270 SEPARATION OF CHURCHES. [CHAP. XIX. 



At the Methodist prayer-meetings, they are permitted to move 

 round rapidly in a ring, joining hands in token of brotherly love, 

 presenting first the right hand and then the left, in which ma- 

 nceuvre, I am told, they sometimes contrive to take enough exer 

 cise to serve as a substitute for the dance, it being, in fact, a kind 

 of spiritual boulanger, while the singing of psalms, in and out of 

 chapel, compensates in no small degree for the songs they have 

 been required to renounce. 



However much we may feel inclined to smile at some of these 

 outward tokens of conversion, and however crude may be the no 

 tions of the Deity which the poor African at first exchanges for 

 his belief in the evil eye and other superstitious fears, it is never 

 theless an immense step in his progress toward civilization that 

 he should join some Christian sect. Before he has time to ac 

 quire high conceptions of his Creator, or to comprehend his own 

 probationary state on earth, and his moral and religious duties, it 

 is no small gain that he should simply become a member of the 

 same church with his master, and should be taught that the 

 white and colored man are equal before God, a doctrine calcu 

 lated to raise him in his own opinion, and in that of the dominant 

 race. 



Until lately the humblest slave who joined the Methodist or 

 Baptist denomination could feel that he was one of a powerful 

 association of Christians, which numbered hundreds of thousands 

 of brethren in the northern as well as in the southern states. 

 He could claim many schools and colleges of high repute in New 

 England as belonging to his own sect, and feel proud of many 

 celebrated writers whom they have educated. Unfortunately, a 

 recent separation, commonly called &quot; the north and south split,&quot; 

 has severed these bonds of fellowship and fraternity, and for the 

 sake of renouncing brotherhood with slave-owners, the northern 

 churches have repudiated all communion with the great body of 

 their negro fellow Christians. What effect can such estrange 

 ment have on the mind, whether of master or slave, favorable to 

 the cause of emancipation ? The slight thrown on the aristo 

 cracy of planters has no tendency to conciliate them, or lead them 

 to assimilate their sentiments to those of their brethren in the 



