The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The religious condition of the South Carolina freedmen presents many
peculiar and interesting features. Whether, like the negroes in the 'old
North State,' they celebrated their new birth into freedom by services
of praise and thanksgiving at the altar, I have been unable to learn;
but certain it is, that the wonderful tranquillity of their sudden
transition from bondage, and the good use which they have made of their
liberty, are owing in great measure to their deep religious earnestness.
This earnestness, it is evident, is not the result of conviction or
enlightenment, so much as of the strong emotional nature of the blacks,
intensified by sympathy, and kept alive to religious feeling by their
frequent meetings for prayer and praise. Yet, to the careful observer,
the blind and often superstitious worship of these people, which, as is
now so plainly seen, was fostered by slavery, is one of the saddest
results of the system. Those who are now permitted to watch over the
religious progress of the freedmen, can bring new and abundant proof to
the assertion of De Tocqueville, that 'Christianity is a religion of
_freemen_.' The present opportunities for religious worship which the
freedmen enjoy consist of their 'praise meetings'--similar in most
respects to our prayer meetings--which are held two or three times a
week on the plantations, and the Sunday services at the various churches
scattered about the islands. These services are usually conducted by
white preachers, and are attended not only by the negroes, but also by
the superintendents, teachers, and many casual visitors from the camps.
At Beaufort and Hilton Head large and flourishing Sunday schools are in
operation. Most of the freedmen belong either to the Baptist or
Methodist denomination, and the fervor and zeal of the preachers of the
latter persuasion always find a response in the excitable and impulsive
nature of the blacks. It is not a little singular that, while Cochin can
write concerning the freedmen in the French colonies that 'the
_Catholic_ worship has incomparable attractions for the blacks,' we find
the negro in our own country everywhere attracted toward that sect of
Protestants which has always been the most powerful antagonist to
Romanism.
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