The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal ChurchHagood, L. M. (Lewis Marshall)
History
The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church
Hagood, L. M. (Lewis Marshall)
African American Methodists; Methodist Episcopal Church
I preached wherever
I could find an opening. I established prayer-meetings; I raised a
society in 1786 of forty-two members. I saw the necessity of erecting a
place of worship for the colored people of the city; but here I met
opposition. But three colored brethren united with me in erecting a
place of worship.”
Now let us rest and contemplate for a moment the situation. Here we find
a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church was invited by the
pastor and presiding elder of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church to
come to the city, and preach to his congregation at an usual hour for
service, five A.M. He came; success attended his labors. He then,
encouraged by success, began going hither and thither to preach in the
city. He, of course, found a following. What effort of the kind was ever
made that did not find a following? Does it appear a repetition of the
story of Absalom? But let us not stop now to consider that phase of it.
In St. George’s Church, though welcomed, he “found it a cross to preach”
there. Why was it a cross to preach the gospel there? Have we not in the
above sentence a key to the entire situation? Was it not the effort to
avoid having to preach to those who had formed an idea of what a sermon
should be from the ministrations of the pulpit of St. George’s Church
that brought about the other complaints? Do not such things grow? Rev.
Richard Allen had preached but a short time to his “African brethren”
until a _necessity_ for a separate Church arose. He says himself that
the leading colored members refused to go with him. It was natural,
therefore, that the above-mentioned _necessity_ would arise. Why was it
that, as he determined to form another society and erect a church, when
he presented the project “to the most respectable colored people of
Philadelphia, they bitterly opposed it?” Now, if it was entirely
regular, Christ-like, and therefore right, why was it that but three
colored men—Absalom Jones, William White, and Darius Ginnings—would
unite in that project? Rev. Richard Allen says: “These united with me as
soon as it became public and known by the elder, who was stationed in
the city.” Why this secrecy? Who were instigating, abetting, and
encouraging Richard Allen in this move? Let us suppose it was members of
another denomination in that city, or some of the white members of St.
George’s Church. They could only have taken sides and pushed the matter,
because, (1) They opposed meeting and worshiping with colored people,
and could use him—Mr. Allen—to help them; or, (2) They opposed the
pastor of St. George’s Church, and wanted a complaint against him; or,
(3) They believed the colored members of St. George’s Church were being
imposed upon by the white members; or, (4) They wished to germinate
schism within St. George’s Church. If the colored members were being
imposed upon, could Mr. Allen not have remedied the matter by remaining
and combining the strength of the imposed upon with that of the good
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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