In South Carolina. 405 



name simply designates the race, and it is vulgar to 

 regard it with opprobrium. I have known and loved 

 and honored not a few negroes in my life, who were 

 probably as pure of heart as Evans, or anybody else. 

 Such were my old friends Castile Selby and John 

 Boquet, of Charleston, Will Campbell and Harry 

 Myrick, of Wilmington, York Cohen, of Savannah, 

 and others I might name. These I might call re- 

 markable for their goodness. But I use the word in 

 a broader sense for Henry Evans, who was confessed- 

 ly the father of the Methodist Church, white and 

 black, in Fayetteville, and the best preacher of his 

 time in that quarter, and who was so remarkable as to 

 have become the greatest curiosity of the town, inso- 

 much that distinguished visitors hardly felt that they 

 might pass a Sunday in Fayetteville without hearing 

 him preach. Evans was from Virginia ; a shoe-maker 

 by trade, and, I think, was born free. He became a 

 Christian and a Methodist quite young, and was 

 licensed to preach in Virginia. While yet a young 

 man, he determined to remove to Charleston, S. C, 

 thinking he might succeed best there at his trade. 

 But having reached Fayetteville on his way to Charles- 

 ton, and something detaining him for a few days, his 

 spirit was stirred at perceiving that the people of his 

 race in that town were wholly given to profanity and 

 lewdness, never hearing preaching of any denomina- 

 tion, and living emphatically without hope and with- 

 out God in the world. This determined him to stop 

 in Fayetteville, and he began to preach to the negroes 

 with great effect. The town council interfered, and 

 nothing in his power could prevail with them to per- 

 mit him to preach. He then withdrew to the sand- 

 hills, out of town, and held meetings in the woods. 



