The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-08-22
RELIGIOUS sUPERsTITIONs AMONG
SOUTHERN NEGROES,

The need of permanent missions of
cultivated and patient white people
among Southern negroes, especially
wherever they are at present withdrawn
from the restraining influences Of Cau-
casian surroundings, is emphasized anew
by the weird savage craze which has
spread among the lowland blacks and
has Just eliminated in the sacrifice
of three superstitions witlings in Ala
bama, IN a region where one would have
thought it unlikely to penetrate. Old
Tobias Jackson, in his religious frenzy,
took it upon himself TO personate Daniel,
the prophet, and persuaded trio OF his
dusky followers that, like Shadrach,
Meshack and Abednego of old, they
could walk unharmed in the midst OF
frey furnace. The simple souls demand
ed nothing better than to become the &C.
cessories of a modern miracle, and 30,
when the new Daniel took them to the
gate of the cupola of the great Schloss
furnace in Birmingham and showed
them the mass of melting iron, terrible
in it's white heat, they plunged in, and
naturally were consumed to the utter
most. The gaping throng which had
accompanied Daniel and his victims to
the entrance of the furnace shrank back
in fear aud trembling, but Daniel in
formed them that the successors OF
Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego had
risen up to heaven in the smoke of the
furnace, and that on Sunday, 18th, they
would revisit the earth and render an
account of their celestial excursion.
Who were they, that should restrict
Daniel Aud so they turned away, be-
leving where they could not prove, and
wondering much as to the appearance
which their friends would present after
bath in the molten iron and an ascent
to the abodes of the inst made perfect.
1t might be supposed that the false
Daniel would improve the interval be-
tween the failure of his experiment and
next Sunday to shake the dust of Bir-
mingham from his feet, and to place
himself beyound the reach of any per-
sonal reprisals, to which some members
of his flock might be moved by suspic-
ions that he was not Daniel, after all.
But he will do nothing of the sort. Most
probably he himgelf thinks that the
three personators of the Israelitish trio
may reappear e, in obedience to the in
tensity of his faith and if they do not
reappear, he will have abundant excuse
ready. Moreover, his flock will fear his
power to cast spell or "misery" over
them, and will not hold him to a strict
account. Half the false prophets and
self deluded seers who appear among the
negroes, hold their power by their sup
posed ability to bestow a malediction
upon any who may interfere with them,
The followers Of the crazy parsonage in
Georgia who pretended to be the Mes
siah arose against the white men who
, came to arrest him, and who offered
them sufficient proof that the man was
insane. The followers were perhaps
convinced that there was something
wrong. but they were nervous about the
spell which the magician might cast
upon them, if they did anything con-
trary to his interests. The power OF
these negro leaders over the imaginations
of their flocks is so great that the false
Daniel of Alabama may succeed in con-
vincing his people that they actually see
the three unlucky whites descending
d from heaven, and that they are taken
, up again. The influence of refined and
: sensible white people, living among the
5 negroes, and interfering in such cases al
: to confound impostors, would be power
full for good. 1t would be a mission
!, work worthy of the noblest AMBITION
u Boston Journal