XXII The “Old African Church”
No description of the Richmond of the forties and fifties would be complete without a sketch of what was, if I mistake not, the first Baptist Church erected in the city. The white congregation that occupied it for some years had built a large, handsome church farther up the hill, and the squat, but spacious, house on the lower slope of Broad Street, was made over to the colored population.
I say “population” advisedly. For perhaps half a century, the Richmond negroes had no other place of public worship, and the communicants in that denomination were numbered by the thousand. They are an emotionally religious race, and I doubt if there were, all told, one hundred colored members of any other sect in the length and breadth of the county of Henrico.
The low-browed, dingy, brick edifice surrendered to their use was said to have a seating capacity of two thousand. It was therefore in demand when mass political meetings were convened. When John B. Gough lectured in our city, no other building could accommodate the crowds that flocked to see and hear him.
Big as it was, the house was filled every Sunday. There was a regular church organization in which deacons and ushers were colored. Of course the Pastor was a white. And oddly enough, or so it seemed to outsiders, the shepherd of the black flock was the President of Richmond College and Divinity School, situated upon the outskirts of the city.
His pastoral duties outside of his pulpit ministrations were not onerous. The Daughters of Zion, a flourishing society, looked after the sick and afflicted. There were no colored paupers under the slave system, except, once in a great while, “a no ’count free nigger.” This last word was never applied to a fellow-servant, but freely and disdainfully fitted to the unfortunate freedman.
I was never able to disabuse my mind of appreciation of the comic element in viewing the Rev. Robert Ryland, D.D. (and I am not sure but “LL.D.” as well), in his position as Pastor of the First African Church. He was a staid personage of middle age, who may have been learned. If he were, the incongruity was the more absurd. He was never brilliant. Nor had he the power of adapting himself to his audience that might have saved the situation in some measure. I heard him preach once to his dusky cure of souls. He began by saying, apropos to his text from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“Shortly after the Apostle’s departure from that place, there arose dissensions in the church at Co-rinth.”
A preamble that was greeted by appreciative groans from the women in the audience. As was the assertion, later on, in the same discourse, that—
“Christ may be called the Concrete Idea of our most holy Faith.” Still more pronounced was the murmured applause that succeeded the remark—“This may be true in the Abstract. It is not true in the Concrete.”
“Concrete” was a new word in philosophers’ mouths just then, and he worked it hard.
The anecdote of the parishioner who found “that blessed word ‘Mesopotamia’” the most comforting part of her minister’s sermon, is entirely credible if she were of African descent. Polysyllables were a ceaseless feast to their imaginations. Sesquipedalian periods were spiritual nectar and ambrosia. The barbaric and the florid were bound up in their nature, and the rod of an alien civilization could not drive it far from them.
In church relations, they recognized and revelled rankly in the levelling principle of Christianity which, within the sacred circle of the bonds of a common faith, made no invidious distinctions between bond and free. The staid D.D. was to them “Brer Ryland” on week-days, as on Sundays. I am sure it never occurred to the humblest of them that whatever of dignity pertained to the relation was his, by virtue of his holy calling, and they were honored in that their spiritual guide belonged to a superior race and was at the head of an institution of learning.
How freely they discussed him and his teachings, will be illustrated by a dialogue overheard by me in my early school-days.
I was walking behind two colored women one Sunday on my way home from church. They were evidently ladies’ maids, from their mincing speech and affected gait, and were invested with what was, as palpably, their mistresses’ discarded finery.
“Brer Rylan’ was quite too severe ’pon dancin’,” was the first sentence that caught my ear. “He is kinder hard ’pon innercint aversions, oncet in a while. You know we read in the Bible that the angels in heaven dance ’round the throne.”
“Yes,” assented the elder of the two, “an’ play ’pon jewsharps! But I’ve been heard that they don’ cross they feet, and that makes a mighty difference in the sin o’ dancin’. Of course, we all of us knows that it’s a sin for a Christyun to dance; but, as you say, Brer Rylan’ is downright oncharitable sometimes in talkin’ ’bout young folks’ ways and frolickin’. He will let them promenade to the music of the band when the students has parties at the college, but never a dancin’ step!”
“Not even,” with a shrill giggle, “if they don’t cross they feet?”
As time whitened the good man’s hair and brought heavier duties to his head and hands, he fell into the habit of delegating the afternoon service at the “Old African” to his neophytes in the Divinity School. He may have judged rightly that it was excellent practice for the ’prentice hand of embryo pulpit orators. One of the brightest of these, who afterward made good the promise of distinguished usefulness in the Southern Church, was the officiating evangelist on a certain Sunday afternoon, when a lively party of girls and collegians planned to attend the “Old African,” in a body, and witness his maiden performance.
He knew we were coming, and why, but he uttered not a word of protest. As he said afterward, “The sooner he got used to mixed audiences, the better.”
What were known as the “Amen benches,” at the left of the pulpit, were reserved for white auditors. They were always full. On this afternoon they were packed tightly. The main body of the church was also filled, and we soon became aware that an unusual flutter of solemn excitement pervaded the well-dressed throng. The front block of seats on each side of the middle aisle was occupied by women, dressed in black, many of them closely veiled, and pocket-handkerchiefs were ostentatiously displayed, generally clasped between black-gloved hands folded upon the pit of the stomach.
“Reminds one of a rising thundercloud!” whispered a graceless youth behind me.
Presently a deacon, likewise lugubrious in aspect, tiptoed into the pulpit, where sat the young theologue, and, holding his silk hat exactly upon the small of his back in the left hand, bent low in offering the right to the preacher.
The subdued rustle and shuffling, incident to the settling into place of a large congregation, prevented us from hearing the low colloquy that succeeded the handshake. We had it in full from one of the actors, that evening.
The functionary began by expressing the gratification of the congregation that “Brer Rylan’ had sent such a talentable young gentleman to ’ficiate ’pon dis occasion.
“We been heerd a-many times of what a promisin’ young gentleman Brer W. is, an’ we is certainly mightily flattered at seein’ him in our midst ’pon dis occasion. I jes’ steps up here, suh, to say dis, an’ to arsk is dere anything any of us ken do to resist Brer W. ’pon dis occasion.”
“Thank you, nothing!” responded the other, courteously. “You are very kind. The choir will take care of the music, as usual, I suppose?”
“Suttinly, suh, suttinly! De choir am always dependable ’pon every occasion. An’ dey has prepared special music for dis solemn occasion.”
Reiteration of the word had not aroused the listener’s curiosity. The last adjective, and the tone in which it was brought out, awoke him wide.
“Solemn!” he re-echoed. “Is there anything special in the services of to-day?”
The hand grasping the silk hat executed a half-circle in the air that seemed to frame the black-robed block of sitters for the startled youth.
“Yaas, suh! Surely Brer Rylan’ must ’a’ told Brer W. de nature of our comin’ togedder to-day! It’s a funeral, suh. De dear departed deceasted nigh ’pon two mont’ ago, but we haven’t foun’ it agreeable, as you mought say, to all parties concerned, fur to bring all de family an’ frien’s together tell ter-day. But dey are here now, suh, as you may see fur yourself. An’ we are moughty pleased dat Brer Rylan’ has sont sech a ’sponsible preacher to us as Brer W.”
“Mercy, man!” gasped the affrighted novice, clutching frantically at the notes he had been conning when the deacon accosted him. “I knew nothing of the funeral when I came. I can’t preach a funeral sermon out of hand! There isn’t anything about death in my notes.”
His distress wrought visibly upon the deacon’s sympathies. The hat described a reassuring parabola.
“There, there! It ain’t necessary for Brer W. to discombobberate himself ’pon dat account. A young gentleman of Brer W.’s talents needn’t get skeered at a little thing like an ev’ry-day funeral. All dat Brer W. has to do is to say a few words ’bout de dear deceasted; ’bout de loss to de church, an’ de family, an’ frien’s, an’ de suttinty o’ death, an’ de las’ change. An’ den a few rousements, you know, throwed in at de end. Law! I ken hear Brer W. doin’ it up fine, when I think on it!
“Dar! de choir is a-startin’ de funeral anthim. Thank you, suh, fur comin’ to us, and don’t give yo’self no oneasiness! Sling in dem remarks ’spectin’ de dear deceasted, and you’ll be all right.”
I forget the text of the sermon that followed the anthem and the prayer. I but know that neither it, nor the introduction, had any relevancy to the “occasion.” Our friend became a brilliant speaker in later life. Now, he was no more sophomoric than are nine-tenths of seminary students. But as he went on, we—in the slang of this era—began to sit up and take notice; for with dexterity remarkable in a tyro, he switched off from the main line into a by-road that led, like the paths of glory, to the grave. He had fine feeling and a lively imagination, and the scene and the music had laid hold upon both. As he confessed, subsequently, he surprised himself by his intimate acquaintance with the departed brother. He dwelt upon his fidelity to duty, his devotion to the Church of his love, and what he had done for her best interests. Singling out, as by divination, the widow, whose long crêpe veil billowed stormily with audible sobs, he referred tenderly to her loneliness, and committed her and the fatherless children to the Great Father and Comforter of all. By this time the congregation was a seething mass of emotion. Fluttering handkerchiefs, sighs that swept the church like fitful breezes, and suppressed wails from the central block of reserved seats, drowned the feeling peroration, but we guessed the purport from the speaker’s face and gestures.
As he sat down, the audience arose, as one woman, and broke into a funeral chant never written in any music-book, and in which the choir, who sang by note, took no part:
“We’ll pass over Jordan, O my brothers, O my sisters! De water’s chilly an’ cold, but Hallelujah to de Lamb! Honor de Lamb, my chillun, honor de Lamb!”
This was shouted over and over, with upraised arms at one portion, and, as the refrain was repeated, all joined hands with those nearest to them and shook from head to foot in a sort of Dervish dance, without, however, raising the feet from the floor. It was such an ecstatic shiver as I saw thirty-odd years thereafter, when a Nubian dancer gave an exhibition in a private house in the suburbs of Jerusalem.
I shall have more to say of that chant presently. Return we to the orator of the occasion, whose extemporaneous “effort” had stirred up the pious tumult.
As soon as his share of the service was over, he slipped out of the box-pulpit and sidled through the throng to the corner where we were grouped, watching for a chance to make our exit without attracting the attention of the worshippers. He had just reached us when the quick-eyed, fleet-footed deacon was at his side. We overheard what passed between them.
“Brer W., suh, I come to thank you in the name o’ de bereaved fam’ly of de dear deceasted, suh, for yo’ powerful sermon dis arternoon. Nothin’ could ’a’ been better an’ mo’ suitabler. Dey all agree on dat ar’ p’int, suh. Every one on ’em is puffickly satisfied! You couldn’t ’a’ done no better, suh, ef you ’a’ had a year to get ready in.”
Poor W., red to the roots of his fair hair, murmured his thanks, and the sable official was backing away when he recollected something unsaid:
“Dar was jes’ one little matter I mought ’a’ mentioned at de fust, suh (not dat it made no difference whatsomever; de fam’ly, maybe, wouldn’t keer to have me speak o’ sech a trifle), but de dear deceased was a sister!”
Then it was that W. turned an agonized face upon our convulsed group:
“For Heaven’s sake, is there a back door or window by which a fellow can get out of this place?”
The choir of the “Old African” was one of the shows of the city. Few members of it could read the words of the hymns and anthems. Every one of them could read the notes, and follow them aright. The parts were well-balanced and well-sustained. Those who have heard the Fisk University Jubilee singers do not need the assurance that the quality of the negro voice is rarely sweet and rich, and that, as a race, they have a passion for music. Visitors from Northern cities who spent the Sabbath in Richmond seldom failed to hear the famed choir of the Old African. On this afternoon, the then popular and always beautiful Jerusalem, My Happy Home, was rendered with exquisite skill and feeling. George F. Root, who heard the choir more than once while he was our guest, could not say enough of the beauty of this anthem-hymn as given by the colored band. He declared that one soloist had “the finest natural tenor he ever heard.”
But these were not the representative singers of the race. Still less should airs, composed by white musicians and sung all over the country as “negro melodies,” pass as characteristic. They are the white man’s conception of what the expatriated tribes should think and feel and sing.
More than thirty years after the maiden sermon of which I have written, our little party of American travellers drew back against the wall of the reputed “house of Simon the Tanner” in Jaffa (the ancient Joppa), to let a funeral procession pass. The dead man, borne without a coffin, upon the shoulders of four gigantic Nubians, was of their race. Two-thirds of the crowd, that trudged, barefooted, through the muddy streets behind the bier, were of the same nationality. And as they plodded through the mire, they chanted the identical “wild, wailing measure” familiar to me from my infancy, which was sung that Sunday afternoon to the words “We’ll pass over Jordan”—even to the oft-iterated refrain, “Honor, my chillun, honor de Lamb!”
The gutterals of the outlandish tongue were all that was unlike. The air was precisely the same, and the time and intonations.
We have taken great pains to trace the negro folk-lore back to its root. The musical antiquarian is yet to arise who will track to their home the unwritten tunes and chants the liberated negro is trying to forget, and to which his grandparents clung lovingly, all unaware that they were an inheritance more than a dozen generations old.
Trained choirs might learn “book music,” and scorn the airs crooned over their cradles, and shouted and wailed in prayer and camp meetings, by mothers and fathers. The common people held obstinately to their very own music, and were not to be shaken loose by the “notions” of “young folks who hadn’t got the egg-shells offen they hades.”
I asked once, during a concert given by students from Hampton Institute, if the leader would call upon them for certain of the old songs—naming two or three. I was told that they objected to learning them, because they were associated with the days of their bondage. I did not take the trouble to convince the spruce maestro that what I wished to hear were memorials of the days of wildest liberty, when their forbears hunted “big game” in their tangled native forests, and paddled their boats upon rivers the white man had never explored.