“We has our own ways ob doin’ things; white folks don’t allus understand us, but de Lord seems to get along with us putty well, an’ dat’s all we need care fur.”
White folks do not understand, and certainly cannot but be amused at seeing an old black woman, whose gray wool is bound up in a brilliant turban, moving in slow, undulating waves of a mystic dance up and down the church aisles, and round its altar, as she chants forth her testimony to “de leadin’s of de Lord all dese eighty years”; but they can quite appreciate the reverence which sends every one to his knees at the words, “Let us pray,” and sometimes wish that the custom might prove possible of transplantation. Quaint and racy words sometimes come from these colored preachers. “Ta’n’t no use dodgin’,” said one the other day; “yer may poke yer head dis way and stick yer feet dat way, but yer can’t go round yer grave; yer may shut yer eyes and make b’lieve yer don’t see it, but ye’s got to tumble inter it, after all. Dere it is, right in yer path. Is yer all ready?”
“I can’t read much,” said a preacher; “I can’t say all dem long, hard names. I couldn’t read a word when the good Lord Jesus found me, in the South Caroliny cane-brake; but I taught myself to spell out de name ob Jesus, and now I can read all ’bout how He carries sinners to heaven; dat’s ’nough.”
We were present at a communion service in which there was nothing calculated to draw a smile. Tears of apparently genuine earnestness stood in many eyes, and suppressed sobs mingled with the rich, quaint hymns in many parts of the room. The preacher was a young man, who drew a moving picture of the crucifixion, which, in its pathos, simplicity, and correct diction, would have done honor to any white preacher in the land. But one point, that of the substitution of _w_ for _r_, marked the speaker as one of that subject race, which, in thus slowly rising from barbarism, while it loses much that is amusing to the merely curious observer, is steadily gaining in what pertains to the dignity of manhood, and the well-being of immortal souls.—_Illustrated Christian Weekly._
Augusta. John Dorr 15.00 Bangor. First Cong. Ch. 31.42 Brewer. First Cong. Ch. $6.40, and Sab. Sch. $2.50; Dea. J. Holyoke $5.10 14.00 Hallowell. Miss Mary Flagg $10; Hon. H. K. Baker $2, _for Printing Press, Talladega C._; “A Friend” $1, _for Student, Tougaloo, Miss._ 13.00 Houlton. Cong. Ch. and Soc. 2.00 Oak Hill. —— 30.00 Wells. “A Friend” 5.00 Wild. Rev. D. D. T. 1.00