The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1897-09-02

The scene was lit by the moon and by great
torches of pine knots, which furnished pleas
ant incense. There were many white folks there,
and the services began with hymns and prayers
in much the usual fashion. The choir wore
fashionable hatst, there was the over-snbtious
tenor and other characteristics of the ordi-
nary church proceedings, but when the minister
arose he did his best to excite his hearers, tell
ing them OF the pangs Of hell and the ease and
likelihood with which it is reached, and then
the affair began to be interesting. Lord hep
US !" Lord hep us!" Bress his almighty
name! and like phrases came up from the
congregation as the preacher pealed forth his
denunciatons.
He had a big stock of Biblical phrases, bits
of the finest old English, and with them he
mixed plenty of his own make-crude, awk-
ward, stumbling dialect-and he preached from
Genesis to Revelations and back again. His
use of big words was comical. Demonstrate
grew to have an evil sound by becoming
"demonostrate." Mountain always ended
with "g" perverse was always "preverse,"
affiuence was relieved of its first syllable as
were many other similar words. 1t was one of
his deacons who said "Oh, Lord, we're all de-
tached to the funeral carr; but the minister
was clever in his comparisons aud fervent in
his appeals.
After the sermon certain people took the SER
vice in their own hands; choice spirits stationed
themselves around bench near the pulpit
and as the excitement increased one by one
others Joined them, until there was crowd of
men and women there. One man began to pray
h. 81
cried. Lord hep us!" Dress de Lord :"
"Glory!" ooh, God; Oh, God!" prolonging
"God " into a cry of three four syllabes.
1t was a wild, unrestraned litany from a
people who seemed to reach up to the Heavens
with their faith and down to barbarism with
their frenzy. One recognized in them the
savage and the Christian. They chanted old
HYMNS, There is fountain filled with blood"
and "When Can Read My Title Clear" and
moaned and droned and shouted them all on
one tune of five or six notes. with minor inter
walls and long, swinging cadsnses-a barbaric
tune, exactly the same as the Arab girls use
now for their dances, and giving a hint, per-
haps, of what the beginnings of music were.
"Oh, If made my bed in He'll!
Oh, wouldn't that be awful"
they sang over and over again until one ex-
cited girl shrieked with fear. Again one voice
would quaver forth:
1.-THE Lord giveth and the Lord talzeth away,
Blessed be the name OF The Lord"
Another voice would join in, and from sad,
slow whisper it would swell into strange an
them. ending in great chorus, for these rude
folks have true music in their souls, and their
unlearned, uncultivated singing has swceter
sound than much of the vocal gymnastics that
fine church choirs infict upon men and angels
As midnight approached the excitement in
creased and a swaying, clapping, moaning
group of people shouted and prayed and sang
and called upon the Lord to keep his promise
that when two or three should be gathered to-
gether in His name their prayers should be
answered they call upon him to gladden. their
ears with the rumble of the sweet charlotte
como himself to them. No miracle of CONVEX
sion was performed, however. Often convert
will fall into dead faint. and while his soul Is
in Heaven with God. as they all believe. his
friends put a tin spoon In his mouth to keep
him from having lockjaw, carrying his rigid