An Unofficial PatriotGardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
History
An Unofficial Patriot
Gardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
Was Jerry an Episcopalian? Most assuredly! Were not all of the
Davenports members of the established order in all things? And was not
Jerry a Davenport? Not one negro on the whole plantation had ever for
one little moment thought of himself as other than an Episcopalian,--in
so far as the Almighty would permit one whose skin was black to be of
the elect. They one and all felt a real and eager pride in the social
and religious status of the Davenports, and had never even harbored
a doubt that they would be permitted to polish the harps and hold the
horses of that fortunate family when all should again be reunited in
that better world, where all might be free but not equal--for "as one
star differed from another," etc. No different dreams had ever, so far,
visited master or slave.
"I could never be happy in heaven without Jerry," had settled the
question in Griffith's mind, for of course his own destination was sure.
And the negro felt equally secure when he thought, "Mos' Grif ain't
gwine ter go nowhah widout me. Nobody else ain't gwine ter take cahr ob
him. Nobody else know how."
But the unsettling times which brought Methodism, in a great and
overwhelming wave, into the ranks of established things, brought also
mutterings and perplexities and awakenings of another sort. Aroused
energies, stimulated consciences, excited mentalities are ever likely to
find varying outlets. Progressive movements seldom travel singly, and
so it came about that, mingled with the new religious unrest, there
were other and, perhaps you will say, graver questions so inextricably
joined, in some minds that the one appeared to be the root and cause of
the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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