Everywhere the white man had the
right of way, even on the highway to heaven! And in no place was the
negro made to feel the prejudice against his color more gallingly than
in churches arrogating the name of Christian. He had no rights on earth,
he had none in trying to get into the bosom of the founder of
Christianity, which the white sinners or saints were bound to respect.
Even the liberty-loving Quakers of Philadelphia were not above the use
of the "negro seat" in their meetings. Somehow they discerned that there
was a great gulf separating in this life at least the white from the
black believer. That God had made of one blood all nations of men, St.
Paul had taught, but the American church had with one accord in practice
drawn the line at the poor despised colored man. He was excluded from
ecclesiastical equality, for he was different from other men for whom
Christ died. The Bible declared that man was made but a little lower
than the angels; the American people in their State and Church
supplemented this sentiment by acts which plainly said that the negro
was made but a little above the brute creation.
Here are instances of the length to which the prejudice against color
carried the churches in those early years of the anti-slavery movement:
In 1830, a colored man, through a business transaction with a lessee of
one of the pews in Park Street Church, came into possession of it.
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