The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-04-28
A Negro Wench with a Fiddle in her
Belly.

A minister, connected with the
Freedmen's Bureau, in South Carroll
ma writes home to a religious paper in
Boston, about the wonderful aptitude
of the negroes for conversation, and
gives an instance of negro woman
who experienced divine grace" and
was thrown into such ecstacy that he
had to ask her if she "'could not be a
little less ~violentl" to which she repli-
ed-"Gorra mighty, massa, 1 feel as
if 1 had a fiddle in my bellyl" And
this is seriously paraded in a religious
paper as an evidence of the ~"suscepti-
bility of the negro to the influences of
divine grace" Instead ofbeing asham-
ed Of such brutal language in con-
nection with so sacred a matter, the
the minister boasts of it, and parades
it abroad, as a feather in his cap, to
have filled a wench so full Of religion
that she thought she had a fiddle in
her belly" The wench's sensation is
perfectly well understood by the
psycho-physiologist, as a mere animal
excitement, which has no more to do
with religion, than the nervous excite
ment springing from narcotic or al
coholic drinks. But, alas, what hor-
rid wretchs are these missionaries to
the South !" Not content with spoil
ing our civilization, by Africanizing
it, they have even degraded holy re-
ligion to a vulgar emotion that fiddles
are in wenches bellies. If the mercy
of God were not long suffering he
would blast all these profane and
a~bominable sceundrels with his eternal
wrath. Miserable sinners, who shame
the earth with their presence!
Another account is given of a negro
at a campmeeting whose imagination
was so wrought upon, "under the in
fuence of converting grace, that he
actually thought he saw Jesus, and
springing up caught hold of the limb
of a tree, exclaiming, "Bress de lor,'
I have caught Jesus, rs got him by
de tail"
Such things are too horrible to re-
late, but they are actual occurrences,
which show to what depths of delusion
and blasphemy the negro worship
ing clergy have descended. The gen
uine negro is as incapable of compre-
hending the sublime and beautiful re-
of Christ, as he is of under
standing the philosophy of Newton, or
Whoever has witnessed a ne
gro camp-meeting, or prayer-meeting,
will find no difficulty in believing this.
1t is enough to make the impossible
gods of Africa laugh to behold their
contortions, and their
ground and lofty tumbling. There is
no instance on record of a negro pro-
Christianity, who did not, if
taken from the influence of the whites,
and left entirely to his own race, re-
lapse into fetishism, or some other hor-
id form of African devilism. The
pure blooded negroes of Hayti, whom
the French supposed they had chris
tanned, all relapsed, after being left
to themselves The negroes of the
South. in proportion as they are left
to their own race, habits are rapidly
the same way. They have all
been started on the high road to Abri-
ca, Intellectually, religiously, and pol
And yet the mountebank
of the North, who had gone
down there to help on the good work
are delighted with the religious pro-
gress of a set of savages, who imagine
they "hold Jesus by the TAIL" or think
they have fddks IN their bellies! Hor-
rid ! o, Horrid !-Erehange,