The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-12-06
WHOLE No. 797.
The Negro Preacher.

The negro preachers may be sharply
divided 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 tiuency, are slight
smatterers in theology, and write after
fashion which, although almost
wholly unintelligibie to. educated peo-
pie, is, / believe, decipherable by their
own race. These young divines, though
they have higher ideals for their race,
and are gradually acquiring whole
some influence over them, do not as yet
possess the sway of the older unedu-
Gated 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
hearers, 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 ebullient spontaneity of
the race, is entangled and smothered.
Book lore is as yet clogs, not pinions.
1t is among the older set, if any
where, that we must look for the tradi-
tional black orator. His originality
would more than satisfy the widest
apostle of the unconventional. Neither
in point of rite or doctrine is he fet-
tered, scarce even guided, by rule or
precedent. He manufactures theology
with the nonchalance of Jesuit, and
coins words with the facility of Car
lyle. He may just be able to founder
through chapter of Scripture, uncouth
in gesture, barbarous in diction, vet
earnestness lends dignity to his man.
ner, and fuses his jargon into elo-
quence. He may habitually outrage
logic and occasionally contra7ene
Scripture, but the salient points of his
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. Accommodation itself is his
most trenchant weapon. Never was
papal anathema a more potent bugbear
than his threat to "cut off" His CEN
sorship of the morals and department
of his flock, though to our minds insup-
portably annoying and humiliating, is
undoubtedly wholesome and necessary.
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 informa-
ton touching their honesty and indus
try. Then monthly, on a stated Satur-
day, they are rigidly required to as
semble and give an account of them
selves. AS the negroes possess almost
a morbid local attachment, they are ex-
ceeding loath to transfer their member
ship, when in quest of employment
they move to distance, and in many
instances this monthly attendance in
wolves tramp of forty miles or more.
But no excuse is taken, and upon fail
ure to attend for three consecutive
months they are unhesitatingly cut off
It is at these meetings that all rumors
touching the morals and department
of each member are rigidly investigated.
and the culprit 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.-O. W. Blacka,aU in No
Venlber atlantic.