The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1883-08-15
"BRER PETER. >.
a Type OK the Old-Fashioned. Ante BsIium
COlOred PreacheT-HOw He Made His

A Type OK the OId-Fashioned, Ante BeIlum
COIOred PreacheT-HOw He Made His
Fortune.
Warrington Letter to Philadelphia Record
The Old-time negro preachers, the black,
fat, oily, old sinners whose kinky gray wool
covered 50 much wisdom, are fast dying out
in the South. We see and hear less and less
OF them every year. Their places are passing
to better. If not brighter, men the young
graduates Of the post.bellum colleges and
seminsries and they themselves are swiftly
crossing the rushing "Johdan," with the
fields of living green full IN view. In their
day these shrewd old Africans were power.
They could do more with the haltstarYed
souls they had to feed and guide than all the
white shepherds in the country put together.
Unlesrned and untTayeled, they exerted ire
men6uous influence, and like 10 thiuk that
on the whole II was used for good. Whatever
may be The truth Of history in this particu-
lar, It is certain that no simila. set OF men
ever did so much to make the world laugh
and grow fat. The hest stories you hear in
the the South are about the negro preachers,
and the best amusement they can offer in
the average Southern town Is a sermon By
the local Brer Jasper, who mO7ahZe3 with
soul-uckling gravity about something OF
which he knows nothing until you feel your
sides ache with suppressed laughter. O1e of
these ancient worthless is before my minds
eye now. He answers to the general descrlp-
ton, faded and greasy broadcloth and bat
tered beaver included, and Wen call him
Brer Peter. When the Federal Army and
the army of suttlers which followed It fest
struck the black districts of the South
the negroes of those districts first
made the acquaintance of Federal
paper money. Many of them were
employed in the Quartermasters or the Com
missarys department, and at the end OF the
month were paid $50 or $30-sxtravlgant
wages TO men who had never had wages be-
fore, and who would have been perfectly
willing to serve "Lincum's sogers' for IA
tons and clothes. They were paid in paper
money. For the first six weeks or so in every
district the suffers flourished like green bay
trees The negroes couldn't tell S. bill
from a 81 bill. or fifty-cent note from a
quarter. They bought from the suffers for
the sake of buying. He gave them what
they asked for what looked like it, and
some change, and they who had everything
they were accustomed 10 have before they
went to the sutler didn't care whether be
gave them two ones or two hves
in change. Brer Peter, who was much
sharper than his flock, soon found
out that they were being fieeced right and
left. So, On Sunday morning when his
little meeting house was filed with soldiers
and suffers, Brer Peter announced: my
tex will be foun' in de book OBJ Genesis,
chapter first: Now de sarpient was sutler
dan de udder beas' ub de fieP,'' and then he
riddled "dem sUtlers' for an hour. IL was
Brer Peter who referred to the mysterious
ways OF an ''unscrupulous Providence" after
his house was burned down; who prevented
glib white recruiting officer from Illinois
DESTROYS of addressing the flock. with view
to filling the quotas of some Northern regl-
ment as "Brigadeh Gineral Littlefeld, as it
WERE" and who asked the Lord. in a prayer
following the stupid sermon OF a
white brother who had invited himself
to fill Brer Peters pulpit, to "bress the
words which hab fallen from the sinful and
polluted lips of thine unworthy servant"
But Brer Peters browning achievement was