Читать книгу The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church онлайн

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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 white members of St. George, and fighting the matter to the end?