The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07

| city assemblage of the colored race
can be. But It is not all country folk
| that come; for all day Saturday the
| railroads brought passengers from
across the state line-from Philadel-
phia and the New Jersey towns, smart
city negroes, who yet felt the attraction
of the old festival and sWelled the
dusky throng around the churches IN
! the colored quarter. Big Quarterly
J is, in fact, a great day of reunion, on
which friends long separated often find
each other out, and families and clans
are gathered. 1t is also like great
camp meeting in some of it's features;
but the fact that it is held in town. and
in a single street of churches, gives it
distinctive flavor of its own. Once
seen, Big Quarterly can never be
forgotten.
The whole of one long, wide street
| from end to end was packed with a
mass of warm and excited humanity on
the festival day. No one was left at
home, apparently, from the smallest
pickaninny to the oldest grandmother.
The churches were damned to suffoca-
ton with congregations, all singing at
! the tops of their voices and still the
street was full. All these visitors had
to be fed (and we'll fed, it being quite
true, as the bishops cook once OBJ
served, that "pious folks eats tremen-
dous'D, which is probably the reason
why August was chosen for Big Quar-
terly'' since August, on the Peninsula,
is the month of watermelon and peach
es and cantaloupes and chicken gumbo
and soft-shell crabs, All along the
sidewalks, therefore, were rough stands
where breakfast, dinner and supper
were eaten standing by whole families,
and where lemonade, ice cream, fried
chicken and luscious chunks of water
melon could be had all day long.
The Spectator did not care to attempt
getting inside the church itself. from
the open windows OF which came Il vol
lime of sound that could be heard afar,
like the boom of Il rising surf. 1t
seemed to be sort of two-toned minor
chant, with no distinguishable words,
and was almost continuous. Whatever
preaching went on must have been of
an interjaculatory character, for there
was never an interval of five minutes
in the singing from morning to night.
Outside in the churchyard, under the
rows of old maple trees, with their
whitewashed trunks, rude tent had
been stretched, and the ground spread
with straw. A few benches were pro-
vided for the sisters, and an altar and
mourners' bench for the converts, but
the majority of the worshippers stood.
There was much coming and going all
the while through the refreshment-
stand entrance aforesaid, and the Spec
tator noted, in passing in himself. that
a silver offering was taken up at this
gate, though no collection took place in
the meetings.
1t was in the evening that the Specta-
tor attended this tent service. if service
it could be called. To be sure, there
were several preachers there, and they
exhorted vigorously from time to time;
but the attention of the congregation
was concentrated, not on them, but on
the shouting bands and circles of lay
members who went marching round
and round in the straw, or, Gtanding in
a ring, clapped and stamped their feet
and chanted words which the Spectator
could not catch lor make sense of. The
whirling dervishes Of the east could not
have been more apt or more unintelli
gible. The chant, whatever 1t was, be-
ginning low and soft, rose from crescen-
do to crescendo until, with the sweat
running down like rain and with vio-
lent bendings and swayings of the
whole body, the singers marched or cir
cled to the verge Of collapse, and final
ly sank on their knees, hoarse and ex-
hausted. Meanwhile the sisters lifted
up their voices, too and the preachers
exhorted, so that it was as distracting
to the car rs the three ringed circus is
to the eye. Now and then, with loud
excitement, a convert would find his or
her way to the mourners bench amid |
Joyful calculations from the faithful,
The Spectator was told by one friend |
Of her experience at previous big |
Quarterly" She took her sister, a very |
quiet and devout Christian, and the |
two happened to stand near a couple of |
eolored women who were, in negro reli- |
yious idiom, Coming through" In |
his case it seemed especially difficult |
'or them to get through and their hys-
,erical excitement was so great that |
hey appeared to be upon the verge of
"All that the rest did,"
said the Spectators friend, was to
march round and round those poor
,asping creatures, singing
was a mourner once, jes like you,
But I KEEP on mournin' till I come
through
Ind finally my sister couldn't stand 1t
my longer. She went and knelt down
~ the women, and explained the Cos
,el plan of salvation to them, and
lueted them down so that they came
trough without having fit apiece.
But 1t wasn't the fault of the meeting
hat they didn't; and it all made me so
nervous that I never will go to Big
Quarterly again"
Another woman gave a glimpse of a
ueer side of negro religious experience
You know" she said, "or more proba-
ly you don't know so I'll tell you--
hat when a young colored woman is
seeking religion, one Of the older wo-
nens in the church, sort of mother in
srael, is appointed to be her mother in
he gospel looks after her salvation to
he best of her ability, and has q cer7
ain authority over her in consequence.
me day my colored house. girl, who IL
,as attending the meetings and trying
D come through was set to churn the ]
utter. She made such a small quanti-
Y that I was rather astonished: but
incline insisted that that was all the ! ,