CHAP. XXXVI.] BLACK METHODIST CHURCH. 283 



I might simply have felt regret and melancholy at 

 much that I had witnessed ; as it was, I came out of 

 the church in a state of no small indignation. I had 

 heard, in the course of my travels, several discourses 

 equally at variance with the spirit of the Reformation, 

 but none before in which the Reformation itself was 

 so openly denounced, and I could not help reflecting 

 on the worldly wisdom of those who, wishing in the 

 middle of the nineteenth century, to unprotestantise 

 the members of a reformed church, begin their work 

 at an age when the mind is yet unformed and plastic 

 dealing with the interior of the skull as certain 

 Indian mothers dealt with its exterior, when they 

 bound it between flat boards, and caused it to grow 

 not as nature intended, but into a shape which suited 

 the fashion of their tribe. 



In the evening we were taken, at our request, to a 

 black Methodist church, w T here our party were the 

 only whites in a congregation of about 400. There 

 was nothing offensive in the atmosphere of the place, 

 and I learnt, with pleasure, that this commodious 

 building was erected and lighted with gas by the 

 blacks themselves, aided by subscriptions from many 

 whites of different sects. The preacher was a full 

 black, spoke good English, and quoted Scripture 

 well. Occasionally he laid down some mysterious 

 and metaphysical points of doctrine with a dogmatic 

 air, and with a vehement confidence, which seemed 

 to increase in proportion as the subjects transcended 

 the human understanding, at which moments he occa 

 sionally elicited from his sympathising hearers, es 

 pecially from some of the women, exclamations such 



