JOHN JASPER

JOHN JASPER

The Unmatched Negro
Philosopher and Preacher

By
WILLIAM E. HATCHER, LL. D.

New York   Chicago   Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London   and   Edinburgh

Copyright, 1908, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Reader; stay a moment. A word with you before you begin to sample this book. We will tell you some things in advance, which may help you to decide whether it is worth while to read any further. These pages deal with a negro, and are not designed either to help or to hurt the negro race. They have only to do with one man. He was one of a class,—without pedigree, and really without successors, except that he was so dominant and infectious that numbers of people affected his ways and dreamed that they were one of his sort. As a fact, they were simply of another and of a baser sort.

The man in question was a negro, and if you cannot appreciate greatness in a black skin you would do well to turn your thoughts into some other channel. Moreover, he was a negro covered over with ante bellum habits and ways of doing. He lived forty years before the war and for about forty years after it. He grew wonderfully as a freeman; but he never grew away from the tastes, dialects, and manners of the bondage times. He was a man left over from the old régime and never got infected with the new order. The air of the educated negro preacher didn’t set well upon him. The raw scholarship of the new “ish,” as he called it, was sounding brass to him. As a fact, the new generation of negro preachers sent out by the schools drew back from this man. They branded him as an anachronism, and felt that his presence in the pulpit was a shock to religion and an offense to the ministry; and yet not one of them ever attained the celebrity or achieved the results which came to this unlettered and grievously ungrammatical son of Africa.

But do not be afraid that you are to be fooled into the fanatical camp. This story comes from the pen of a Virginian who claims no exemption from Southern prejudices and feels no call to sound the praises of the negro race. Indeed, he never intended to write what is contained within the covers of this book. It grew up spontaneously and most of the contents were written before the book was thought of.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect that the meddlers with books will take the ipse dixit of an unaccredited stranger. They ought not to do it: they are not asked to do it. They can go on about their business, if they prefer; but if they do, they will miss the story of the incomparable negro of the South. This is said with sobriety and after a half century spent in close observation of the negro race.

More than that, the writer of this never had any intention of bothering with this man when he first loomed up into notoriety. He got drawn in unexpectedly. He heard that there was a marvel of a man “over in Africa,” a not too savoury portion of Richmond, Virginia,—and one Sunday afternoon in company with a Scot-Irishman, who was a scholar and a critic, with a strong leaning towards ridicule, he went to hear him preach. Shades of our Anglo-Saxon fathers! Did mortal lips ever gush with such torrents of horrible English! Hardly a word came out clothed and in its right mind. And gestures! He circled around the pulpit with his ankle in his hand; and laughed and sang and shouted and acted about a dozen characters within the space of three minutes. Meanwhile, in spite of these things, he was pouring out a gospel sermon, red hot, full of love, full of invective, full of tenderness, full of bitterness, full of tears, full of every passion that ever flamed in the human breast. He was a theatre within himself, with the stage crowded with actors. He was a battle-field;—himself the general, the staff, the officers, the common soldiery, the thundering artillery and the rattling musketry. He was the preacher; likewise the church and the choir and the deacons and the congregation. The Scot-Irishman surrendered in fifteen minutes after the affair commenced, but the other man was hard-hearted and stubborn and refused to commit himself. He preferred to wait until he got out of doors and let the wind blow on him and see what was left. He determined to go again; and he went and kept going, off and on, for twenty years. That was before the negro became a national figure. It was before he startled his race with his philosophy as to the rotation of the sun. It was before he became a lecturer and a sensation, sought after from all parts of the country. Then it was that he captured the Scot-Irish and the other man also. What is written here constitutes the gatherings of nearly a quarter of a century, and, frankly speaking, is a tribute to the brother in black,—the one unmatched, unapproachable, and wonderful brother.

But possibly the reader is of the practical sort. He would like to get the worldly view of this African genius and to find out of what stuff he was made. Very well; he will be gratified! Newspapers are heartlessly practical. They are grudging of editorial commendation, and in Richmond, at the period, they were sparing of references of any kind to negroes. You could hardly expect them to say anything commendatory of a negro, if he was a negro, with odd and impossible notions. Now this man was of that very sort. He got it into his big skull that the earth was flat, and that the sun rotated;—a scientific absurdity! But you see he proved it by the Bible. He ransacked the whole book and got up ever so many passages. He took them just as he found them. It never occurred to him that the Bible was not dealing with natural science, and that it was written in an age and country when astronomy was unknown and therefore written in the language of the time. Intelligent people understand this very well, but this miracle of his race was behind his era. He took the Bible literally, and, with it in hand, he fought his battles about the sun. Literally, but not scientifically, he proved his position, and he gave some of his devout antagonists a world of botheration by the tenacity with which he held to his views and the power with which he stated his case. Scientifically, he was one of the ancients, but that did not interfere with his piety and did not at all eclipse his views. His perfect honesty was most apparent in all of his contentions; and, while some laughed at what they called his vagaries, those who knew him best respected him none the less, but rather the more, for his astronomical combat. There was something in his love of the Bible, his faith in every letter of it, and his courage, that drew to him the good will and lofty respect of uncounted thousands and, probably, it might be said, of uncounted millions.

Now when this man died it was as the fall of a tower. It was a crash, heard and felt farther than was the collapse of the famous tower at Venice. If the dubious, undecided reader has not broken down on the road but has come this far, he is invited to look at the subjoined editorial from The Richmond Dispatch, the leading morning paper of Richmond, Va., which published at the time an article on this lofty figure, now national in its proportions and imperishable in its fame, when it bowed to the solemn edict of death.

(From The Richmond Dispatch)

“It is a sad coincidence that the destruction of the Jefferson Hotel and the death of the Rev. John Jasper should have fallen upon the same day. John Jasper was a Richmond Institution, as surely so as was Major Ginter’s fine hotel. He was a national character, and he and his philosophy were known from one end of the land to the other. Some people have the impression that John Jasper was famous simply because he flew in the face of the scientists and declared that the sun moved. In one sense, that is true, but it is also true that his fame was due, in great measure, to a strong personality, to a deep, earnest conviction, as well as to a devout Christian character. Some preachers might have made this assertion about the sun’s motion without having attracted any special attention. The people would have laughed over it, and the incident would have passed by as a summer breeze. But John Jasper made an impression upon his generation, because he was sincerely and deeply in earnest in all that he said. No man could talk with him in private, or listen to him from the pulpit, without being thoroughly convinced of that fact. His implicit trust in the Bible and everything in it, was beautiful and impressive. He had no other lamp by which his feet were guided. He had no other science, no other philosophy. He took the Bible in its literal significance; he accepted it as the inspired word of God; he trusted it with all his heart and soul and mind; he believed nothing that was in conflict with the teachings of the Bible—scientists and philosophers and theologians to the contrary notwithstanding.

“‘They tried to make it appear,’ said he, in the last talk we had with him on the subject, ‘that John Jasper was a fool and a liar when he said that the sun moved. I paid no attention to it at first, because I did not believe that the so-called scientists were in earnest. I did not think that there was any man in the world fool enough to believe that the sun did not move, for everybody had seen it move. But when I found that these so-called scientists were in earnest I took down my old Bible and proved that they, and not John Jasper, were the fools and the liars.’ And there was no more doubt in his mind on that subject than there was of his existence. John Jasper had the faith that removed mountains. He knew the literal Bible as well as Bible scholars did. He did not understand it from the scientific point of view, but he knew its teachings and understood its spirit, and he believed in it. He accepted it as the true word of God, and he preached it with unction and with power.

“John Jasper became famous by accident, but he was a most interesting man apart from his solar theory. He was a man of deep convictions, a man with a purpose in life, a man who earnestly desired to save souls for heaven. He followed his divine calling with faithfulness, with a determination, as far as he could, to make the ways of his God known unto men, His saving health among all nations. And the Lord poured upon His servant, Jasper, ‘the continual dew of His blessing.’”

I JASPER PRESENTED

John Jasper, the negro preacher of Richmond, Virginia, stands preëminent among the preachers of the negro race in the South. He was for fifty years a slave, and a preacher during twenty-five years of his slavery, and distinctly of the old plantation type. Freedom came full-handed to him, but it did not in any notable degree change him in his style, language, or manner of preaching. He was the ante bellum preacher until eighty-nine years of age, when he preached his last sermon on “Regeneration,” and with quiet dignity laid off his mortal coil and entered the world invisible. He was the last of his type, and we shall not look upon his like again. It has been my cherished purpose for some time to embalm the memory of this extraordinary genius in some form that would preserve it from oblivion. I would give to the American people a picture of the God-made preacher who was great in his bondage and became immortal in his freedom.

This is not to be done in biographic form, but rather in vagrant articles which find their kinship only in the fact that they present some distinct view of a man, hampered by early limitations, denied the graces of culture, and cut off even from the advantages of a common education, but who was munificently endowed by nature, filled with vigour and self-reliance, and who achieved greatness in spite of almost limitless adversities. I account him genuinely great among the sons of men, but I am quite sure that the public can never apprehend the force and gist of his rare manhood without first being made acquainted with certain facts appertaining to his early life.

Jasper was born a slave. He grew up on a plantation and was a toiler in the fields up to his manhood. When he came to Richmond, now grown to a man, he was untutored, full of dangerous energies, almost gigantic in his muscle, set on pleasure, and without the fear of God before his eyes. From his own account of himself, he was fond of display, a gay coxcomb among the women of his race, a fun-maker by nature, with a self-assertion that made him a leader within the circles of his freedom.

We meet him first as one of the “hands” in the tobacco factory of Mr. Samuel Hargrove, an enterprising and prosperous manufacturer in the city of Richmond. Jasper occupied the obscure position of “a stemmer,”—which means that his part was to take the well-cured tobacco leaf and eliminate the stem, with a view to preparing what was left to be worked into “the plug” which is the glory of the tobacco-chewer. This position had one advantage for this quick-witted and alert young slave. It threw him into contact with a multitude of his own race, and as nature had made him a lover of his kind his social qualities found ample scope for exercise. In his early days he went at a perilous pace and found in the path of the sinful many fountains of common joy. Indeed, he made evil things fearfully fascinating by the zestful and remorseless way in which he indulged them.

It was always a joy renewed for him to tell the story of his conversion. As described by him, his initial religious experiences, while awfully mystical and solemn to him, were grotesque and ludicrous enough. They partook of the extravagances of the times, yet were so honest in their nature, and so soundly Scriptural in their doctrines, and so reverential in their tone, that not even the most captious sceptic could hear him tell of them, in his moments of exalted inspiration, without feeling profoundly moved by them.

It ought to be borne in mind that this odd and forcible man was a preacher in Richmond for a half century, and that during all that time, whether in slavery or in freedom, he lived up to his religion, maintaining his integrity, defying the unscrupulous efforts of jealous foes to destroy him, and walking the high path of spotless and incorruptible honour. Not that he was always popular among his race. He was too decided, too aggressive, too intolerant towards meanness, and too unpitying in his castigation of vice, to be popular. His life, in the nature of the case, had to be a warfare, and it may be truly said that he slept with his sword buckled on.

Emancipation did not turn his head. He was the same high-minded, isolated, thoughtful Jasper. His way of preaching became an offense to the “edicated” preachers of the new order, and with their new sense of power these double-breasted, Prince-Albert-coated, high hat and kid-gloved clergymen needed telescopes to look as far down as Jasper was, to get a sight of him. They verily thought that it would be a simple process to transfix him with their sneers, and flaunt their new grandeurs before him, in order to annihilate him. Many of these new-fledged preachers, who came from the schools to be pastors in Richmond, resented Jasper’s prominence and fame. They felt that he was a reproach to the race, and they did not fail to fling at him their flippant sneers.

But Jasper’s mountain stood strong. He looked this new tribe of his adversaries over and marked them as a calcimined and fictitious type of culture. To him they were shop-made and unworthy of respect. They called forth the storm of his indignant wrath. He opened his batteries upon them, and, for quite a while, the thunder of his guns fairly shook the steeples on the other negro churches of Richmond. And yet it will never do to think of him as the incarnation of a vindictive and malevolent spirit. He dealt terrific blows, and it is hardly too much to say that many of his adversaries found it necessary to get out of the range of his guns. But, after all, there was a predominant good nature about him. His humour was inexhaustible, and irresistible as well. If by his fiery denunciations he made his people ready to “fight Philip,” he was quite apt before he finished to let fly some of his odd comparisons, his laughable stories, or his humorous mimicries. He could laugh off his own grievances, and could make his own people “take the same medicine.”

Jasper was something of a hermit, given to seclusion, imperturbably calm in his manner, quite ascetic in his tastes, and a cormorant in his devouring study of the Bible. Naturally, Jasper was as proud as Lucifer,—too proud to be egotistic and too candid and self-assertive to affect a humility which he did not feel. He walked heights where company was scarce, and seemed to love his solitude. Jasper was as brave as a lion and possibly not a little proud of his bravery. He fought in the open and set no traps for his adversaries. He believed in himself,—felt the dignity of his position, and never let himself down to what was little or unseemly.

The most remarkable fact in Jasper’s history is connected with his extraordinary performances in connection with his tersely expressed theory,—THE SUN DO MOVE! We would think in advance that any man who would come forward to champion that view would be hooted out of court. It was not so with Jasper. His bearing through all that excitement was so dignified, so sincere, so consistent and heroic, that he actually did win the rank of a true philosopher. This result, so surprising, is possibly the most handsome tribute to his inherent excellence and nobility of character. One could not fail to see that his fight on a technical question was so manifestly devout, so filled with zeal for the honour of religion, and so courageous in the presence of overwhelming odds, that those who did not agree with him learned to love and honour him.

The sensation which he awakened fairly flew around the country. It is said that he preached the sermon 250 times, and it would be hard to estimate how many thousands of people heard him. The papers, religious and secular, had much to say about him. Many of them published his sermons, some of them at first plying him with derision, but about all of them rounding up with the admission of a good deal of faith in Jasper. So vast was his popularity that a mercenary syndicate once undertook to traffic on his popularity by sending him forth as a public lecturer. The movement proved weak on its feet, and after a little travel he hobbled back richer in experience than in purse.

As seen in the pulpit or in the street Jasper was an odd picture to look upon. His figure was uncouth; he was rather loosely put together; his limbs were fearfully long and his body strikingly short,—a sort of nexus to hold his head and limbs in place. He was black, but his face saved him. It was open, luminous, thoughtful, and in moments of animation it glowed with a radiance and exultation that was most attractive.

Jasper’s career as a preacher after the war was a poem. The story is found later on and marks him as a man of rare originality, and of patience born of a better world. He left a church almost entirely the creation of his own productive life, that holds a high rank in Richmond and that time will find it hard to estrange from his spirit and influence. For quite a while he was hardly on coöperative terms with the neighbouring churches, and it is possible that he ought to share somewhat in the responsibility for the estrangement which so long existed;—though it might be safely said that if they had left Jasper alone he would not have bothered them. Let it be said that the animosities of those days gradually gave away to the gracious and softening influence of time, and, when his end came, all the churches and ministers of the city most cordially and lovingly united in honouring his memory.

It may betoken the regard in which Jasper was held by the white people if I should be frank enough to say that I was the pastor of the Grace Street Baptist Church, one of the largest ecclesiastical bodies in the city at the time of Jasper’s death, and the simple announcement in the morning papers that I would deliver an address in honour of this negro preacher who had been carried to his grave during the previous week brought together a representative and deeply sympathetic audience which overflowed the largest church auditorium in the city. With the utmost affection and warmth I put forth my lofty appreciation of this wonderful prince of his tribe, and so far as known there was never an adverse criticism offered as to the propriety or justice of the tribute which was paid him.

It is of this unusual man, this prodigy of his race, and this eminent type of the Christian negro, that the somewhat random articles of this volume are to treat. His life jumped the common grooves and ran on heights not often trod. His life went by bounds and gave surprises with each succeeding leap.

II JASPER HAS A THRILLING CONVERSION

Let us bear in mind that at the time of his conversion John Jasper was a slave, illiterate and working in a tobacco factory in Richmond. It need hardly be said that he shared the superstitions and indulged in the extravagances of his race, and these in many cases have been so blatant and unreasonable that they have caused some to doubt the negro’s capacity for true religion. But from the beginning Jasper’s religious experiences showed forth the Lord Jesus as their source and centre. His thoughts went to the Cross. His hope was founded on the sacrificial blood, and his noisy and rhapsodic demonstrations sounded a distinct note in honour of his Redeemer.

Jasper’s conviction as to his call to the ministry was clear-cut and intense. He believed that his call came straight from God. His boast and glory was that he was a God-made preacher. In his fierce warfares with the educated preachers of his race—“the new issue,” as he contemptuously called them—he rested his claim on the ground that God had put him into the ministry; and so reverential, so full of noble assertion and so irresistibly eloquent was he in setting forth his ministerial authority that even his most sceptical critics were constrained to admit that, like John the Baptist, he was “a man sent from God.”

And yet Jasper knew the human side of his call. It was a part of his greatness that he could see truth in its relations and completeness, and while often he presented one side of a truth, as if it were all of it, he also saw the other side. With him a paradox was not a contradiction. He gratefully recognized the human influences which helped him to enter the ministry. While preaching one Sunday afternoon Jasper suddenly stopped, his face lighted as with a vision, a rich laugh rippled from his lips while his eyes flashed with soulful fire. He then said, in a manner never to be reported: “Mars Sam Hargrove called me to preach de Gospel—he was my old marster, and he started me out wid my message.” Instantly the audience quivered with quickened attention, for they knew at once that the man in the pulpit had something great to tell.

“I was seekin’ God six long weeks—jes’ ’cause I was sich a fool I couldn’t see de way. De Lord struck me fus’ on Cap’tal Squar’, an’ I left thar badly crippled. One July mornin’ somethin’ happen’d. I was a tobarker-stemmer—dat is, I took de tobarker leaf, an’ tor’d de stem out, an’ dey won’t no one in dat fac’ry could beat me at dat work. But dat mornin’ de stems wouldn’t come out to save me, an’ I tor’d up tobarker by de poun’ an’ flung it under de table. Fac’ is, bruthr’n, de darkness of death was in my soul dat mornin’. My sins was piled on me like mount’ns; my feet was sinkin’ down to de reguns of despar, an’ I felt dat of all sinners I was de wust. I tho’t dat I would die right den, an’ wid what I supposed was my lars breath I flung up to heav’n a cry for mercy. ’Fore I kno’d it, de light broke; I was light as a feather; my feet was on de mount’n; salvation rol’d like a flood thru my soul, an’ I felt as if I could ’nock off de fact’ry roof wid my shouts.

“But I sez to mysef, I gwine to hol’ still till dinner, an’ so I cried, an’ laffed, an’ tore up de tobarker. Pres’ntly I looked up de table, an’ dar was a old man—he luv me, an’ tried hard to lead me out de darkness, an’ I slip roun’ to whar he was, an’ I sez in his ear as low as I could: ‘Hallelujah; my soul is redeemed!’ Den I jump back quick to my work, but after I once open my mouf it was hard to keep it shet any mo’. ’Twan’ long ’fore I looked up de line agin, an’ dar was a good ol’ woman dar dat knew all my sorrers, an’ had been prayin’ fur me all de time. Der was no use er talkin’; I had to tell her, an’ so I skip along up quiet as a breeze, an’ start’d to whisper in her ear, but just den de holin-back straps of Jasper’s breachin’ broke, an’ what I tho’t would be a whisper was loud enuf to be hearn clean ’cross Jeems River to Manchester. One man sed he tho’t de factory was fallin’ down; all I know’d I had raise my fust shout to de glory of my Redeemer.

“But for one thing thar would er been a jin’ral revival in de fact’ry dat mornin’. Dat one thing was de overseer. He bulg’d into de room, an’ wid a voice dat sounded like he had his breakfus dat mornin’ on rasps an’ files, bellowed out: ‘What’s all dis row ’bout?’ Somebody shouted out dat John Jasper dun got religun, but dat didn’t wurk ’tall wid de boss. He tell me to git back to my table, an’ as he had sumpthin’ in his hand dat looked ugly, it was no time fur makin’ fine pints, so I sed: ‘Yes, sir, I will; I ain’t meant no harm; de fus taste of salvation got de better un me, but I’ll git back to my work.’ An’ I tell you I got back quick.

“Bout dat time Mars Sam he come out’n his orfis, an’ he say: ‘What’s de matter out here?’ An’ I hear de overseer tellin’ him: ‘John Jasper kick up a fuss, an’ say he dun got religun, but I dun fix him, an’ he got back to his table.’ De devil tol’ me to hate de overseer dat mornin’, but de luv of God was rollin’ thru my soul, an’ somehow I didn’t mind what he sed.

“Little aft’r I hear Mars Sam tell de overseer he want to see Jasper. Mars Sam was a good man; he was a Baptis’, an’ one of de hed men of de old Fust Church down here, an’ I was glad when I hear Mars Sam say he want to see me. When I git in his orfis, he say: ‘John, what was de matter out dar jes’ now?’—and his voice was sof’ like, an’ it seem’d to have a little song in it which play’d into my soul like an angel’s harp. I sez to him: ‘Mars Sam, ever sence de fourth of July I ben cryin’ after de Lord, six long weeks, an’ jes’ now out dar at de table God tuk my sins away, an’ set my feet on a rock. I didn’t mean to make no noise, Mars Sam, but ’fore I know’d it de fires broke out in my soul, an’ I jes’ let go one shout to de glory of my Saviour.’

“Mars Sam was settin’ wid his eyes a little down to de flo’, an’ wid a pritty quiv’r in his voice he say very slo’: ‘John, I b’leve dat way myself. I luv de Saviour dat you have jes’ foun’, an’ I wan’ to tell you dat I do’n complain ’cause you made de noise jes’ now as you did.’ Den Mars Sam did er thing dat nearly made me drop to de flo’. He git out of his chair, an’ walk over to me and giv’ me his han’, and he say: ‘John, I wish you mighty well. Your Saviour is mine, an’ we are bruthers in de Lord.’ When he say dat, I turn ’round an’ put my arm agin de wall, an’ held my mouf to keep from shoutin’. Mars Sam well know de good he dun me.

“Art’r awhile he say: ‘John, did you tell eny of ’em in thar ’bout your conversion?’ And I say: ‘Yes, Mars Sam, I tell ’em fore I kno’d it, an’ I feel like tellin’ eberybody in de worl’ about it.’ Den he say: ‘John, you may tell it. Go back in dar an’ go up an’ down de tables, an’ tell all of ’em. An’ den if you wan’ to, go up-stars an’ tell ’em all ’bout it, an’ den down-stars an’ tell de hogshed men an’ de drivers an’ everybody what de Lord has dun for yor.’

“By dis time Mars Sam’s face was rainin’ tears, an’ he say: ‘John, you needn’ work no mo’ to-day. I giv’ you holiday. Aft’r you git thru tellin’ it here at de fact’ry, go up to de house, an’ tell your folks; go roun’ to your neighbours, an’ tell dem; go enywhere you wan’ to, an’ tell de good news. It’ll do you good, do dem good, an’ help to hon’r your Lord an’ Saviour.’

“Oh, dat happy day! Can I ever forgit it? Dat was my conversion mornin’, an’ dat day de Lord sent me out wid de good news of de kingdom. For mo’ den forty years I’ve ben tellin’ de story. My step is gittin’ ruther slo’, my voice breaks down, an’ sometimes I am awful tired, but still I’m tellin’ it. My lips shall proclaim de dyin’ luv of de Lam’ wid my las’ expirin’ breath.

“Ah, my dear ol’ marster! He sleeps out yonder in de ol’ cemetery, an’ in dis worl’ I shall see his face no mo’, but I don’t forgit him. He give me a holiday, an’ sent me out to tell my friends what great things God had dun for my soul. Oft’n as I preach I feel that I’m doin’ what my ol’ marster tol’ me to do. If he was here now, I think he would lif’ up dem kin’ black eyes of his, an’ say: ‘Dat’s right, John; still tellin’ it; fly like de angel, an’ wherever you go carry de Gospel to de people.’ Farewell, my ol’ marster, when I lan’ in de heav’nly city, I’ll call at your mansion dat de Lord had ready for you when you got dar, an’ I shall say: ‘Mars Sam, I did what you tol’ me, an’ many of ’em is comin’ up here wid da’ robes wash’d in de blood of de Lam’ dat was led into de way by my preachin’, an’ as you started me I want you to shar’ in de glory of da’ salvation.’ An’ I tell you what I reck’n, dat when Mars Sam sees me, he’ll say: ‘John, call me marster no mo’: we’re bruthers now, an’ we’ll live forever roun’ de throne of God.’”

This is Jasper’s story, but largely in his own broken words. When he told it, it swept over the great crowd like a celestial gale. The people seemed fascinated and transfigured. His homely way of putting the Gospel came home to them. Let me add that his allusions to his old master were in keeping with his kindly and conciliatory tone in all that he had to say about the white people after the emancipation of the slaves. He loved the white people, and among them his friends and lovers were counted by the thousand.

III HOW JASPER GOT HIS SCHOOLING

These chapters disclaim outright any pretension to biography. They deal with a weird, indescribable and mysterious genius, standing out in gloomy grandeur, and not needing the setting forth of ordinary incidents. At the same time, when an extraordinary man comes along and does masterful things, there be some who are ready to ask questions. Was he educated? Well, yes, he was. He had rare educational advantages, not in the schools; but what of that? A genius has no use for a school, except so far as it teaches him the art of thinking. If we run back to the boyhood of Jasper and look him over we find that he had, after all, distinct educational advantages.

It is another case of a good mother. We know that her name was Nina, and that she was the wife of Philip Jasper, and if tradition tells the truth she was the mother of twenty-four children—a premature applicant for the Rooseveltian prize. John was the last, and was not born until two months after his father’s death. Truly grace as well as genius was needed in his case, or he would have struck the wrong road.

That mother was the head of the working women on the Fluvanna farm and learned to govern by reason of the position she held. Her appointment bespoke her character, and her work improved it. Later on, she became in another home the chief of the servant force in a rich family. It was quite a good place. It brought her in contact with cultivated people and the imitative quality in the negro helped her to learn the manners and to imbibe the spirit of the lady. Later on still, she became a nurse to look after the sick at the Negro Quarters. There she had to do with doctors, medicines and counsellors and helpers. Add to all this, she was a sober, thoughtful, godly woman, and you will quite soon reach the conclusion that she was a very excellent teacher for John; and John coming latest in the domestic procession found her rich in experience, matured in motherliness, and enlarged in her outlook of life.

John’s father was a preacher. Harsh things, and some of them needlessly false, are said of the fact that there were no negro preachers in the times of the slaveholding. It is true, that the laws of the country did not allow independent organizations of negroes, and negro preachers were not allowed, except by the consent of their masters, to go abroad preaching the Gospel. They could not accept pastoral charges, and were hampered, as all must admit, by grievous restrictions, but there were negro preachers in that day just the same,—scores of them, and in one way and another they had many privileges and did good and effective service. One thing about the negro preacher of the ante bellum era was his high character. It is true that the owner of slaves was not in all cases adapted to determine the moral character of the slave who wanted to preach, and too often, it may be admitted, his prejudices and self-interest may have ruled out some men who ought to have been allowed to preach. It is a pity if this were true. But this strictness had one advantage. When the master of a negro man allowed him to preach it was an endorsement, acceptable and satisfactory, wherever the man went. If they thought he was all right at home, he could pass muster elsewhere.

Now, concerning John’s father, tradition has proved exceedingly partial. It has glorified Tina the mother with fine extravagance, but it has cut Philip unmercifully. John could get little out of his father, for they were not contemporaries, and as his brothers and sisters seemed to have been born for oblivion, we can trace little of his distinction to the old household in Fluvanna.

But we dare say that Philip, the preacher, remembered chiefly because he was a preacher, had something to do in a subtle way with John’s training. Nor must we fail to remember that Jasper himself grew up in contact with a fine old Virginia family. Fools there be many who love to talk of the shattering of the old aristocracy of Virginia. The “F.F.V.’s”[1] have been the sport of the vulgar, and their downfall has been a tragedy which the envious greedily turned into a comedy. But people ought to have some sense. They ought to see things in their proper relation. They ought to know that in the atmosphere of the old Virginia home the negroes, and especially those who served in person the heads of the family, caught the cue of the gentleman and the lady. I can stand on the streets of Richmond to-day and pick out the coloured men and women who grew up in homes of refinement, and who still bear about them the signs of it. Bent by age, and many of them tortured by infirmity, they still bear the marks of their old masters. They constitute a class quite apart from those of later times and are unequalled by them. I rejoice in all the comforts and advantages which have come to the negroes,—most heartily I thank heaven for their freedom and for all that freedom has brought them; but I do not hesitate to say that one of the losses was that contact with courtly, dignified, and royal people which many of them had before the Civil War. And even those on the plantations, while removed farther from the lights of the great castles in which their masters lived, walked not in darkness entirely, but unconsciously felt the transforming power of those times.

John Jasper was himself an aristocrat. His mode of dress, his manner of walking, his lofty dignity, all told the story. He received an aristocratic education, and he never lost it. Besides this, he had a most varied experience as a slave. He grew up on the farm, and knew what it was to be a plantation hand. He learned to work in the tobacco factory. He worked also in the foundries, and also served around the houses of the families with whom he lived; for it must be understood that after the breaking up of the Peachy family he changed owners and lived in different places. These things enlarged his scope, and with that keen desire to know things he learned at every turn of life.

After his conversion he became a passionate student. He acknowledges one who sought to teach him to read, and after he became a preacher he spelled out the Bible for himself. He was eager to hear other men preach and to talk with those who were wiser than he. And so he kept on learning as long as he lived, though of course he missed the help of the schools, and never crossed the threshold of worldly science in his pursuit of knowledge.

It may be well to say here that Jasper never lost his pride in white people. He delighted to be with them. Thousands upon thousands went to hear him, and while there was a strain of curiosity in many of them there was an under-note of respect and kindliness which always thrilled his heart and did him good. Time and again he spoke to me personally of white people, and always with a beautiful appreciation. It is noteworthy that the old man rode his high horse when his house was partly filled with white people, and it would be no exaggeration to say that not since the end of the war has any negro been so much loved or so thoroughly believed in as John Jasper.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] First Families of Virginia.

IV THE SLAVE PREACHER

It is as a preacher that John Jasper is most interesting. His personality was notable and full of force anywhere, but the pulpit was the stage of his chief performance. It is worth while to bear in mind that he began to preach in 1839 and that was twenty-five years before the coming of freedom. For a quarter of a century, therefore, he was a preacher while yet a slave. His time, of course, under the law belonged to his master, and under the laws of the period, he could preach only under very serious limitations. He could go only when his master said he might, and he could preach only when some white minister or committee was present to see that things were conducted in an orderly way. This is the hard way of stating the case, but there are many ways of getting around such regulations. The man who could preach, though a negro, rarely failed of an opportunity to preach. The man who was fit for the work had friends who enabled him to “shy around” his limitations.

There was one thing which the negro greatly insisted upon, and which not even the most hard-hearted masters were ever quite willing to deny them. They could never bear that their dead should be put away without a funeral. Not that they expected, at the time of the burial, to have the funeral service. Indeed, they did not desire it, and it was never according to their notions. A funeral to them was a pageant. It was a thing to be arranged for a long time ahead. It was to be marked by the gathering of the kindred and friends from far and wide. It was not satisfactory unless there was a vast and excitable crowd. It usually meant an all-day meeting, and often a meeting in a grove, and it drew white and black alike, sometimes almost in equal numbers. Another demand in the case,—for the slaves knew how to make their demands,—was that the negro preacher “should preach the funeral,” as they called it. In things like this, the wishes of the slaves generally prevailed. “The funeral” loomed up weeks in advance, and although marked by sable garments, mournful manners and sorrowful outcries, it had about it hints of an elaborate social function with festive accompaniments. There was much staked on the fame of the officiating brother. He must be one of their own colour, and a man of reputation. They must have a man to plough up their emotional depths, and they must have freedom to indulge in the extravagancies of their sorrow. These demonstrations were their tribute to their dead and were expected to be fully adequate to do honour to the family.

It was in this way that Jasper’s fame began. At first, his tempestuous, ungrammatical eloquence was restricted to Richmond, and there it was hedged in with many humbling limitations. But gradually the news concerning this fiery and thrilling orator sifted itself into the country, and many invitations came for him to officiate at country funerals.

He was preëminently a funeral preacher. A negro funeral without an uproar, without shouts and groans, without fainting women and shouting men, without pictures of triumphant deathbeds and the judgment day, and without the gates of heaven wide open and the subjects of the funeral dressed in white and rejoicing around the throne of the Lamb, was no funeral at all. Jasper was a master from the outset at this work. One of his favourite texts, as a young preacher, was that which was recorded in Revelations, sixth chapter, and second verse: “And I saw and beheld a white horse; and he that sat upon him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.” Before the torrent of his florid and spectacular eloquence the people were swept down to the ground, and sometimes for hours many seemed to be in trances, not a few lying as if they were dead.

Jasper’s first visit to the country as a preacher of which we have any account was to Hanover County. A prominent and wealthy slaveholder had the custom of allowing his servants to have imposing funerals, when their kindred and friends died; but those services were always conducted by a white minister. In some way the fame of Jasper had penetrated that community, and one of the slaves asked his master to let Jasper come and attend the funeral. But to this the master made an objection. He knew nothing about Jasper, and did not believe that any negro was capable of preaching the Gospel with good effect. This negro was not discouraged by the refusal of the proprietor of the great plantation to grant his request. He went out and collected a number of most trustworthy and influential negro men and they came in a body to his master and renewed the plea. They told him in their way about what a great man Jasper was, how anxious they were to hear him, what a comfort his presence would be to the afflicted family, and how thankful they would be to have their request honoured. They won their point in part. He said to them, as if yielding reluctantly, “very well, let him come.” They however had something more to say. They knew Jasper would need to have a good reason in order to get his master’s consent for him to come, and they knew that Jasper would not come unless he came under the invitation and protection of the white people, and therefore they asked the gentleman if he would not write a letter inviting him to come. Accordingly, in a spirit of compromise and courtesy very pleasing to the coloured people, the letter was written and Jasper came.

The news of his expected coming spread like a flame. Not only the country people in large numbers, but quite a few of the Richmond people, made ready to attend the great occasion. Jasper went out in a private conveyance, the distance not being great, and, in his kind wish to take along as many friends as possible, he overloaded the wagon and had a breakdown. The delay in his arrival was very long and unexplained; but still the people lingered and beguiled the time with informal religious services.

At length the Richmond celebrity appeared on the scene late in the day. The desire to hear him was imperative, and John Jasper was equal to the occasion. Late as the hour was, and wearied as were the people, he spoke with overmastering power. The owner of the great company of slaves on that plantation was among his hearers, and he could not resist the spell of devout eloquence which poured from the lips of the unscholared Jasper. It was a sermon from the heart, full of personal passion and hot with gospel fervour, and the heart of the lord of the plantation was powerfully moved. He undertook to engage Jasper to preach on the succeeding Sunday and handed the blushing preacher quite a substantial monetary token of his appreciation.

The day was accounted memorable by reason of the impression which Jasper made. Indeed, Jasper was a master of assemblies. No politician could handle a crowd with more consummate tact than he. He was the king of hearts and could sway throngs as the wind shakes the trees.

There is a facetious story abroad among the negroes that in those days Jasper went to Farmville to officiate on a funeral occasion where quite a number of the dead were to have their virtues commemorated and where their “mourning friends,” as Jasper in time came to call them, were to be comforted. The news that Jasper was to be there went out on the wings of the wind and vast throngs attended. Of course, a white minister was present and understood that he was the master of ceremonies. The story is, that he felt that it would not be safe to entrust an occasion so vastly interesting to the hands of Jasper, and he decided that he would quiet Jasper and satisfy the public demands by calling on Jasper to pray. As a fact, Jasper was about as much of an orator in speaking to heaven as he was in speaking to mortal men. His prayer had such contagious and irresistible eloquence that whatever the Lord did about it, it surely brought quite a resistless response from the crowd. When the white preacher ended his tame and sapless address, the multitude cried out for Jasper. Inspired by the occasion and emboldened by the evident disposition to shut him out, Jasper took fire and on eagle wings he mounted into the heavens and gave such a brilliant and captivating address that the vast crowd went wild with joy and enthusiasm.

There is yet another story of a time when Jasper was called into the country where he and a white minister were to take part in one of the combined funerals so common at that time. Upon arriving at the church the white minister was unutterably shocked to find that his associate in the services was a negro. That was too much for him, and he decided on the spot that if he went in, Jasper would have to stay out, and he decided that he would go in and would stay in until the time was over and leave Jasper to his reflections on the outside. For two hours the white brother beat the air, killed time, and quite wearied the crowd by his lumbering and tiresome discourse. After he had arrived at the point where it seemed that no more could be said, the exhausted and exhausting brother closed his sermon and was arranging to end the service. But the people would not have it so. Tumultuously they cried out for Jasper,—a cry in which the whites outdid the blacks. It was not in Jasper to ignore such appreciation. Of all men, he had the least desire or idea of being snubbed or side-tracked. With that mischievous smile which was born of the jubilant courage of his soul, Jasper came forth. He knew well the boundaries of his rights, and needed no danger signals to warn him off hostile ground. For fifteen or twenty minutes he poured forth a torrent of passionate oratory,—not empty and frivolous words, but a message rich with comfort and help, and uttered only as he could utter it. The effect was electrical. The white people crowded around him to congratulate and thank him, and went away telling the story of his greatness.

Tradition has failed to give us the name of the ill-fated brother who in seeking to kill time, seemed to have got knocked into oblivion. It is worth while to say that the white ministers were within the law in attending occasions like those described above and felt the necessity of care and discretion in managing the exercises, lest the hostilities of irreligious people should be excited against the negroes. It is due to the white people, and especially to that denomination to which John Jasper was associated, to say that under their influence the negroes, who were practically barbarians when they were brought into the South, were civilized and Christianized. A large proportion of them were well-mannered and nobly-behaved Christians at the time their slavery ended. The church buildings were always constructed so that the white people and the negroes could worship in the same house. They were baptized by the same minister, they sat down together at the communion table, they heard the same sermons, sang the same songs, were converted at the same meetings, and were baptized at the same time. Ofttimes, and in almost all places, they were allowed to have services to themselves. In this, of course, they enjoyed a larger freedom than when they met in the same house with the white people.

They know little of the facts who imagine that there was estrangement and alienation between the negroes and the whites in the matter of religion. Far from it. There was much of good fellowship between the whites and negroes in the churches, and the white ministers took notable interest in the religious welfare of the slaves. They often visited them pastorally and gladly talked with them about their salvation. These chapters are not intended either to defend or to condemn slavery; but in picturing the condition of things which encompassed Jasper during the days of slavery, it is worth while to let it be understood that it was during their bondage and under the Christian influence of Southern people, that the negroes of the South were made a Christian people. It was the best piece of missionary work ever yet done upon the face of the earth.

Another fact should be referred to here. Jasper was a pastor in the City of Petersburg even before the breaking out of the Civil War. He had charge of one of the less prominent negro churches and went over from Richmond for two Sundays in each month. This, of course, showed the enlargement of his liberty, that he could take the time to leave the city so often in pursuance of his ministerial work.

It need hardly be mentioned that his presence in Petersburg brought unusual agitation. He fairly depopulated the other negro churches and drew crowds that could not be accommodated. When it was rumoured that Jasper was to preach for the first time on Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Dr. Keene, of the First Baptist Church, and many other white people attended. They were much concerned lest his coming should produce a disturbance, and they went with the idea of preventing any undue excitement. Jasper, flaming with fervid zeal and exhilarated with the freedom of the truth, carried everything before him. He had not preached long before the critical white people were stirred to the depths of their souls and their emotion showed in their weeping. They beheld and felt the wonderful power of the man. It is said that Dr. Keene was completely captivated, and recognized in Jasper a man whom God had called.

V “WHAR SIN KUM FRUM?”

My first sight of Jasper must always remain in the chapter of unforgotten things. The occasion was Sunday afternoon, and the crowd was overflowing. Let me add that it was one of his days of spiritual intoxication, and he played on every key in the gamut of the human soul.

Two questions had been shot at him, and they both took effect. The first had to do with creation. For a half hour he pounded away on the creatorship of God. His address was very strong and had in it both argument and eloquence. He marshalled the Scriptures with consummate skill, and built an argument easily understood by the rudest of his hearers; and yet so compact and tactful was he, that his most cultured hearers bent beneath his force.

But the second question brought on the pyrotechnics. It had to do with the origin of sin,—“Whar sin kum frum?”—as he cogently put it. It was here that a riotous liberty possessed him, and he preached with every faculty of his mind, with every passion and sentiment of his soul, with every nerve, every muscle, and every feature of his body. For nearly an hour the air cracked with excitement and the crowd melted beneath his spell. It was my first experience of that unusual power of his to move people in all possible ways by a single effort.

Jasper knew the fundamental doctrines of the Bible admirably, and always lived in vital contact with their essence. There was a kinship between the Bible and himself, and, untaught of the schools, he studied himself in the light of the Bible and studied the Bible in the darkness of himself. This kept him in contact with people and whenever he preached he invaded their experience and made conscious their wants to themselves. And so it came to pass that questions which perplexed them they had the habit of bringing to him. This question as to the origin of sin had been spurring and nagging some of his speculative hearers. They had wrangled over it, and they unloaded their perplexity upon him. So it was with this burden heavy upon him that he came to the pulpit on this occasion.

It may have been a touch of his dramatic art, but at any rate he showed an amiable irritation, in view of his being under constant fire from his controversial church-members, and so he started in as if he had a grievance. It gave pith and excitement to his bearing, as he faced the issue thus thrust upon him. As a fact, he knew that many inquirers sought to entangle him by their questions and this opened the way for his saying, with cutting effect, that they would do better to inquire, “whar sin wuz gwine ter kerry ’em, instid uv whar it kum frum.”

“An’ yer wants ter know whar sin kum frum, yer say. Why shud yer be broozin’ eroun’ wid sich a questun as dat? Dar ain’ but wun place in de univus uv Gord whar yer kin git any infermashun on dis pint, and dar, I am free ter tel yer, yer kin git all dat yer wish ter know, an’ maybe a good deal mo’. De place whar de nollidge yer need kin be got iz in de Word uv Gord. I knows wat sum dat hav’ bin talkin’ ’bout dis thing iz arter. I know de side uv de questun dey iz struttin’ up on. Dey say, or dey kinder hint, dat de Lord Gord iz de orthur uv sin. Dat’s wat dey iz wispurrin’ roun’ dis town. Dey can’t fool Jasper; but I tell you de debbul iz playin’ pranks on um an’ will drag um down ter de pit uv hell, ef dey doan luk out mity quick. De Lord Gord know’d frum de beginnin’ dat sum uv dese debbullish people wud bring up dis very charge an’ say dat He had tendid dat dar shud be sin frum de beginnin’. He done speak His mind ’bout dat thing, an’ ef yer luk in de fust chaptur uv Jeems yer’ll find de solum uttrunce on dis subjik an’ it kleers Gord furevur frum dis base slandur. ‘Let no man say,’ says de Lord, ‘wen he is temptid dat he is temptid uv Gord, fur Gord kin not be temptid uv any man, an’ neethur tempts He any man.’ Did yer hear dat? Dat’s de Lord’s own wurds. It spressly says dat people will be temptid,—everybody is temptid; I bin havin’ my temptashuns all my life, an’ I haz um yit, a heap uv um, an’ sum uv um awful bad, but yer ain’ ketchin’ Jasper er sayin’ dat Gord is at de bottum uv um. Ef I shud say it, it wud be a lie, an’ all iz liars wen dey say dat Gord tempts um? De sinnur is gettin’ towurds de wust wen he iz willin’ ter lay de blame uv hiz sins on de Lord. Do it ef yer will, but de cuss uv Gord will be erpun yez wen yer try ter mek de Lord Gord sich es you iz; an’ ter mek b’liev dat de Lord gits orf His throne an’ kums down in ter mire an’ clay uv your wicked life an’ tries ter jog an’ ter fool yer inter sin. I trimbul ter think uv sich a thing! I wonder dat de Lord duzn’t forge new thunderbolts uv Hiz rath an’ crush de heds uv dem dat charge ’im wid de folly uv human sin.

“Sum uv yer wud be mity glad ter git Gord mix’d up in yer sins an’ ter feel dat He iz es bad es you iz. It jes’ shows how base, how lost, how ded, you’se bekum. Wudn’t we hev a pritty Gord ef He wuz willin’ ter git out in de nite an’ go plungin’ down inter de horribul an’ ruinus transgresshuns in wich sum men indulg’. Let me kleer dis thing up befo’ I quit it. Bar in mine, dat Gord kin not be temptid uv any man. Try it ef yer chuze, an’ He will fling yer in ter de lowes’ hell, an’ don’t yer dar evur ter say, or ter think, or ter hope, dat de temtashun ter du rong things kum ter yer from Gord. It do not kum frum erbuv, but it kum out uv your foul an’ sinful hart. Dey iz born dar, born uv your bad thoughts, born uv your hell-born lusts, an’ dey gits strong in yer ’caus’ yer don’t strangul um at de start.

“But why shud dar be trubble ’bout dis subjic? Wat duz de Bibul say on dis here mattur ’bout whar sin kum frum? We kin git de troof out uv dat buk, fur it kuntains de Wurd uv Gord. Our Gord kin not lie; He nevur hav’ lied frum de foundashun uv de wurl’. He iz de troof an’ de life an’ He nevur lies.

“Now, wat do He say kunsarnin’ dis serus questun dat is plowin’ de souls uv sum uv my brudderin. Ter de Bibul, ter de Bibul, we’ll go an’ wat do we git wen we git dar? De Bibul say dat Eve wuz obur dar in de gardin uv Edun one day an’ dat she wuz dar by hersef. De Lord med Eve, ’caus’ it worn’t gud fer Adum ter be erloan, an’ it luks frum dis kase dat it wuz not quite safe fer Eve ter be lef at home by hersef. But Adum worn’t wid her; doan know whar he wuz,—gorn bogin’ orf sumwhars. He better bin at home tendin’ ter his fambly. Dat ain’ de only time, by a long shot, dat dar haz bin de debbul ter pay at home wen de man hev gorn gaddin’ eroun’, instid uv stayin’ at home an’ lookin’ arter hiz fambly.

“While Eve wuz sauntrin’ an’ roamin’ eroun’ in de buterful gardin, de ole sarpint, dyked up ter kill, kum gallervantin’ down de road an’ he kotch’d site uv Eve an’ luk lik he surpriz’d very much but not sorry in de leas’. Now yer mus’ kno’ dat ole sarpint wuz de trickies’ an’ de arties’ uv all de beas’ uv de feil’,—de ole debbul, dat’s wat he wuz. An’ wat he do but go struttin’ up ter Eve in a mity frien’ly way, scrapin’ an’ bowin’ lik a fool ded in luv.

“‘How yer do?’ He tries ter be perlite, an’ puts on hiz sweetes’ airs. Oh, dat wuz an orful momint in de life uv Eve an’ in de histurry uv dis po’ los’ wurl uv ours. In dat momint de pizun eat thru her flesh, struk in her blud, an’ went ter her hart. At fust she wuz kinder shame’; but she wuz kinder loansum, an’ she wuz pleas’d an’ tickl’d ter git notic’d in dat way an’ so she stay’d dar instid uv runnin’ fer her life.

“‘Ve’y wel, I thanks yer,’ she say ertremblin’, ‘how iz you dis mornin’?’ De sarpint farly shouts wid joy. He dun got her tenshun an’ she lek ter hear ’im, an’ he feel he got hiz chanz an’ so goes on:

“‘Nice gardin yer got dar,’ he say in er admirin’ way. ‘Yer got heap uv nice appuls obur dar.’

“‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ Eve replies. ‘We got lots uv um.’

“Eve spoke dese wurds lik she wuz proud ter deth ’caus’ de sarpint lik de gardin. Dar stood de sarpint ve’y quiut tel, suddin lek, he juk eroun’ an’ he says ter Eve:—

“‘Kin yer eat all de appuls yer got obur dar?’

“‘No, hindeed,’ says Eve, ‘we can’t eat um all. We got moar’n we kin ’stroy save our lives. Dey gittin’ ripe all de time; we hev jus’ hogshids uv um.’

“‘Oh, I didn’t mean dat,’ spoke de sarpint, es ef shock’d by not bein’ understud. ‘My p’int iz, iz yer ’low’d ter eat um all? Dat’s wat I want ter know. As ter yer laws an’ rites in de gardin, duz dey all sute yer?’

“Fer a minnit de ’oman jump’d same es if sumbudy struk her a blow. De col’ chils run down her bak, an’ she luk lik she wan ter run, but sumhow de eye uv de sarpint dun got a charm on her. Dar wuz a struggul, er reglur Bull Run battul, gwine on in her soul at dat momint.

“‘Wat yer ax me dat questun fur?’ Eve axed, gaspin’ w’ile she spoke. Den de debbul luk off. He tri ter be kam an’ ter speak lo an’ kine, but dar wuz a glar’ in hiz eyes. ‘I begs many parduns,’ he says, ’skuse me, I did not mean ter meddul wid yer privit buzniz. I’d bettur skuse mysef, I reckin, and try an’ git erlong.’

“‘No; doan go,’ Eve sed. ‘Yer havn’t hurt my feelin’s. Wat yer say jes’ put new thoughts in my min’ an’ kinder shuk me up at fust. But I doan min’ talkin’.’

“‘Ef dat be de kase,’ speaks up de debbul, quite brave-lek, ‘begs you skuse me ter ask agin ef de rules uv de gardin ’lows yer ter eat any uv dem appuls yer got in de gardin? I haz my reasuns fer axin’ dis.’

“Eve stud dar shivurrin’ lik she freezin’ an’ pale es de marbul toomstoan. But arter a gud wile she pint her han obur to er tree, on de hill on de rite, an’ she tel ’im, es ef she wuz mity ’fraid, dat dar wuz a tree obur dar uv de Nollidge an’ uv de Deestinxshun, an’ she say, ‘De Lord Gord He tel us we mus’ not eat dem appuls; dey pisun us, an’ de day we eat um we got to die.’

“Oh, my brudderin, worn’t times mity serus den? ’Twuz de hour wen de powurs uv darknis wuz gittin’ in an’ de foundashuns uv human hopes wuz givin’ way. Den it wuz he git up close ter Eve an’ wispur in her ear:—

“‘Did de Lord Gord tel yer dat? Doan tel nobody, but I wan’ ter tel yer dat it ain’t so. Doan yer b’liev it. Doan let ’im fool yer! He know dat’s de bes’ fruit in all de gardin,—de fruit uv de Nollidge an’ de Deestinxshun, an’ dat wen yer eats it yer will know es much es He do. Yer reckin He wants yer ter know es much es He do? Na-a-w; an’ dat’s why He say wat He do say. You go git um. Dey’s de choysis’ fruit in de gardin, an’ wen yer eats um yer will be equ’ul ter Gord.’

“Erlas, erlas! po’ deluded an’ foolish Eve! It wuz de momint uv her evurlastin’ downfall. Clouds uv darknis shrouds her min’ an’ de ebul sperrit leap inter her soul an’ locks de do’ behin’ him. Dat dedly day she bruk ’way frum de Gord dat made her, Eve did, an’ purtuk uv de fruit dat brought sin an’ ruin an’ hell inter de wurl’.

“Po’ foolish Eve! In dat momunt darknis fils her min’, evul leaps in ter er heart, an’ she pluck de appul, bruk de kumman uv Gord, and ate de fatul fruit wat brought death ter all our race.