Thinking to make the best use of his opportunity to obtain religious
instruction for himself and family from this fountain of orthodoxy, the
black pew-holder betook him, one Sunday, to "Brimstone Corner." But he
was never permitted to repeat the visit. "Brimstone Corner" could not
stand him another Lord's day, and thereupon promptly expelled him and
his family out of its midst. The good deacons displayed their capacity
for shielding their flock from consorting with "niggers," by availing
themselves of a technicality to relet the pew to a member who was not
cursed with a dark skin. On another Lord's day, in another stronghold of
Boston Christianity, Oliver Johnson ran the battery of "indignant frowns
of a large number of the congregation" for daring to take a
fellow-Christian with a skin not colored like his own into his pew, to
listen to Dr. Beecher. The good people of the old Baptist meeting-house,
at Hartford, Conn., had evidently no intention of disturbing the
heavenly calm of their religious devotions by so much as a thought of
believers with black faces; for by boarding up the "negro pews" in front
and leaving only peep-holes for their occupants, they secured themselves
from a sight of the obnoxious creatures, while Jehovah, who is no
respecter of persons, was in His holy place. Incredible as it may seem,
a church in the town of Stoughton, Mass., to rid itself of even a
semblance of Christian fellowship and equality with a colored member,
did actually cut the floor from under the colored member's pew!
These cruel and anti-Christian distinctions in the churches affected
Garrison in the most painful manner.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178