-school and 179 in the parochial school.
Mr. Perry’s son, a graduate of St. Augustine’s
and of Yale, is principal of the Negro public
school and is also helping his father in night
school. He has refused other offers at better
salary because he thinks his duty is there. This
last summer he paid his own way to New York

and took normal training at the Teacher’s College,
in order to introduce some industrial work into
the public school and into the parochial school.

But time and space forbid further speci-
fication. The foregoing is enough to show the
nature of the work the Church is trying to do
all over the south and the possibilities which lie
at our hand.

The Church is using godly and practical
archdeacons.

No finer and more devoted missionaries are
at work in any field than our colored archdeacons.
The work of Archdeacon Russell of Southern
Virginia is not confined to St. Paul's School, but
is equally valuable throughout the diocese. Arch-
deacon Delancv of North Carolina, for many
years vice-presilent of St. Augustine's School, is
preaching a gospel of pure religion and of self
respect and intelligent toil. If he finds the water
bad where he is being entertained, on Mondav
morning he starts the family cleaning the well
or digging a new one; if crops are poor, gardens
waste, meat bought and not home-raised, tactful
suggestions as to seed selecting, garden planting,
chicken and pig" raising are given; and the in-
stances are multiplying of profit from his sugges-
tions. Archdeacon Avant of East Carolina, a
real statesman as well as a devoted priest, is a
practical trained nurse and a carpenter; and
more than one church building has been erected
and more than one human life saved by his hand
work and his loving skill. Archdeacon Bright

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of Georgia (recently appointed), who did such
yeoman service in Savannah, already alluded to,
and Archdeacon Henderson of Atlanta, are also
both loving and wise. Next to the schools there
is no force in the south of more possible social
and religious efficiency than our archdeacons, and
they are illustrating that possibility.

Do the Negroes Want and Need the Church ?

There is room for only four brief answers,
the first of which is a quotation from a letter of
the Rev. J. S. Quarles of Columbia, S. C. :

“In reply to your letter will say my work is
very encouraging: — Number of communicants
130, number of Sunday-school children 200, day-
school children 336, number of unchurched
colored people in the community about 3.500. My
methods of reaching the people are many: First
I try to teach them through the services. Again,
I reach them through the Sunday-school, and the
day-school, mothers' meetings, young men’s clubs,
guilds and societies: Value of property is about

Sio.ooo. There is not an industrial school in
Columbia. What we need here is to teach our
people to work. I feel it a duty to teach them to
help themselves, and when we get to the place
that we can not go, then call on the Church.
Last summer I took the few faithful, and built
the present St. Mary’s which cost us $6,000. My
people have paid the most of the debt. I have
already told them that they will have the whole
debt to pay. A ery few people have aided us in

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u

z

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St. Luke’s Parochial School, Takboko,

our great struggle, but the good Lord will fix it
all right one day.”

The second answer is a little tale. A few
years ago a boy graduated from St. Paul's School
and went to a northern Virginia town to engage
in business as a barber. He had been under
Church influence at St. Paul’s, and in the town
in which he went to live there was no church and
a very needy Negro population. He saved his
earnings, bought a lot and paid for it out of his
own earnings; continued saving money, built a
church almost entirely out of his own savings,
conducted Sunday-school, gathered together a
hundred pupils, started a day-school and still out
of his own pocket hired a teacher. He has now a
parochial school of 200 children besides the
Sunday-school, and has only recently asked for
help. This tale, though unique in the amount of
self-sacrifice, has more than one analopw in spirit
and in effort.

The third answer is the fact that three
ministers from other bodies have come into the
Church with their congregations, and have served
over two years without pay, though they have
had offers of larger salaries if they would return
to their former allegiance. This incident is illus-
trative of a devotion to the Church which is
characteristic of a large number of our people.

The fourth answer is that the Negro com-
municants of the Diocese of Georgia, numbering
696, contributed during the year 1908-1909,
$3,829.91 for Church purposes; and the 799

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parochial and industrial school students contrib-
uted for their own education $3,395.40, making
a total contribution from the colored constituency
of the Church in the Diocese of Georgia of
$7,225.31.

A few gifts of $500 each will strengthen old
work or establish new in many places. Any sum
helps. Will you help us?

Use this coupon in sending your gift. Do it

to-day.

To George Gordon King, Treasurer,

281 Fourth Avenue
New York.

I desire to aid in furthering the Church’s work among
the Negroes, and enclose $ for that purpose.

Name. ' .

Address

Town

Parish

Copies of this leaflet may be had in any quantity by asking
the corresponding secretary, 281 Fourth Avenue, New
York, for leaflet No. 709

(5) Jun , 1912, G P. 3m

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