In the afternoon of my first Sabbath at Baltimore I found, after much
inquiry, a congregation of coloured people, who were some sort of
Methodists. My wife and I were the only white people in the place. We
were treated with great politeness, and put, not in a pew apart by
ourselves, but in one of the best places they could find, in the very
midst of the congregation. A serious-looking coloured man opened the
service, with great propriety of manner and expression. He was the
regular pastor. A black man, a stranger as I understood, preached. His
text (he said) was, "Behold, I come quickly;" and they would find it in
the Book of Revelation. But chapter and verse were not given, nor had
he the Bible open in Revelation at all. I suspected that he could not
read; and that suspicion was confirmed by the amount of nonsense which
he soon uttered. At first his words were "few and far between," uttered
in a tone of voice scarcely audible. Soon, however, he worked both
himself and his audience into a tremendous phrenzy. The burden of his
song was--how John had lived to a very great age, in spite of all
attempts to put him to death; how his enemies had at last decided to
try the plan of throwing him into a "kittle of biling ile;" how God had
said to him, "Never mind, John,--if they throw thee into that kittle,
I'll go there with thee,--they shall bile me too;" how John was
therefore taken up alive; and how his persecutors, baffled in all their
efforts to despatch him, ultimately determined to throw their victim
upon a desolate island, and leave him there to live or perish as he
might.
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