Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1910-02-04
PANAMA EDITORIAL TRIP.
Letter No. IA.

TO US laNOfaDIY. One WAS an Au-
glcan Church (Which is the English
Episcopal Church, while the other
was a Mission chapel of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church (North)
Both places we inferred were de
voted TO the native worship and we
sought an American service with
English speaking people for fellow
worshippers Our landlord inform
ed us that there was Protestant
church in Ancon the American town
where the American population re-
gard .ess of denom,na ton went to
worship. We attended this and
found it to be Protestant EpiSco-
pal (Amercan) church, the young
curate Of which was gowned with
their usual large-sle9ved white sur
plice. The services were prefaced
and codiciled with the usual lengthy
ceremonials peculiar to that de-
nomination. The sermon was COLI
siderate in that it was not long and
was really u strong discourse but
more phi iloso phical than evangeli
cal. His speech bespoke long and
careful elocutinary training almost
to the point where personality is
eliminated and the subject becomes
a Lyceum- made automoton. But it
was a Protestant service aud we got
some help out of it and gladly drop
ped silver piece in the plate when
passed around. When youth we
worshipped some with an Episcopal
liam congregation, so very naturally
dronped into the litany responses.
We saw the flying coat-tails Of Il
clerical dressed gentleman, whose
bible in hand proclaimed still further
the minister, hurrying to board an
outgoing train evidently to preach
somewhere out at some of the Canal
towns. From his movements we
took him to be a Methodist or Mis-
sionary Baptist as he had whole
lot OF the get-up-and-git about him.
From slate we saw on chapel
door in Empire. the largest Amer
lean town on tn" Canal proper, we
ascertained that the few strictly
evangelical preachers engaged in
work on the Zone have to do IL great
deal of rushing about On Sundays To
fill their appOin tmentS, as there are
q number of towns along this line Of
the railroad wanting services, and
the preachers have to time them
selves to make several points in ont.
and the same day Some ten or
twelve trains running each way ON
the Sabbath make such methods easy
in that sense but trying on the par
son in other ways. The Canal Com
mission respects the Sabbath and
suspends work, and this gives the
employees a chance to board trains
back and forth to the Oceanic cities
on the numerous excursion trains
run specially for their benefit on the
Holy Day. The time pressure that's
on the Canal diggers probably rem
ders such il course eXcusable, aS the
Characterization and civilization Of
the world will be FASTENED by the
early completion of the passage, but
still we dislike to see Sunday made
such q day of train riding md 50
forth. Would that enough men
could be employed to give an offday
on Saturdays Us well a; Sundays by
rotating crews, and thus give all a
better chance to keep the Sabbath in
a Christian manner, get their day OF
relaxation from the hard toll, and
still not interfere with the progress
of the work on the ditch.
About the rousingest thing we
struck in the way of religious service
on the whole trip, was one held on
the street by q Salvation Army
band, not far from our hotel Friday
night before the Sunday of which we
are writing. Setting on the veran-
ola of our hosiery our eur caught
the sound of a sweet old Gospel
hymn and wife and myself strol!ed
out to see whence these Welcome
strains emanated from. Soon we
came up to where they were, ard
imagine our surprise when we saw
the whole company were negroes.
All the Salvation. Army squads thas
we had seen before were whites
And these niggers had religion as
could be seen from their sniring tes-
tyfying apd occasional halle.uiah
shouting faces. They sang and
prayed read Scripture and gave in
their experiences with heroic and
sometimes fearful gusto. Their mu-
sic was simply superb.
AS We Southerners know the Ne
gro naturally has a musical nature.
These red uniformed nigger men and
plain-gowned women could play
their instruments and sing in way
to touch a heart of stone. What
melted us was that they were sing
| ing the grand old familiar English
hymns that we had heard from in
fancy up, ana occasionally they would
put extra life into the service bv
bursting out into some one OF the
many stirring COMMUNICATING SONGS