p. 634 | READY FOR A WHIPPING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 40.

READY FOR A WHIPPING.

Brother Fitzgerald, writing in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, on "The Negro Preacher before the War," among other interesting matter gives the following incident, one of many which cast a ray of sunlight among the somber and sometimes lurid shadows which overhung the pathway of those who were in bonds:—

The ante-bellum negro preachers were the product of the times, and differed from the mass of their race only in the fact that they were shrewder and more eloquent. Among them were many men of piety, good sense, and burning zeal. In others there was a combination of cunning, superstition, excitability, and volubility almost indescribable.

To the former class belonged a noted negro preacher of Culpepper County, Virginia—an old man of blameless life and venerable appearance, who so commanded the confidence of the white people, and whose influence with his own race was so wholesome, that no one thought of enforcing against him a statute then existing, which required that at any gathering where six or more negroes were assembled a white man should be present. Despite this statute, Uncle Jack came and went as he pleased, trusted by the whites, and venerated by the blacks.

At one of his meetings a party of mischievous young white men planned to have a little fun at the old man's expense. Waiting near the door of the rustic chapel until the service was concluded, the party approached the old preacher, and their spokesman said: "Old man, we are officers of the law, patrolling this beat. You have violated the law, and we are going to whip you for it. Come along with us."

They led the way to a thicket near at hand, Uncle Jack following in silence.

"Have you nothing to say, old man?" asked the spokesman.

"Nothing, marster," said Uncle Jack.

"Perhaps you think we don't really intend to whip you," said the young man; "but we will. Have you nothing to say to that?"

"No, sir," said Uncle Jack; "I have nothing to say. The fact is, marsters, I have often wondered that I have never been whipped before. St. Paul was a much better man than I am, and they whipped him almost everywhere he went. I have preached much longer than he did, and never had a whipping in my life. Seems to me, young marsters, that I ought to have at least a few licks."

The young scapegraces looked at each other in confusion, and it is needless to say Uncle Jack was not whipped.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath;" and a little of Uncle Jack's humility might be useful to many a preacher.—The Christian.