Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-11-29
THE NEGRO PREACHER.

The negro preachers may be sharply di-
vided into two classes, the educated and the
uneducated or, as they phrase it, the
''larnt" and the "unlarnt." The former
are young men who have grown up amid
the new order of things, and who by dint
of their own industry and frugality have
managed to defray part of the cost OF their
limited education, some assistance having
been afforded by their respective churches.
They read with tolerable tluency, are slight
smatterers in theology, and write after
fashion which, although almost wholly unin-
telligible to educated people is, believe,
decipherable by their own race. These
young divines, though they have higher
ideals for their race, and are gradually ac-
curing wholesome influence over them,
do not as yet possess the sway of the older
uneducated preachers. 1t would seem that
they have learned just enough to make
them obscure enough to lift them out OF
sympathy with their simple minded hear
ers, but not enough to give them true
breadth and insight; and while sticklers
for polysyllables, they fret in grammatical
traces, insomuch that the soul-glow, the
ebulient spontanety of the race is entan-
ged and smothered. Book lore is as yet
clogs, not pinions.
itisamong the older set, ifanyWhere, that
we must look for the traditional black ora
tor. His originality would more than salts
fy the widest apostle of the unconvention-
al. Neither in point of rite nor doctrine
is he fettered, scarce even guided, by rule
or precedent. He manufactures theology
with the nolchalance OF a Jesuit, and coins
words with the facility of a Carlyle. He
may just be able to founder through chap
ter of scripture, uncouth in gesture. barba-
rous in diction, yet earnestness leads dlgnl-
ty to his manner, and passion fuses his jar
gon into eloquence. He may habitually
outrage logic and occasionally contravene
scripture, but the salient points of his dis
course are sound, and his words go straight
home to the hearts Of his hearers.
His power out of the pulpit is also great,
almost boundless. Within his own parish
he is practically Priest and pope. Excom-
munication itself is his most trenchant
weapon. Never was papal anathema
"cut off. His censorship Of the morals and
department of his flock, though to our
minds insupportably annoying and humili-
ating, isundOubtedly wholesome and neces-
sary. Though his discipline can by no
means escape the charge of Inconsistency,
his influence is always eXerted to make
them honest and faithful men and women,
and to restrain the besetting sins of the
race. In many instances he resorts to their
employers for information touching their
honesty and industry. Then monthly, on a
stated Saturday, they are rigidly required
to assemble and give an account of them
selves. AS the negroes possess almost a
morbid local attachment, they are exceed
ingly loath to transfer their membership.
When in quest Of employment they move
to distance, and in many instances this
monthly attendance involves tramp of
forty miles or more. But no excuse is
taken, and failure to attend for three con-
secutive months they are unhesitatingly
cut off. 1t is at these meetings that all
rumors touching the morals and department
of each member are rigidly investigated,
and the culprits summarily, though from
our standpoint indiscriminately, punished;
the same penalty-siX months suspension
being inflicted for dancing and for theft,
for Worldliness and for unchastity
tic Monthly.
"HE STRUCK Me FIRsT"- Secretary
Lincoln has enough Of his fathers nature to
enable him to make stories and to tell them
well. When he was in Chicago with Presi-
dent Arthur, he, with a number of other
gentlemen, were enjoying an after-dinner
chat, when he told this story, illustrative
plea of self-defense:
"Three men quarreled in a room above
saloon, when one Of them fell dead from
heart disease. The others were fearful that
they would be charged with the murder,
so one went to the saloon and enticed the
bartender out, while the other carried the
corpse down and placed it in chair, with
it's head on a table, as if sleeping off a
drunk. When the bartender returned, the
two men took drink, saying the drunken
man in the chair would pay for it, and
went away. The bar tender soon shook his
customer and demanded his pay. The
corpse fell over on the floor, and as the bar
tender stood trembling with fear, the two
men returned with an officer. The bar
tender, anticipating his arrest, quickly said:
"He struck me firstn'-CHicagO Ne,cs.