c





Confessions
of a
Negro Preacher





Confessions
of a
Negro Preacher

1928
THE CANTERBURY PRESS
CHICAGO


CVi7
COPYRIGHT 1928
by
THE CANTERBURY PRESS
in
U. 8. A. ud Great Britain

Printed in United State* of America


h« " <-
5 hit** ~ . .
Contents
CHAPTll
L In the White Folks' Yard ' *'
II. Andrew Shaver *
III. The First Sermon * * * * *
IV. The Girl on the Train * ' ''
V. Out on the Harvest Landscape
VI. With His Pen in His Hand ' ' -
VII. A Poetic Visitor
VIII. The Glad Blaze of the Fire ' ''
IX. The Girl in the Elevator * ' ''
X. Mrs. Hester * ' * * * * * *
XI. Prayed With Him
XII. Shrieking Down the Road' * ''
XIII. Looked Upon a Poet' ' ' ' ''
XIV. Markeet
XV. Brother Holcomb * * * * * *
XVI. His Strange Perfume
XVII. A Bible Lying on the Grass '''
XVIII. A Man Without Emotion '''
XIX. Two Notable Men * * * ' * *
XX. A Keen Investor
XXI. The Essence of a Visitor ' * *'
XXII. A Pencil Scrawl
XXIII. Brushed off a Bug
XXIV. Another Interview * * * * * *
XXV. In Brother Simon's Church * ''
XXVI. Conclusion ' * * * * * ' -





Confesssions





CONFESSIONS
NEGRO PREACHER
Chapter I.
In the White Folks' Yard
T WAS born on a plantation where my grandfather
had been a slave. It was said that I was the blackest
of ten children, brought forth and reared in a cabin at
the corner of the yard, a pathway leading to the "big
house," the name by which the master's dwelling,
though it may not have been much larger than a hut,
was known. My grandfather's master, however, lived
in a mighty castle, it seemed to me, for one of my early
bits of information was that it contained five rooms.
About it there was a grove of cedar trees wherein blue
jays and yellowhammers made their home in winter,
heralding with loud rapture the first Christmas morn'
ing that I can recall.
Our "white fo'ks" were, I know, typical of the qual'
ity families of the State of Georgia. The man who but
for the Lincoln edict of freedom, would have been my
master was one of the first prohibition candidates to


2 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
receive the reward of office, going proudly to the leg'
islative hall where he made so effective a speech on
unjust taxation that he was mentioned as a possible
governor of the Commonwealth. At this time I was
a "good chunk of a nigger," as the saying went, and
though I did not call him "Mars John," except when I
might solicit an especial favor, yet there lingered in the
air a convincing breath that he was my master, nor
was he ever disposed to convince me otherwise. He
was well into maturity while I was yet but little more
than a child; and in a measure regarding me as a piece
of property out of which he had been cheated, he felt
that I was nearer to him than the average creature of
my color. Sometimes he would deign to give unto me
his opinions.
"I hear that you are going to school and that you
are trying to talk like a white boy. But remember that
the Lord made you a nigger and that you can never
get away from that fact."
Ah, and how bitterly I had realized it! The first
prayer I ever improvised was that the Lord might turn
me into a white child. Out of my bed in the dark of a
moonless night I crept to offer this petition. In the cold
ashes of the big fireplace I knelt and prayed, and so
deep was my faith that suddenly I felt that I was white.
Through my veins a cooler blood was flowing and I
rejoiced in the truth that no longer could I be re
proached for being a Negro. I could hear my mother


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 3
gently breathing in her sleep, and now a sadness came
upon me: I was white but she was to remain black.
Would it be asking too much of the Lord to whiten
her skin too, I wondered! Yes, I was afraid so, but
I would love my mother just as much as if she were of
the hue of the lily. Two of my brothers were living
in the cabin, but they were roysterers, caring nothing
as to whether they were white or black; nor made it
any difference to me as to my father, a man of not
much account I was made to know, bench'legged and
called a Guinea nigger. I must withdraw from close
association with brothers, married sisters and of even
my father, but I would continue to sit in my mother's
lap and to love her, for never was there a more blessed
saint. Back to bed I crept, my heart singing, "Bleeged
ter de Lawd," a hymn; slept in happy dreaming, sprang
up with the coming of daylight to tell mother that I
should always love her though I might marry the pret'
tiest white girl in the neighborhood. My brothers
snorted and father, turning about from kindling a fire,
cried out:
"Shet dat black mouf ur de white fo'ks hang you
ter er tree."
"Fo* w'y da wan' hang me w'n Ah's white ez
da is?"
Mother had begun to croon a hymn, a habit with
her when trouble began to brew, and one of my broth'
era, snatching up a fragment of mirror, brought it to


4 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
me and told me to look at myself. I did, looked, shud'
dered, swore an oath that I had heard the "Guinea nig'
ger" employ, and was an atheist until the love of my
mother brought me back to faith. In her sweet and
celestial ignorance she had a veneration for learning.
How she acquired it I could never learn: it was born
within her. She loved the music of words, and would
make them melodious in her imitation of the educated
white woman whom she had heard talk at meetings
often held in the "big house." Of all her children,
though the blackest, I was her favorite; and I can rc
call that away back in my toddling infancy she im'
pressed upon me the value of education. That I should
be a preacher was her ambition.
"Git it out'n yo' haid that you kin eber be white,"
she would say to me when we were alone. "De Book,
it say dat de Eferopian kain't change de color o' his
skin an' dat de leopard kain't git rid o' his spots. But
de Eferopian what you is one kin drink from de cup o'
larnin' whut de Lawd may offer, an' dat's whut you
mus' do."
On one occasion my father came upon the scene and
scolded her for putting foolishness into my head.
"Whut you tell him gwine git him inter trouble," he
warned her. "De white fo'ks b'lebes dat de mos' dan'
gersome thing in de world is er edycated nigger, an'
dat de bes' thing da kin do fur him is ter hang him up.
De bes' thing fur dis boy is ter work."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 5
Thus was I made to know that education, that some
thing which distinguishes the white man, was not for
me. But the yearning to be like the white boy was
born in my soul. It was not an imitation; it was an in'
spired ambition, and it seems to have been known of
me by mother before I recognized it within myself.
My grandfather lived well into my life. He was a
sage. In showy sentiment of his having been a slave on
the place "Mars John" built for him a neat cottage
among the trees. The old man was a cobbler. His work
room he termed the "parlor," and herein he would sit
and labor, seeing quite as effectively with the tips of
his fingers as with his eyes; sit and tell stories to the
children, white and black, gathered about him. He not
only believed in ghosts but had talked with them, the
ghosts keeping up with him as he ran. After a time
he found that it was of no use to run from them, so he
often engaged them in converse as he sat on a log in
the woods. The spirit of his grandfather who had been
brought in chains from Africa, told him that the Ne-
groes, all of them, would be freed and that one day a
Negro would own a bank. This was the highest func
tion to which any human being could aspire. Gran''
dad knew that it was the Negro's sense of humor and
his emotional love of tune that had kept him from be
coming desperate or insane. Out of melody came the
resigned conviction that the Lord may have imposed
slavery in punishment committed by the black man


6 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
along about the time when Noah's grape vine sprouted.
But the Lord would forgive the Negro and give unto
him a bank, and the angels would smile when the white
man came to implore the loan of money. That the
Negro should eventually be a great lawyer, president
of the country, all came out of the fact that he was
to stand behind an array of money put up in packages.
The old fellow loved the sound of big words but be
lieved that education sapped the tree of character.
There was no record to show that the old prophets had
lazied away their time with books in school. Solomon,
the wisest of men, had not gone to a college such as
"Mars John" attended. Therefore, whenever I spoke
my yearning for what I would now term culture, the
old man would seek to frown me into a state of hu'
mility.
"You pray ter de Lawd an' He gib you all de wis'
dom you need," he would advise me. "You'se yeard
me speak o' er gal named Ann dat I once wuz in lub
wid. I had two wives on de plantations at de time,
but I put 'em er side fur her. But whut she do? She
tuck up wid er nigger dat had worked 'roun' er col'
lege till he could write big wid er goose pen an' po'k'
berry ink. Den whut? He 'gins ter write wid black
ink, forged er check an' da sent him ter de penny
tenchy."
I protested that the Negro preachers, the best of
them, could read and write, but the old man always


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
7
gave to me a warning shake of the head. "Dat mout
be but you kain't be er preacher. Yo' lips is thick but
not thick er nuff. Ah'se noticed dat de gospel it comes
best w'en it bubbles frum thick lips. Den it peer ter
hab mo' tune ter it."
From these talks I would return to my mother,
bowed with grief. And then, God bless her soul, her
angelic spirit lifted my leaden heart. "Neber mine,
honey, you gwine ter school jes de same. Yo' lips is
plenty thick fur er preachers. De good book ez, it is
read ter me, doan say notion' bout thick lips. Yo'
gran'daddy has de cuis notions o' de age dat has come
on him. An' he talk er bout thick lips ter praise his'
se'f. You git de books inter yo' haid an' da'll take
kere 0' yo' lips all right. Er school fur de culled chil'
lun has jes been started at de cross roads, an' Ah gwine
ter see ter it dat you one o' de fust dat git inter de
house."
Thus she settled it that I was to go to school. The
teacher was a white man from Kansas, a country
which we imagined was a land lying remotely beyond
the seas. He was tall, what we called rawboned, and
must have been as brave as Caesar. The white men
ignored him except as to a warning that if he dis'
cussed with his pupils the politics of the neighborhood,
his neck would be made to answer. The first feature
of his learning was to us the harshness of his accent.
But there was music in his mind, a harmony, and we


8 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
listened to its rhapsodies. From the first day he arv
peared to take an interest in me. Perhaps it was
prompted by a question I put to him: "If I learn the
book will my soul be white like Bob Thayer's?"
Vividly do I at this moment see his smile. "Who is
Bob Thayer, and why is his soul whiter than yours?"
"He is a white boy and his father owns a bank. Once
he spoke to me and it made me proud. Then I dug
some fish worms for him and told him I would go along
to bait his hook. He laughed and said he'd bet I'd
spit on the hook after I'd baited it. I replied that I
would, for my grandfather said that was the way to
attract the fish."
The Kansas man looked closely at me. "You seem
to speak less in dialect than the others. Have you been
closely associated with white children?"
"No, but I listen to them when I hear them talk
and remember what they say. It is tune to me."
I spoke more in dialect than I here set down, but the
teacher had noted a difference between my talk and the
talk, for instance, of Gabe Smith, and therein lay a
soothing flattery. Gabe was a nappy head that benched
with me, a desk in front of us. He had been whipped
by a gardener for stealing watermelons; and I recol'
lect that a sympathetic white man came forward and
gave him twentyfive cents together with the humor'
ous assurance that a boy who wouldn't steal a water-
melon was not only a hypocrite, but would steal the


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 9
money appropriated for a pauper's funeral. One day
just after recess when we had seen a Mayday proces'
sion of white girls marching in a laughing swirl down
the road, Gabe whispered to me: "One deze days I
gwine git me er white gal." And I often wondered if
I was inspired when I answered him: "Fse heard white
boys say dat the black gal is better 'cause her kiss got
more juice in it."
Poor old animal Gabe. Years afterward,
with trembling hands I held a newspaper to read that
he had been tied to a stake and burnt.


Chapter II.
Andrew Shaver
/"\ UR teacher was, as many a man has found himself
to be, an educated failure. He had learned the gra-
cious nonessentials of life, but the vital forces of sue
cess were beyond his grasp. This I know now, but
then in that sprouting seed time of my mind, I imag-
ined him a power holding himself in willful subjection,
thinking to serve God by humbly giving his talents
toward the help of the Negro. To me as I advanced,
he was the master of every literary grace, but now I
know that he was but an echo. One day he came home
with me to see my mother. He told her that it was
his desire to talk with the maternal parent of so bright
and apt a boy. She flinched at his accent, but soon
was charmed with his commendation of me. Thus he
began:
"Your son, Madam"
She cut him off with an exultant cry: "Oh, I
dreamed dat one deze days I gwine be called Madam."
Smiling upon her innocence he continued: "I do not
see why you should not be so addressed. The Lord
must know that in this narrow world of yours you


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
11
have performed your duty. You have ambition for
your son, and that is a mother's divine inspiration.
Your buoyant heart"
"Keep up dem big words, Mistah; da's music ter
me.
Now he looked puzzled. "I did not realize that I
was speaking big words. It is not music but ideas that
I wish to convey. I came to talk to you about the
future of your boy and I trust that you may not only
catch my tune but my meaning. I am a man of expc
rience, acquired and you might say inherited. My
grandfather was one of the first men to espouse the
cause of John Brown and to offer him his life."
She knitted her brow over the name John Brown.
He saw that she had not caught his meaning and in as
simple phrases as he could employ, he explained to her
that Brown had not only inspired Lincoln, but even'
tually the entire North. Tears came to her eyes when
vaguely she recalled that the pioneer emancipator had
been hanged, and wiping them away with her apron,
she said:
"But you wuz gwine ter talk ter me 'bout my po'
little boy."
"Little boy now, Madam, but he is not to remain
as such, and my word for it, not always to be pitied as
being poor. He has a soul."
"Yas, sah, dat whut de book say tz da has read it
ter me."


12 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"Perhaps, however, they have not read to you that
your son is far beyond the ordinary youth. I warrant
that not in this community is there a white boy with
so keen a zest for learning, which means that he is to
make his mark in life."
"Ez er preacher o' de Lawd's word," she interjected.
"Yes, it may come to that. And my advice is that
every effort be made to send him after a while to a
school of higher learning, a college."
"Den, Mistah, Ah mout not be able ter un'erstan'
whut he say, but Ah'd be proud o' him an' die er
praisin' o' de Lawd."
And when the years had passed she died praising
the Lord. From the room wherein she was breathing
out her short hour of existence she banished all except
me, and holding my hands she lay, looking into my
eyes, the film of death curtaining her own. I wish that
I could put her look into words. I know that it would
be a hymn set to melody by the heart throbs of the
Saviour. She died almost alone in her old and decay
ing log cabin, but nearly every Negro in the broad'
spreading community attended her funeral, and fring'
ing the black throng were white ladies who loved her,
yea, and little girls with their pink and yet saddened
cheeks, all of them remembering the lovable and saint-
like qualities of the poor old black creature whom they
were lowering into the ground
It may be seen before I have progressed very far into


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 13
these, my reminiscences, that I must be careful in the
use of names, but I hesitate not to give the name of my
Kansas teacher, Andrew Shaver. He took me by the
hand to lead me from the funeral nor did he turn from
me when he observed that several white men were look'
ing at him. I understood and sought to withdraw
my hand, glancing a warning up at him; but he smiled
down upon me, and spoke low of tone:
"Don't be afraid, my poor boy. They are ignorant
louts."
"I am not afraid, sir, for myself."
"But afraid for me. You are a brave and unselfish
little fellow."
In gratitude for these words I could have knelt at
his feet and I believe that I should have done so had
he not kept so tight a grip of my hand. After a time
we came to a place where our pathways diverged. He
turned from me and had walked a short distance, leav
ing me standing still, when he faced about and spoke:
"You must not go back to that lonely cabin. Its walls
are hung with grief, and the fireplace is but a tomb.
Come, you must go with me."
I stood with bowed head, unable to speak; and by
the hand he took me again and led me to the place that
he called his home. As he had been banished from all
association with the whites he lived in a hut, neigh'
bored with Negroes. He had termed it a hut, built
as it was of sticks and clay, but it was covered with


14 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
vines, with flowers blooming on the top of its stack
chimney, and to me it was a temple. It was portioned
off into three small rooms, one containing his books, a
mighty assembly it seemed to me, but now I know that
they could have been loaded upon a push cart. My
apartment was a mere kennel, but from it I could look
into the library, the white man's mystery of learning
and superiority; and I recall, or rather I can still see
myself lying on a cornhusk couch holding out my hands
toward those tomes of promise, believing that should
I ever master them I might not be only a banker but
a preacher moving strong men to tears.
Not more than three steps from us stood Aunt
Silvy's cabin. Having had as many as six husbands it
was her boast that she knew "Mistah Nigger." She
and my mother had been associated somewhat, but I
could not have termed them sisters without a disagree
ment. I remember having heard my mother tell her
that so bountiful a harvest of marriage surely did not
please the Lord; but Silvy had her wits about her, de
daring that she had not woven a hundredth part as
many family ties as Solomon; and besides she had kept
two of her husbands out of the penitentiary, saving all
except one from being hanged.
In my new home I was gradually relieved of the
heaviness of sorrow. Ambition is more sinewy than
grief; it is stronger and more enduring because it builds
while grief can do naught save to molder. Old Silvy


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 15
could not have put it into words but shrewdly she ob-
served it all, for once when at table Shaver was giving
me bits of learning, she said to him:
"You puts me in mine o' er pusson er feedin bits o'
candy ter er puppy, settin' him up wid er false appe
tite.
She believed that it was dangerous for a Negro to
sip the honey from the blossoms of books, the Lord
having designed for him a coarser food, and more than
once she told me that if I were her son she would take
a plow line and larrup Satan's nonsense out of me.
She was a widow and was too old now to marry again,
so the Lord told her, she affirmed; but once when a
Negro preacher, looking for a ham'hock and hoecake,
came along she brightened her eyes at him and wruv
kled him a smile. A few days later she was married
in our church, the husband preaching to us after the
ceremony. Three days later, Sunday, we were sitting
beneath our broad'spreading tree, the preacher with his
back toward the yard gate, when along the road came a
yellow woman carrying a big black'snake whip in her
hand. The bride arose as the wayfarer came into the
yard, the preacher getting up too, but not quickly
enough to avoid the lash of the whip, whirled by this
saffron fury. She cornered him where the henhouse
and corncrib joined and whipped him until he dropped
upon his knees and begged for mercy. She tied the
long cracker of the whip about his neck and led him


16
Confessions of a Negro Preachbr
away; and Aunt Silvy, after looking at them as they
departed, turned about with a sigh. "Ah thought dar
wuz suthin' wraung wid dat nigger an' Ah only mar-
ried him on 'spicion."
Gently my teacher rebuked me for laughing. "You
may smile at your own distress but never at the dis-
tress of others," he said. "Come, let us walk down
the road, and in our strolling, forget as best we may
the weaknesses of humanity."
He was given to long seasons of silence, thinking
with his brow wrinkled. Once he told me that he was
seeking to look into his own soul, which, I have long
since learned, is a way that we have of flattering our'
selves. We urge that we are on the crest of a thrilling
discovery, but time passes and we yawn. Now he
walked leaning forward, looking down upon human
nature.
"Boy, do you know what marriage is, both white
and black?"
I strove to inquire as to why there should be any
difference between black and white marriages, and in'
tercepting me he said: "You mean intermarriage among
blacks and whites?"
"No, sir, I mean"
I could proceed no further. "Oh, you mean mar'
riage as an idealism."
I knew not the meaning of the word, but I said, "Yes
sir, that is what I mean."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
17
"Well, boy, grow up and let it alone. In nine cases
out of ten it is a disappointment. We marry what we
conceive to be a painting and soon find it to be a crude
photograph. A poverty'stricken woman may love her
child, but it is almost impossible for her to love her hus'
band. Woman loves strength rather than weakness,
and she cannot but look upon poverty as a weakness:
I ought to know."
I asked him whether he had a wife living, and he
answered: "Living, yes, but dead to me. I married a
wild'briar rose of the plains. She told me that she
would endure all things and conditions for my sake.
She said, and taught me to believe when she said it,
that a kiss was of more worth than money, two souls
meeting. And within a month's time she left me and
went with a man whose oil wells were spouting."
"But are all women like she was?" I asked.
"Boy, I am forced to say that I believe so."
"No, sir," I cried. "My mother would not have left
my father."
"Ah, but perhaps your mother was more than
woman: from what I have heard of her she was truly
a saint."
Two white ladies, horseback, came slowly cantering
toward us, one of them giving to me a sharp but not
unkindly look, and a moment later I heard her say to
her companion: "That black boy has remarkable fea'
tures. His nose is not Negro, but Egyptian."


18
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"A woman made pedantic by recent travel," my
teacher said, and I requested of him to explain the
word which he proceeded to do, though my mind was
not on his explanation but upon what the gentle lady
had said of me; and when the teacher was not looking
I put my hand to my nose and felt of it proudly; and
that night in bed I lay thanking the Lord for my nose,
but gratitude came near to sobbing when I touched my
wooly head, the skull of a Negro.


Chapter III.
The First Sermon
"VTO galley slave ever worked harder than I was wont
to do in the season of summer when the school
was closed except to the hogs that would root open the
door and force their way into my temple of hope. But
a greater calamity was in waiting; some recreant set it
afire one night and in the morning I stood looking into
the smouldering ashes of my dreams. In church the
negroes raised a lamentation, a wail that soon spread
out among the whites, and blessed be their souls, a
committee of sympathetic ladies took up a subscription
and built for us a better house, a palace it seemed to
me. Shaver was away on his vacation, in Kansas, and
with much labor and not without help I wrote to him
not to dwell upon our loss but to exult over our new
endowment. When he returned in early autumn he
took me by the hand and told me that my pen would
after a while be facile enough to write a learned mes-
sage. One of the boys laughed, thinking it some sort
of joke, but I bowed my grateful acknowledgements
and said unto myself that I would make it one of the
aims of my early life to cuff that boy for making me


20 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
the object of his ridicule; and a few days later we
fought and though I conquered him it was not without
the bloodying of the nose that the gentle lady on the
horse had complimented.
Shaver and I were still housed together in Old Silvys
yard and took our meals together at table though the
teacher had been repeatedly warned that lowering him'
self to eat with a nigger would get him into trouble.
Once at breakfast he asked me as to how much money
I had saved from my summer's work. I brought him
my treasure and he counted it, more than sixty dollars,
and he praised me for my thrift.
"Boy, I can see you entering college. And as advice
can never be given too early, I am going to begin now.
You will hear it said that in the future everything will
resolve itself into science, and in a measure this may be
true, but if I were you I would not devote myself to
scientific courses. To be frank with you, the Negro
has not a scientific mind. In this line he surely could
not raise himself above the white man. But there is
something which has not been done and which it has
often struck me that you can eventually do. Mark me.
The Negro has brought forth no epic, not even a novel,
characteristic of his race. Along this line I believe that
you can do something distinctive and I counsel you to
make it the aim of your education, indeed, of your life.
I see by your countenance that you would interrupt
me. This is because that you are too young and un'


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
21
trained to comprehend. Your determination to study
for the ministry instead of detracting would fit into the
plan. Let your study be to know the apt use and mean'
ing of words. Nearly every Negro has the endowment
of music, and in poetry, in character, even in philoso-
phy there is music. I will write this down for you as
I go along. It is the music rather than the truth set
forth in philosophy that has caught the majority of the
white races, and much more effectively this would be
with the Negroes. And if this be somewhat true with
regard to philosophy, how much more strikingly true it
is with preaching. Yes, I shall write it all down for
you. Religion would kill itself with pure logic. Logic
is deadly poison to the miracle. So, don't study logic.
Blink at what men term reason and sing the melody
of the gospel. Whenever an educated preacher essays
the logical he has sidetracked himself from all bibical
texts. Wait, now, I am still writing it down. From
the pulpit one sex stir is worth a thousand appeals to
the mind. This is why nearly all effective hymns are
sex odes. Here, take this paper and put it away. From
time to time I may give you a number of such bits. Is
there any question you wish to ask?"
"Yes, sir. What college would you advise me to
go to?"
"I don't know at this moment. It must be figured
out. It would take too much technical and special
study, and that of a useless sort, to prepare you for the


22 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
most of the colleges in the North. Let me see: I have
it, boy, Booker Washington's seat of useful learning.
And now, work and study with that in mind."
"But would you advise me to be learned and a
preacher?" I asked, the image of my mother vivid in
my mind.
"That on my part demands explanation," he replied,
his countenance seeming to resolve itself into a net'
work of entangling thought. "We may say that the
most of the effective and religionTeforming preachers
have not been of the learned kind, depending as they
did upon a sort of inspiration, but to me the more
learning the more inspiration, not of a vulgar complex'
ion, but of a higher character. The most forcible of
all preachers is the educated man who knows how to
hide his education from the ignorant and reveal it to
the thoughtful. Therefore, like the shrewd politician,
be ignorant with the ignorant and wise with the wise.
Wait, let me put that down."
I can see now that much of his pleasure in life, if
indeed he found in it any pleasure at all, came from an
experimentation with his own mind. Once in my crude
way I asked him as to what had been his ambition, and
before answering me he gathered up his pad and pencil.
"Boy, I was born to write a great epic. This was
whispered to me long before I knew the meaning of
the word. There have been epics of wars on earth, in
heaven, and an epic of the tortures of hades, but never


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
23
an epic of the human heart, which means God's heart.
The New Testament touches upon it but does not
make of it a poetic whole. This completion was laid
out for me; and one of these days when you turn about
from entering the palatial church which your genius
has reared, you will for a moment contemplate the mon-
ument erected to me, the poet of the heart."
In a flash I could see my church, his monument
standing near it, and it seemed that the tears that came
into my eyes made it all the brighter, without a dark
shadow to dim it. On the monument was a statue of
gold, harvesting the rays of the sun, and standing about
me in the marble portal of my temple were handsome
women giving unto me the worship of their eyes.
I may not have realized it at the time but now I
know from reading the scribbled scraps that he gave
to me that his opinions often fell into crisscross ways.
Never, though, did he lose faith in the ultimate victory
of his epic forces, a conquering squad marching toward
achievement. Often at night, with the wind blowing
through the cracks and flurrying our lamp, with the
kettlcdrum tat'too on the clap'board roof, he would
draw up to the table and snatch up his pen and ink it to
begin in answer to the call of a sudden inspiration, but
never a word of his poem did I see him set in scroll.
Always he halted and sometimes with a mocking blot
on his paper.
"Boy," he would say, "the moment has not quite


24
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
come. Even the old prophets were many a time
twitched before they were heaved forward into their
work. A false inspiration is like a sprout that comes
up prematurely in the spring of the year, a food for
jeering frost. It shall not be thus with me. Hear me,
boy: the saints and their followers in the Middle Ages
were not wholly in error with regard to their belief in
demons and evil spirts. And if those demons and evil
spirits existed then they also exist now in this our day
of cynicism. Yes, we are often tempted by the imps
of impulse into wrong thinking and wrong doing.
Guard against it, my pupil."
"Would you advise me not to preach when I feel
that I want to preach?" I remember to have asked of
him.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me. I would advise you
not to misinterpret a mere prompting for the urge of
strength. Wait until you are not inclined to con and
to shape your utterances and then liberate them. One
true inspiration is worth more than a hundred cool'
browed statements."
"But would the evil spirits urge me to preach?"
I recall that he reached over and put his hand upon
my nappy head. "It always delights our enemy to see
us do a thing botchingly. Go from me now for I be
lieve that I am called to begin my poem."
I left him as he gathered his pen with a determined
grasp, went out into the windy dark to stumble about


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
25
the yard, but finally to halt down near the pen wherein
Aunt Silvy kept her pigs. Here I halted and looked
upward. A rift in the clouds revealed a glint of the
new moon, a gleaming fish in dark waters, I painted it
in my fancy; and dropping my hat on the ground, I
turned to the pigs with my first sermon. My teacher
had read to me that saints had preached to fishes, to
lions, and had converted them. Then why should not
I, in my aspiring humility, preach to hogs? In the
depth of my humbleness I called them brethren; I told
an old barrow that was wont to break out and ravage
the garden that he must mend his ways; I spoke sooth'
ing words to a motherly old sow that always grunted
tenderly when her young ones were mercilessly milking
her. To my utterance came words which I must have
heard before but which now were new to me, and with
the intoxication of verb'wine of my own pressing, I
shouted my censures against the ways of this worn and
wicked world. I resolved a trough into a mourner's
bench and exhorted the unconverted of my hearers to
kneel before it and to beg forgiveness of their sins; I
sang a hymn that I had heard my mother sing. From
the old sow there came a responsive grunt, and the gar'
den'ravishing barrow twitched his crooked tail, the
moon glinting it, and rebelliously sought the solitude of
a corner of the pen, to mock me. I told him that his
days were numbered here upon earth, and that satan
was waiting for him. A moonbeam fell upon his


26
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
frothy mouth to reveal a beady sneer, and in my resent-
ment I was tempted to hurl a stone at him, indeed, had
turned about to seek one when there stood my teacher,
a darkened statue with folded arms.
"The barrow has conquered you," he said.
If a Negro's blush makes him darker I must at that
moment have been blacker than a coal'pit.


Chapter IV.
The Girl On The Train
gHAVER took me silently by the arm and led me to-
ward the house. Upon entering the room he mo-
tioned me toward a chair, and sat down near the table.
I saw his hand reached out for the writing pad, and I
fancied that inspiration must be making a map of his
countenance, for in it appeared lines that I had not seen
before. I asked him whether he wished to be alone, and
it seemed that his thought'furrows were smoothing out
as he answered:
"No. A bird flew into my ken but it has escaped.
Ha, but I shall catch him yet and make him flutter.
Boy, let me tell you that you preached a good sermon,
and as I listened I fancied that I stood upon a briar
tangled crest of the middle ages. Let me make my
meaning clear."
He then proceeded to paint for me the world's age
of almost hopeless night, when a man with a smack of
learning was looked upon as a wizard and was in dan-
ger of being pelted with stones. "Ha, but eloquence
which often is but the music of ignorance, was ever
soothing; and the gospel was thought to be divinely


28 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
effective whether preached unto man or jackal."
"And when I grow up would you advise me to
preach to jackals?"
"Yes, but don't misunderstand me. I want that you
should be learned, in a word way, but warn you against
all scientific inquiry. Whitcsheet a thought in the
clean habiliments of culture and you make a ghost for
the Negro. Wait a moment and let me set that down
for you."
He scribbled upon his pad, smiled his satisfaction,
reading it over and over, and began again to search his
mind for a vagrant thought. "Boy, I wish that I could
make myself as clear as a dewdrop, ah, and even then
the sun would dazzle my meaning. I have heard you
singing to yourself and I know that you love and are
moved by music. This is in accord with your race, for
music, no matter how sublime, is still a barbaric emc
tion. A man might know every note in every opera
and have no more of creative thought than a phono-
graph record. But I am wandering off from what I
had intended to say. Now listen: take your course
at Tuskegee, when the time shall come, hide your edu-
cation and with fingers that appear awkwardly to fum-
ble, play upon the rude banjo of the Negro soul. And
there is another thing that you ought to attempt, and
that is to write a real Negro novel. It may have been
attempted but it has never been done. Dunbar wrote
verses and some of them skillfully, after the manner of


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 29
I
Whitcomb Riley; but he brought forth no striking Ne
gro character. The white writers who have sought to
portray the Negro have contented themselves with
amusing peculiarities or pathetic exaggerations. Do not
satisfy yourself with making him humorous and kindly,
but boil out the beast juice so hot within him that it
stews him defiantly from the white man's notion of
civilization. Boy, if I talk too much in figures it is
because of the barbarian still rife within me, the poetic
spirit which one day is to bring forth my epic. But
I can be practical: Apollo could put aside his lyre to
feed a cow. And thus am I moved to offer this bit of
almost immediate advice: come with me to Kansas
when vacation falls. You are strong enough to work
in the harvest fields, and there you can earn more
money in one summer than you could during three sea'
sons here at home. Travel would broaden you and good
wages would give to you a feeling of independence."
"Mr. Shaver, I would go anywhere with you. I
would follow you like a dog."
He put his hand on my head, and so much at this
moment did I feel like a faithful dog that had he wliis*
tled to me and "muched" me I would have licked his
hand
So eager was I to learn all that my books could im*
part that I was wont to view with grief the coming of
the vacation season, but now that I was to travel in
far off countries I would have winged the passing days


30
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
with swiftness. This pleased my teacher when he had
observed it. "It will be a fine thing for you, Student,"
he said, and I was thrilled that instead of calling me
Boy he had employed the flattering title of Student.
"Among the whites in Kansas you will be a sort of
astonishment," he continued. "Don't infer, however,
that you will find no Negroes there. Of late there has
been an exodus of them from the South, but you will
stand out distinctive."
I was flattered but had misgivings. "Why so?" I
asked of him.
"Because you are notable not only as a Negro boy
but would be so even were you white. You have the
barbarism of poetry within your soul. Barbarism of
poetry would make a professor smile, because in
the weakness of his learning, his text books, he does
not realize that the foundational truth of poetry is a
nature made rock and not a man fashioned brick. But
all wise men know that after what may be termed the
third state of barbarism all inspired prophets have lan'
guished and died. The seer comes from the desert or
the thicket."
"I thought I was to be a preacher rather than a
poet," I replied.
"The preacher and the poet should be the same, my
Student, and fitted for one you become the other."
"But you said that I was to write a novel of my


32 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
ing a bit of candle I lighted it and placed it upon the
hearth, the altar of my love and devotion. I recall
that an owl was hooting in a tree not far off, but
whether he was jeering or encouraging my new adven'
ture into life I could not determine. Upon the hearth
I knelt and reaching into the fireplace I gathered up a
handful of ashes and sprinkled my head with the sacred
dust. No creature, even approaching death, ever gave
unto Jesus a more humbled soul. It was here that I
had prayed to be turned into a white boy, and here had
come the sudden exultation of an answered prayer.
Then had followed the jeering of my brothers and the
truth that I was marked with eternal blackness of skin.
And would this my later and saner prayer blow away
upon the mocking wind? But what was my saner
prayer? That I might conquer racial prejudices and
become a great man. Then came the truth that this
was ambition and not humbleness, but I could not peti'
tion that ambition might be taken from me.
On the morrow and for the first time in my life I
climbed aboard a railway train. Not permitted to ride
with Shaver I sat forward with the Negroes. This was
the law of the South, and though my master sniffed at
it, one word in censure of it would have cost him a
broken bone or perhaps his life. An old man turned
from his reminiscences of the time when he was a slave
to ask me whither I was going, and when I told him, his
toothless mouth whistled surprise that I was going so


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 33
far. Another Negro spoke up with the information
that Kansas was not so far and that folks had been
known to visit there and return. His youngest daugh'
ter had gone to a place near Topeka to visit her mar'
ried sister and had come home with a half white child
only three months old, and this, too, without having
gone through the ceremony of marriage. The tooth'
less old Negro laughed and offered the opinion that the
daughter might have acquired the white child without
having left her native neighborhood.
Shaver brought me food from the eating houses
along the way, and at bedtime he peeped in upon me
to see that I was comfortably couched on a seat all to
myself. When we got out of the black belt he and I
rode together, and it was with pleasure that I saw the
white children playing up and down the aisle. An ad'
venturous girl, handsome and with candle'flame hair
twirled about her ears, invited me to romp with her.
She laughed, touched my cheek and with her finger
rubbed her white dress to see whether it would leave a
black mark, laughed her rollicking mischief and chal'
. lenged me to catch her. I looked at Shaver, and when
in an amused way he had nodded his consent, I caught
her and was thrilled to see my black nail'grabs enringed
with her golden curls. Her mother, hearing her laugh,
looked up from a book and harshed at her with north'
era accent:
"Julia, go over there and sit down. You ought to


34
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
be ashamed of yourself playing with that dirty nigger."
"Madam," impulse forced me to speak, "I am a Nc
gro but I am not dirty."
"But you are so funny," spoke Julia, in no wise
humbled by her mothers rebuke. "And mamma, look
at his big black eyes."
"Hush and sit down, I tell you. You don't see those
other girls playing with him."
"But they don't know what's funny," Julia insisted,
and then turned to me. "What's your name, black
thing?"
Just at this moment a man evidently acquainted with
the ways of the South, spoke to me: "You go over there
and keep quiet. Do you hear what I say? And if you
cut any more capers I'll sprawl you on the floor."
"It was not his fault, sir," Shaver gently interposed.
"The little girl urged him to play with her."
"It was out of her innocence that she did it," the
man retorted.
"And may it not have been his innocence, too, sir?"
"Look here, are you taking the part of a nigger boy
against a white girl? Where's the conductor. This
fellow ought to be put off the train."
The girl's mother spoke up: "Oh, what's the use in
making so much to do over it? No harm has been done.
Boy, here's a dime for you," she said, fumbling with
her purse.
"No, I thank you," I declared myself with a bow.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
35
"Give the money to your own child."
"Yes," Julia cried, clapping her hands. "And we'll
buy some peanuts, won't we, Blackie?"
"Julia," said her mother, ceasing to fumble with her
purse, "I told you to go over there and sit down."
Soon she got off at a station, the little girl throwing
back a smile at me. I was young, yea, and religious,
but when dozing night had come, old hot'hoofed satan
pranced with me in my dreams.


Chapter Five
Out On The Harvest Landscape
J_JOW beautiful to me was that mighty territory of
wheat, a yellowed ocean gently billowing. Here and
there on a knoll, an island I pictured it, an ambitious
flower held high its head, purple in the sunshine. Far
away in the broad road a dust cloud told of a wagon
with its team of mules, and at a station, a horse ridden
in from the plains and tied to a rack, broke his bridle
and snorted his terror as he sped away. The land of
freedom! And while I was enraptured with the sea
of wheat I missed the woods of my native state, and
spoke of it when Shaver questioned me.
"But you must know," he said, "that the prophets
did not come from the wooded lands but from the
desert. The Lord most inspires us when we are in
lonely and desolate places. If Isaiah had lived in the
woods he might have contented himself with being a
rail splitter."
"Lincoln was a rail splitter," I interposed, and at
this he winced.
"Yes, but Lincoln was not a prophet: he was a
statesman, experimenting with the foibles of man.


38 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
measure failed in my work. I have been the means of
many a conversion; I have dedicated many a Negro
church, only to be convinced that there is something
else other than religion that the Negro needs. Who
is more religious than the white trash of the South?
And how much better off are the white trash now
than they were a hundred years ago? I beg your par'
don but you are putting error into this boy's head. Sir,
the most profound bit of wisdom ever addressed to the
Negro was the injunction of Booker T. Washington
when he told him to stick to the farm. I take it, sir,
that you are a school teacher."
"Yes, I instruct as I follow the pathway leading up
to my predestined climax."
We were halting at a station and as the preacher
gathered up his bag to get off, he turned to me: "The
white man's god is money. Get it as honestly as you
conveniently can and you'll be inspired enough. Good
day."
I suspected that Shaver would break out in a tirade
against him, and was rather astonished when he said:
"That fellow is no fool. He has intelligence but
has never been inspired. Don't let what he said dis-
courage you
Shaver's home was in a village where the hoofs of
the buffalo had marked the ground in sport and in
sudden frenzy. His weather'beaten house had been
closed during his absence, and now we opened it up to


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 39
air it and to dust off the bedclothes. It was not much
better than Aunt Silvy's home, but it was a shack of
freedom and this meant much to me, especially when
I contemplated his collection of books, at fewest a hun'
dred, and some of them so heavy that I knew they must
be profound. Two nights after his return he invited a
number of the neighbors to a social gathering. They
came, whites with a sprinkling of blacks, and I could
see that no outward distinction was made. One wo
man of much flesh made as if to take me on her lap,
flesh'dogged humor on her part, and the company
laughed, the slim girls clapping their hands. Among
the company was a mulatto girl about my age, and it
seemed that her lips were constantly inviting me to kiss
them; and when I was showing to her a book which
doubtless she could not have spelled her way through,
I told her that her mouth must be as sweet as wild
plumb jelly.
"I ain't never eat none," she said, and that was the
extent of the impression that I had made. She called
the books fool things that ought to be thrown out, and
asked me if I could dance. For her mind I had a con'
tempt, but her mouth continued sweet, and my hot
blood, young as I was, told me that if ever I got a
chance I would take a sip at it. Shaver called me, pre
sen ted me to a lady teacher in a local school, a frail
thing who coughed her learning. She termed me a
pretty fellow, a perfect Moor but for the nap on my


40 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
head, which made me resolve to straighten out my
kinks. It seemed that we were destined to come into con'
stant contact with preachers; and on the day after our
social gathering, in came the Rev. Mr. Simpson, a
neighbor who with strength of character and mental
impressiveness was wont to draw the largest congrega'
tion in the town. He was tall, thin, and at first gave
to me the impression of physical hunger rather than a
gift for satisfying a spiritual longing. I hung bashfully
about while Shaver told him of the ebon prodegy that
he had discovered away down in rural Georgia, and
clearing his throat to invite my attention, Mr. Simpson
gave me a smile. In one respect he had, I discovered,
the inclination of the early apostles in that he expressed
his fondness for fishing; and when in answer to an
inquiry I told him that I had never caught a fish, hav
ing no desire in that way, he called me an unnatural
boy. While we were talking, and he not without a
certain sort of pleasantry, a cat with a mouse in her
mouth ran into the room. Up she tossed her prey,
caught it gently between her teeth, rolled over on the
floor with it, pretending to let it get away, but always
reached forth to bring it back into merciless captivity
when it had thought itself free of her. After a time
she killed it and went away to enjoy her snack.
"What could be a better example of cruelty?" the
preacher expressed himself. "She let that poor mouse
believe that he had got away and then brought him


42 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
shudders to be taken with the instrument of the pen."
"And are you training your Negro prodegy to catch
at it and take it down for you?"
"Since you have mentioned it, such is sometimes my
hope. How are you getting along with your work,
Brother Simpson?"
"Fairly. My people recently gave me not a flat'
tering but yet an assuring increase in salary. I was in
much need of a horse, and a newcomer hearing of it
presented me with a sorrel that is good for buggy and
saddle. I suppose you heard of my daughter's
marriage?"
"Yes, incidentally."
"Yes, Ella is now a married woman, strange as it
may seem to me. She and her husband are now living
with us. Clyde is a promising fellow, and—"
"But does he keep his promises?" Shaver interposed.
The preacher scratched his head. "Well, he hasn't
made any except to affirm that he will go to work as
soon as he can get a job."
"Let him go to the harvest fields and work along
with my student. I am afraid, sir, that your son'in'
law, like the average young man of today, is inclined
to be of no account."
This I give to illustrate the atmosphere in which I
now found myself. On the morrow I went forth into
the fields, the sun broiling hotter than I had ever felt
it in Georgia, but I was to get more pay than I had


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
43
ever received, a man's wages, and this upheaved a
prayer within me. Within two weeks time I had to
move with the harvest farther north, and now I could
not return at night to my Master's house. The camp
where I lodged was composed of Negroes and whites;
outlandish creatures, some of the latter. One whom
they termed a Bohunk, whatever that may imply, tent'
ed with me, his cot along side my own; and one night
after we had been paid off, I caught him stealthily
rummaging for my wages. I spoke, sprang up, and
gripping my arm he jabbered that he would kill me if
I gave him away. I sat up during the rest of the night,
and felt none too strong in the field on the following
day; and when night was come, I got me a sandstone
from the sluggish stream near by and gave the thief to
understand that I would crush his head should he ad'
venture further in his attempt at thievery. He showed
me his dirk and grinned, and going forth I slept in the
dewladen weeds.
On the following day I made bold to tell the boss
about the miscreant and had the satisfaction to see him
whipped out of the camp, his dirk serving him a very
poor turn. A week later we moved our camp. We
set it up on a Sunday, and in the night I walked out
to muse over the many things that Shaver had said to
me. Upon returning, and just before reaching my
tent, I saw a shadow lurking about. The Bohunk, I
felt; and I dodged about to make sure. Yes, it was he,


44 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
waiting for me, and forward he leaped, steel gleaming
in his grasp. But caution had preserved my sandstone
weapon, and at him I threw it, and down he fell, al'
most at my feet. I raised a cry, and soon there came
the flashing of lights, the Negroes gathering about me
when they saw that one of their own color was in
trouble. I had struck the fellow in the breast and now
he lay panting. We stretched him out in the weeds
and left him for dead but with the coming of the sun
we found that he was gone. Now it was heavy on my
conscience that I must have killed a human being, even
though in self defence, and I prayed that it might not
be true. The Negroes congratulated me, sought to
flatter me with the assurance that he had undoubtedly
staggered off and died, perhaps had fallen into the
stream, and the boss bade me cheer up as I had brought
about a good riddance. Soon we learned that the de
generate had gone to a village to lodge a charge of
attempted murder, and that having been recognized as
a housebreaker, had been sent to jail for trial. I never
heard what finally became of him.
I spent all of one Sunday writing to Shaver, giving
him a full, not to say a proud account of my close
escape, and this is a part of his letter to me: "I con'
gratulate you, my brave Student. You are able to
take care of yourself, and this is a comfort to me. And
it reminds me that last night, sitting here alone, I felt
the mood coming on and had reached for my pen when


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 45
I heard some miscreant prowling about the house. It
may have been a man, perhaps only a dog, but the
wretched thing whatever it was, ruined the mood of
my inspiration. It will come back, however, and with
achieving result, perhaps during a thunder storm when
the cloud'curtains shall be ripped by lightning and
burnt up like dried grass, the wind'rows of the heavens.
Ah, genius, thou mighty womb, conceiving and smoth-
ering thy impetuous offspring! You have heard me
speak of Blind Tom, the most astonishing musical
prodegy that this world has known, black, sightless
and to those who attempted to talk with him, a mouth'
frothing idiot; but when first he touched the keys of
a piano, melody, the songs of birds rippled from his
fingers. And now, my Student, I believe that in the
music of words you are to be a Blind Tom. It is of no
need for me to caution you to be careful of your earn-
ings, looking toward your future instruction, for care
and economy are parts of the virtue of your inspired
undertaking. When the last sheaf of your northward
harvest shall have been bound, hasten back to me, and
spending a brief season in study, we will toward the
South where lies our real work.
"A bit of good luck has lately come to me. A society
woman of Topeka wrote a book. Having in some way
heard of me, she came to our village, bringing with her
the manuscript for me secretly to revise. I was not
much interested until she brightened me with the prom'


46 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
ise of five hundred dollars. Ha, and I was shrewd
enough to know that the less we revise, the more we
please the author. Alexander Pope tattered the poem
of a powerful man at court and lost his friendship. So
I straightened out a few of the lady's most awkward
twists and received one hundred dollars in bonus. To
your religious mind this may seem trickery, and so was
it looked upon as a shifting trick when Jesus handed
back the coin with the injunction that it be rendered
unto Caesar. I am looking forward toward the time
of your return."
To me his letter was as profound a piece of wisdom
as man had written, and bound in a wallet with my
wages I kept it, not less of value than hard earned
money itself. And as we worked up toward Omaha,
a wild and tempestuous city I was told, I banked my
treasure in my bosom, tied about my body with a lea'
ther string. One Saturday night we went into the city
with the prospect of remaining therein until Monday
morning, when we were to cross the river and slowly
slant up through Iowa into the Dakotas. It was the
biggest town that I had ever entered. In the electric
lights of the streets there appeared to be a wild and
dangerous whirl, but gay to fearless maidens who
grooping in drugstores, laughed their love of adventure.
A railway station was our domicile, but I wandered off
from it, stealing glimpses of life, but not without peril,
for ruffian boys sighting me, threw stones at me and


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 47
gave me chase back to my quarters. Negro boys in the
South would not have been so brutal toward a
stranger, and this set me to think that it was the white
as well as the black race in this country that was in
Christian need of reformation. On benches about me
lay motley immigrants, some of them in appearance a
disgrace to humanity. I recall a poor woman, ragged
and with hair that looked as if it had been stewed in a
pot, trying to give suck to her almost famishing twins.
This was more than I could stand, and grabbing a
twentyfive cent piece out of my pocket I asked the
woman if she would please accept of it. The poor
creature may not have caught the meaning of my words
but she snatched at the money and lugging her off'
spring, ran to the newscounter where bits of food were
for sale.
On a bench neighboring the hard seat where I was
to doze out the night lolled a lowbrowed fellow, with
a sprinkling of grey in the bristles about his jaw. He
had seen me give money to the woman, and now he
gazed at me, evil in every line of his countenance.
"How much did you give her?"
"A quarter."
"Give me one. I'm as hungry as she is."
It did not require a trip north to tell me what he
wanted. A thirst for liquor is not geographic. "Come,
out with it," he demanded. I drew back from him and
was about to appeal for protection when one of our


48 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
harvest Negroes, a big fellow as strong as Jack Johnson,
came forward, with an assuring laugh, so characteristic
of our race. "What he tryin' do, rob you? Look
heah, whoeber you is, pusson," he added speaking to
the aggressor, "it hab been mas' two hours sense I hit
er white man, an' my fist 'bout ter go ter sleep. Is
you gwine be de means o' wakin' it up? Boy, lay back
dar on de bench an' go ter sleep. Ah take kere o' dis
pusson."


CHAPTER VI
With His Pen In His Hand
T WAS not sorry when the cool winds in North
Dakota brought the wheat season to a close; and now
I turned toward Kansas to join Shaver. His gentle soul
shone through his countenance when he grasped my
hand. Late we sat by the fire that night, Master
having much to tell me. On the day before he had
come near setting down the first words of his epic, the
fruitful instant having been blasted by the mawling of
a cat, lecherous on the fence. It was the beast that
had played with the mouse, he told me, and swore an
oath that led me to believe that he would have shot the
miscreant had a gun been within his reach.
"But the inspired moment is becoming more and
more vivid," he said. "It dodges, yes, like a butterfly;
but one day it will tiptoe upon the flower of my mind
to sip, and then "he looked at me, smiling.
"Your life's ambition will be reached," I supplied.
"Yes. It is not that I am enamored of fame, my
Student. It is that I wish to realize a predestined
achievement. You have had quite a time."
"Yes," and I related my experiences. "It all fits you


50 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
for your work," he assured me. "Well, as our train
leaves early, let us to bed"
Fond memories greeted my return. In the old yard,
in the twilight, I could hear my mother's Spirit sing'
ing, and into the cabin I went again to kneel at the
hearthstone and to sprinkle ashes upon my head.
Aunt Silvy was much interested to know that I had
saved my money, but she warned Shaver that he must
not turn me into a miser. "Dar ain' nothin' mo'
unnat'ral den er stingy nigger," she said, speaking to
him, "an' you mus' look out dat you doan do dat. Ah
neber needed er new caliker dress mo' den Ah does at
dis minit, but Ah doan know who gwine git it fur me."
I knew, and got it for her and her old orbs that had
looked out over the drag of so many years gave me
their gratitude. School opened on the second day
after our arrival and my thirsty mind gulped in eager'
ness. As time wore along Shaver would give me an
occasional book not included in systematized study and
thus was my mind led out into broader ways. I can
now see that he gave me nothing that might lead me
from simple faith; but one night when I had gone to
bed, leaving him in converse with a man from the
North, I heard him express views that were startling
to me. "All religions, like toy balloons, when blown
too long must burst," he said.
"But isn't it true that all nations lose their civiliza'
tion when they lose their religion, no matter what form


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 51
of religion it may be?" the visitor asked.
"Ah, and it may be true that all religions must have
a foundational stone of ignorance. But there is such
a condition as intelligent ignorance, lettered ignorance,
you might say."
Into worried sleep I sank, and on the morrow I asked
him as to what he had meant, and he laughed in his
gentle manner and told me that I must not put myself
in the way to be pricked with the splinters of thought.
Two days later he brought me Bunyans fervid
allegory and with it my soul was illuminated. How
those days come back to me!
Time flew. During four seasons I labored as a
migrating harvester, and I was now grown to be a big
fellow, but was pleased more than once to hear it said
that I was not awkward. Vanity lives long, and
recalling what the gentle lady on the horse had said,
I was proud to possess an Egyptian rather than a Negro
nose. But I have since learned that the Egyptians
were not distinguished for their noses, being rather
thick and spreading of nostril, but that took not from
me the happy recollection of the gentle lady.
Within me it was grief to see my Master's health
declining. In the night he was wont to cough, and
often I would steal to his bedside when I heard his
labored breathing. One night I found him with pad
and pen, a dim lamp burning on a table beside him.
I was about to sneak back when he spoke:


52 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"That is all right, my Student. You did not frighten
my inspiration away. It was only one of its whimsical
threats, but one of these times it will come and linger
happily with me. Sit down, please, I wish to talk to
you. I can see by your distress that you do not believe
I am to live long. There now, don't let it sink your
breast. One sunken breast between us is enough.
What, so big a fellow and giving way to tears? Brace
yourself, for I shall be more than willing to go when I
have taken down my epic, and I assure you that I shall
not go before then. In after years when the world is
proclaiming my sylabic glory, you will, while recalling
me with affection, remember me as the strangest
creature that ever came within your touch. And then
as the years fly to the roost of eternity, you may be
known as the strangest Negro that any one has known.
In this we are brothers and I knew it the first moment
I saw you. Within a short time you will go to Booker
Washington's house of experiment. I may be much
weakened but I shall be here to welcome you at the
close of your first season. Beyond that is all mist. But
the air will be clear to you, and through the sunshine
I desire you to walk, my epic in your hand, and when
you have read it over and over in memory of me, I
enjoin you to take it to some publisher and have it
brought forth. At first its sale will be slow, all im-
mortal art being slow of recognition, but there will
come a day when man will be ashamed not to


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 53
acknowledge it; and with the financial proceeds, build
you a monument to me, here at the corner of old Silvy's
yard where it shall mock those who have cast vile looks
upon me. Now put out my lamp and go back to bed."
When broad day flashed I was glad to hear him up
and stirring. Not for a long time had he felt better,
he told me, and Aunt Silvy noticed his improvement
and told him that a mess of chitterlings which she had
prepared would surely bring him back to health
What was known among us as old fashioned
consumption has ever been a mocking disease, a cat
playing with a mouse. One morning Shaver awoke me
with his singing of a bawdy song, and when I hastened
to him, thinking that he must have lost his mind, I
found him sitting up in bed, holding in his hand not
his pen, his pad, but the photograph of a half naked
woman.
"Student, I am lecherous," he boldy spoke. "Ha,
you must know that no one is more salacious than a
consumptive: it is nature striving to reproduce before
it be too late. And so you leave me today. It is not
necessary for me to tell you to be a good boy and mind
your book, you being more than inclined that way.
But you are no longer a boy, my Student. You are
physically fitted for the prize ring."
"Better than I shall ever be mentally fitted for a
preacher," I replied.
"Don't you believe it," he said, taking another look


54 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
at the photograph of the half naked woman. "The
pulpit, however, requires physical strength and agility
as well as any mental finesse. Once I saw Billy Sunday
box with the devil, and the mighty congregation instead
of laughing at so grotesque a performance, flew into
frenzied enthusiasm. Demosthenes said that there
could be no impressive oratory without action, and
I charge you to bear this in mind. And now I am
going to say something which among the unthinking
would brand me a beast: in your preaching throw
yourself into artful sex poses: Out of sex comes all
religions."
"Not the religion of Jesus," I told him.
"That is a point we shall not discuss"
As to the impressiveness of Booker Washington's
establishment I was disappointed. To me it was more
of an industrial shop than a house of learning. I can
now see that it was his aim to render the Negro self'
supporting and efficient; I now know that he felt it to
be impossible that the Negro man could ever stand on
a parity with the white man in intellectual life. He
was half white himself and his two bloods consulted
one with the other. Upon my saying to him that it
was the aim of my life to preach, he told me that I
would make a good blacksmith. To my dormitory I
went in blighted discouragement, but when I met him
on the following day he spoke graciously to me, led
out my mind as we strolled about the grounds, telling


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 55
me that he had just received from a man named Shaver
a most remarkable letter concerning me.
"So, if you are determined to be a preacher, I shall
do all I can to further your ambition."
I told him of my mother, of her saintly life, of her
eyes looking into the heart of Jesus as she passed away;
and this shrewd man of the world, the companion of
statesmen looked at me, his eyes dimmed with the dew
of sympathy. Within a few days there came a sort
of visiting committee, several Congressmen and what
we conceived to be the mighty minds of the Senate,
Ben Tillman of South Carolina among them. I was
determined to sneak crumbs from the feast and I hung
about, eager to catch every word. For the most part
their talk was light with comment upon current
happenings. They spent more of their time in the shops
and the fields than in the library, but retrieved some of
their frivolity when they acknowledged that Booker
Washington was doing a notable work. I shall note
the talk I caught as I hung about a corner of a veranda,
sheltered by a vine. Mint juleps had made their tradi'
tional round, promoting freedom of expression. Till'
man, sipping, said that the Negro would always remain
Negro no matter how much of book knowledge might
be jammed into his head.
"Now Booker T., you know that you are no more
entitled to the name of Washington than to the name
of Christ. Wait a moment: I am talking to the white


56 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
man within you and not to the Negro. As a white
man you are doing something, but I can take a rabbit's
foot, make a few passes at the Negro part of you and
back you off a bluff into the river, white, Negro and
aB."
This stung me, but Washington laughed pleasantly.
"Senator," he said, "the white part of me might have
burnt witches at Salem but the Negro part never would
have assassinated Lincoln. Now I must agree that the
Negro has his place and may never be in a natural
atmosphere when he gets out of it. I know that he
does not invent a machine nor devise a code of moral
ethics."
"Then you acknowledge that he was put here as a
hewer of wood and a drawer of water."
"Yes; but can anything be more essential than wood
that keeps man from freezing and water that keeps him
from dying of thirst?"
"Senator," spoke a Congressman, "I think that he
is rather putting it over on you."
As I saw Tillman drinking with Washington I
wondered why he would have drawn back in a shudder
from eating with him. ....
Upon returning home after the close of my schol-
astic season I found that Shaver, no longer indulging
his fondness for a long and meditative walk, confined
his strolling within the narrow scope of the door yard.
He was standing with his arms rested on the fence as


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 57
I came down the road, and forward he came, tottered
to meet me, his exertion making him cough. I took his
frail hand and pressed it to my bosom, Aunt Silvy sing'
ing a hymn in measure with the action.
"Ha, Booker Washington tells me in a letter that you
are distinguishing yourself," said my Master, leaning
on my arm as we walked toward the cabin door.
"I haven't been idle," I assured him; and when I had
seated him in his rocking chair, my heart at grief to see
him so frail, he smiled and told me that never had his
inspiration been so vital as on the night before when he
had come near writing the first sentence of his immortal
work.
As Shaver was not able to go to Kansas, I decided to
take up some sort of summer work in our neighborhood
and found it, a plow hand in a field. A tent revivalist
came along, and a section of seats was apportioned to
the Negroes. A tall, grave man who bore the degree of
doctor was the leader and I expected to hear him burst
forth in a torrent of eloquence, but instead of buoying
us on the tide of emotion he juggled cold phrases in
denunciation of the degeneracy of the day. One night
when I had arrayed myself in vanity cloth, the finest
clothes that I had ever donned, I approached him with
a request: "Would you let me, a student of the gospel,
stand on your platform and address the Negroes?"
He looked at me from head to foot, measured me, and


58 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
with cool lips thus gave unto me his answer: "I am a
northern man and must be careful not to offend my
white brethren of the south."
"But your white brethren are not offended by the
Negroes seated over there. Then why should it give
offence if I should humbly speak a few words?"
One of the promoters of the meeting, a southerner,
was standing near. "Brother let him talk. It will be all
right."
With a few cool sentences the evangelist introduced
me, and the Negroes, thus flattered, broke forth in song,
and before the hymn was ended my mind was teeming
with emotional phrases hot from the furnace. I bellowed
a hallelujah of the heart, believing in my soul that I was
to help my people, and when I had hushed, they arose
with a shout and came with a rush to head me off as I
left the tent. One old man cried out that I was a Joshua
doing the battle of the Lord. This was well enough and
fed my pride and then something happened that brought
a rewarding thrill, the impetuous act of a mulatto girl.
Leaping, she threw her arms about my neck and bit my
willing lips. Her eyes flashed her fire, and nature, the
beast within me, pressed her to my heart. Other women
separated us, the girl's mother chiding her, but I stole
a chance to find out from her where she might be found,
and the following day I found her. Of her I said noth'
ing to Shaver until I had been housed alone with her
and then I told him in humiliation, confessing my error.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 59
Playfully he took up his photograph of the half naked
woman and tossed it to me.
"Student, we are the illigitimate children of lustful
satan." (
"But oh," I groveled, "am I always to be such? What
has become of my religion? Where is my faith?"
"Take it not so seriously. Look upon it as a matter
of nature. Remember that reproductive passion within
man is older than any religion."
"But religion, if it be the true sort, ought to be a
restraint," I said, and my Master's assumed pleasantry
of a laugh ended in a cough. On a towel that he kept
lying near him he wiped his mouth, looked to see if
there were the stain of blood, and remarked: "Mumps
have been more potent in the restraint of passion than
all religions combined."
"Master, you surely don't believe that. Didn't the
religion of the old saints restrain passion?"
"In a way, yes," he answered. "But in my opinion
they did not become saints in practice until the animal
within them had begun to die. In your case it was not
your fault, though it may have been your error. I am
acquainted and somewhat intimately with the woman
who entrapped you, and instead of wronging her you
served her a grateful turn. She is a nymphomaniac."
"I don't understand, Master."
He explained the meaning of the word and smiled
upon me as I gazed upon him. "Student, I am im'


60
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
proving. I feel it in my bellows," and he touched his
breast. "The doctor gave me but little hope yester'
day, but he did not foresee the change the current has
taken. Blessed be the moment, Student, my inspiration
has come. Give me my pad and ink the pen for me,
please."
He snatched, and upon the pad he wrote one word
—"God "and died with his pen in his hand.


Chapter VII.
A Poetic Visitor
tN a coiner of old Silvy's yard we buried him, the
*~ strangest creature that I shall ever meet. The under'
taker was the only white man at the funeral, but the
Negroes thronged about the grave to sing a hymn and
to pray. Let me not wander beyond a belief in im'
mortality. Let me believe as I have dreamed that a
celestial angel has plucked a feathered pen from her
wing and that with it he will write his epic of the heart.
My Master left a will, making me his heir. There
was not much of money to bequeath, but his books in
Silvy's house and his library in Kansas fell to me. To
Tuskegee I returned, saddened and repentant. In the
night, in the rain I walked forth to pray that God might
smother the lustful beast within me, and I sang in the
woods as I felt that my prayer had been answered.
Upon my academic days of preparation I shall not
dwell. I received my sacred charge to preach, and was
told by old Silvy when I returned home that the books
stacked in my room were going to make a sinner man
of me. And now I set my voice to answer tunefully
to a call. My neighborhood had an efficient preacher,


62
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
a Methodist by pursuasion, and to seek his place was
not brotherly, and yet I should not have been grieved
had it been suddenly discovered that he was too old.
Surely he was too old for the nymphomaniac whose
company I shunned, muttering a prayer the while. One
Sunday the old preacher let me take his pulpit Preach'
ers who are tired are often generous in this way. We
knelt together and then he sat back to give me my fer'
vent fling. But it was not fervent. There came unto
me no inspiration and I pecked about for words, the
recourse and the dullness of systematized study. My
hearers yawned. Hitting upon a platitude of faith I
would shout it with uplifted finger trembling in the air.
I resorted to numerous phazes of trickery, but they
yawned. I saw the yellow nymph sitting off to the left,
stared at her but she would not give me her eyes; and
when the services had come to an end I thought to
avoid her, but that was not put upon me for she flitted
out of the house, throwing back at me, I thought, a look
of contempt. The old preacher came up to me and was
much pleased with the sermon, he said, and perhaps he
was, seeing how it had been received by his congrega'
tion. I went home discouraged, and instead of taking
down a learned book I caught up old Bunyan and with
him sought to make my mind childlike and supersti'
tious.
A few days later I received a call to take a church
in a small town about fifty miles away, and thither I


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
63
carted my belongings. The church was new, painted
white, and gleamed in the sunshine as I drew unto it
to preach my initial sermon. The congregation ap-
peared to be prosperous, three or four of the old fel-
lows in shimmering plug hats, and many of the younger
women gowned in licentious invitation. But why
should my mind be constantly on such evils when in
my soul I had prayed so fervendy to be cleansed of
them? It is cool blood that pecks about for words: hot
blood plunges, and into the waters of my text I leaped
foaming the waves with my splashing. Soon up arose
the compliant groans of "Amen," and it was a warming
glory unto my heart to see the women weaving in
rhythmic trance.
The brethren pressed forward to take me by the
hand, and some of them inconsiderate of the women
who showed that they were passionately eager to touch
my flesh. It was almost spontaneously projected that
a revival must be launched within a few days, and it
was, hundreds of wayward feet coming out of the
broad road to tread in faith the narrow path. Our
series of meetings lasted for nearly a month and
brought more than a hundred new members into the
fold. It was now almost assured that I should attain
to success in my apostolic life and it was manifest that
I was of much concern among women who had mar'
riageable daughters on their hands. The men, too,
spoke their desire to see me respectably settled in life,


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
65
be slowed down almost unto weakness; and then with
sweat upon my brow I mused that weakness promotes
not virtue but more of weakness, that virtue is the
power to hold in check a rampant strength.
Homeward I returned, feeling that my supplicating
prayers had been answered. And now I was more
determined than ever before to be a credit to my race.
I would show unto the white man that the Negro
might have a true sublimity of soul, for before my eyes
there arose a prospect to dazzle me: I would write a
novel; I would reach back into slavery but would not
dwell long upon the days of servitude; I would portray
the industrial, religious and intellectual characters of
the Negro of today. Shaver could not advise me, but
he had left to me a part of his mind, his books, and I
would now read them not merely to stimulate my mind
but for a practical purpose. Here I had the classic
fiction of our tongue, pages glowing in variant colors,
characters leaping out of mist into clear and convinc
ing reality. I would not make of my hero an amusing
vagrant nor seek to endow him too much with a home
spun philosophy; I would create him reflective of his
race and his day. But the glory of it all would be a
saint, my mother.
Only those who have given themselves over to the
joy of what we term inspiration can know the ecstasy
of such an ambition. Hours resolve themselves into
minutes and days into expanded dreams. Toward my


66 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
church I neglected no duty, but was happiest when
my work in the meeting house was done that I might
shut myself up among the figures that pressed forward
for a place in my story. Sometimes I would shut them
out and give myself over to the reading of a new book,
a sentence from a well'known writer having fastened
itself upon me, "Read in your own line." But I was
grieved to know that some of the most ill written novels
were accorded the largest sale. Truth of type is put
aside and sex expression exalted. It was notable, too,
that the boldest of these books were written by women,
some of them maidens stepping freshly forth from
school to sip forbidden juices and to feel upon their
rosy ankles the scratch of the wild briar. This set me
toward a determination to make my story pure. I
would have a girl as fresh as the flowers she gathered,
and my hero should love her with a lofty and romantic
devotion.
One day while I was at work a white man called at
my house. The caretaker of my lodge, a Negress, told
him that I was busy, but having heard her I opened the
door and bade the visitor a welcome to my literary
quarters. He told me that he was a newspaper man
from Memphis and that his name was Mike Sulley.
His manner and the poetic expression of his eyes were
impressive and soon we entered upon easy and hu'
morous talk.
"I have heard of your eloquent sermons," he said.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
67
"Thank you, sir. You compliment me with your
report and flatter me with your call."
During this time he had cast an occasional glance at
my manuscript, somewhat scattered on my table. "You
must be writing a long sermon," he remarked.
"No, sir. For my preaching I depend upon the in'
spiration of the moment. I am writing a novel."
"So?" And now he was interested. "May I take a
look at it?"
I gathered up a number of pages and handed them
to him and shrewdly noted his countenance as he read.
Vanity is quick to leap toward an encouragement, and
I fancied that I saw him read certain sentences over and
over to get the full texture of their meaning. After a
time he turned to me: "I should give it as my judgment
that you are doing a remarkable piece of work. You
have acquired an easy, not to say graceful style, such as
requires years of diligent practice. Who was your
teacher?"
"A man you never heard of, a genius who wasted his
mind with so full a feeding that he killed his inspira'
tion."
"I don't know that I gather," he remarked, smiling.
I gave a brief sketch of Andrew Shaver and saw in
my visitor's countenance the expression of newly awak'
ened interest. "Poor fellow, I can sympathize with
him," he said.
"Your sympathy for him is more than casual," I


68 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
remarked.
"Yes, vital, you might say. For years I have been
writing current slop when my soul lamented that I
could not give myself over to an inspiration longing
for expression, since my early childhood, a conviction.
I sent poems to the magazines and got them back, with
never a word of encouragement. Finally I brought out
a small volume at my own expense, worked over time
to pay the printer, sent copies to reviewers and received
gibes and sneers for my pains. And now I am forced
to go back to the slops of journalism."
"But must it be slop?" I asked him. "Is it not true
that some of the greatest minds have touched upon
journalism? From Addison to Kipling many of the most
successful essayists and novelists have written for the
newspapers."
"True, yes; but this does not seem to have entered into
the consciousness of even the critic on the newspaper.
Ever ready at his command is the word journalist, and
he never fails to employ it when he knows that the
writer of a novel or a poem has been connected with a
newspaper. And now as to the object of my visit. As
you doubtless know the newspapers have begun to
speak of you as a remarkable evangelist. A writer in
the Atlanta Constitution recently referred to you as a
black Dwight L. Moody. I expect to go him one better
and to tell the readers of an eastern magazine how it
was that you have been slated for fame. Now tell me


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 69
about your life."
It seemed that a new sun more glowing than the old
had arisen.
I could see great multitudes, white and black, coming
toward me with the tribute of praise. Whether or not
I was to accomplish real good did not picture itself in
my mind. My thirsty soul panted for the sweet drunk'
en ess of fame.
My visitor told me that he would speak of my writ'
ing a novel of my race, and I gave him a photograph of
myself, my hand so trembling that the cardboard fell to
the floor as I reached forth to hand it to him. After a
time, given to musing, the herald of my notoriety then
remarked:
"I am a northern man, have been in the South only
a short time and am not acquainted with Negro charac
ter; but I have read that the black man is more given to
the fragments of fancy than to sustained imagination,
and to this I attributed the fact that the Negro has not
written a revealing novel."
I had heard this verged upon so often that I was not
stung. "Yes, but Alexander Dumas possessed the most
creative and interweaving imagination of all the sons of
France and this may have been due to the generative
heat of the Negro blood within him."
"Oh, I am not seeking to detract from the Negro's
mind," he laughed. "I was engaging in only a specula'
tion. By the way I shall send to you a volume of my


70 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
poems."
A poet to give me his poems! More flattery, and I
discovered that he was becoming handsomer as I gazed
upon him. We talked during more than an hour and
when he took his leave I went with him out to the gate,
shook hands with him and gazed after him until he
turned a corner of the street. Back to my writing I went
but my heart was so full of darling vanities that I
could not work; and in the night I dreamed that I saw
my picture in a magazine put forth by rich and cultured
white men. Within two weeks1 time the volume of
poems came, and by the light of my lamp I sat down
to read them. The verse was free, outlawish at times it
seemed. Why had he not written as naturally as he had
talked to me? Nowhere in any of the verses was there
a truthful image; everywhere was the strain for the
startling. His landscapes were all of them gullied, his
hilltops barren, his valleys grey with dead grass. I would
read a line and listen for an echoing music but it did not
come. And in the ache of disappointment I put the
book aside.


Chapter VIII
The Glad Blaze of the Fire
ONG I waited for the coming of the magazine, but
it did not come. My friend had no doubt written
a sketch, but like his poems, it had been returned to
him. My disappointment though keen at first did not
lengthen for I found a thrilling comfort in my own
work. In my dreams my heroine would sing to me,
and I could hear my hero, now turned preacher, melody
his persuasive cadences.
One rainy day when my housekeeper found it too
wet for work in her garden I was requested to read to
her the first chapters of my story. Her name was Mima.
She was a tall, yellowish creature and in proof that she
was not ignorant it was her boast that during one of
her first lessons of widowhood she had departed sud'
denly to live with a man in St. Louis, a "cullud genep
man" that drove a hack. There she had gone to shows,
had seen John Bunny in motion pictures and was there
fore capable to pronounce upon my work. I was
disappointed that she was not more taken with my
opening sentences, descriptive of scenes with which she
must be familiar, and when I paused to give her a


72 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
chance to say a word she looked at me and put the
question: "And what else?"
I presented my heroine and at the conclusion she said:
"W'y, dat 'pears like me. Wall, thank you so much,
but fur me dar's work ter be done."
Out she went leaving me disgusted with her ignor'
ance. Literary vanity may be apportioned into particles
as small as fly specks, and one of these specks was a
trust that she might on the following day ask for more,
having slept with my project in her mind; but the days
passed and she did not mention it except one morning
to say that I must be tired with fooling away so much
of my time.
I shall not forget the night when the last word of my
story had been written. Several neighbors had called,
among them a woman who urged the beauty and the
qualifications of her marriageable daughter, and it was a
strain to keep from breaking forth in impatience. It
was midnight and now I seized my pen. Ah, how much
easier it was for me to write than for poor old Andrew
Shaver. And when the narrative was done I read aloud
to his spirit the last chapter. Closing my eyes I sat
listening for his comment, knowing that looking over
my shoulder he had read all that had come before; and
now came his words clear and distinct: "My Student,
you have not only lifted a reproach from your people
but you make me proud that I was your teacher."
In my close keeping was a list of publishers, and soon


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 73
there was sent from our town the most precious regis'
tered package that was ever entrusted to Uncle Sam. I
heard the whistle of the engine that drew it away and
caught the last sound of the bell as the train sped toward
that mighty mystery, the metropolis of the East. The
morrow was Sunday and I preached to a large congrc
gation, several white men and women being present, and
I remember saying to myself, "fame, more than religion,
can break the bonds of racial prejudice."
The white visitors came up to me, the Negroes giving
place for them; and one of the women dressed in the
extreme of fashion, remarked: "Some preacher, I want
to tell you;" and how well I knew that she had "never
fed of the dainties bred of a book." She made as if she
would walk out of the house with me, but a man
restrained her, and ducking me a smiling good'bye she
hastened away. One of the men lingered to have with
me an important word. He drew me off from the
throng leaving me to shape the direction we were to
take.
"Praise unless it results in money is a wasted com'
modity," he remarked.
"But consciousness of doing one's duty is worth more
than money or fame," I told him and felt within me
that I was a hypocrite.
"Many a man has tried to feel that way but was
finally forced to change his tune," he remarked, giving
me a sidewise glance.


74 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"That may be true, sir, but as yet I have had but a
narrow experience of life."
"Then it is time to broaden it. I am connected with
a lecture bureau in the North and I believe that I can
put you in the way of making money. You would go
on the platform as a curiosity, and curiosity will draw
larger crowds than all the learning in the world. People
like eloquence but they hate learning, and if you feel
you would care to go on the platform we can make it
to your financial interest. And understand that some of
the biggest preachers in the country stand upon our
call, not only preachers but men known as statesmen.
Are you open to a proposition?"
"No, not now. I can't leave my church just at this
time."
It was not that I hesitated to leave my church; it
was that I should stay close to my town to hear the
enraptured report of my publishers. We were now
come to our yard fence, and at the gate I asked him in,
but he declined.
"No, I simply wanted to talk to you about going out
on the platform, but if you aren't interested I have
nothing further to say. Understand that this is an
opportunity for you. As you doubtless are aware
your name is not yet well known, except in your own
neighborhood."
"How much would you be willing to give me?"
"Well, I tell you, we can get any number of well


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
75
known preachers for one hundred a week and expenses,
but as you'd be a curiosity we'd give you a hundred
and fifty and traveling expenses."
"If money flatters I ought to be tickled, but I expect
to make a fortune within the next two years. Under'
stand, however, that monied fortune is not my aim. I
want only money enough to enable me to develop my
mind with study and travel."
"I take it then that you have made an investment."
"Yes, not in stocks but in a mine."
"What mine, may I ask?"
"The mine of my brain. I have written a book, a
novel of my race. And I am never boastful but I
believe that it will startle our literary world."
The fellow actually laughed. "Why, don't you know
that the public would never believe that a Negro could
write a novel worth reading? I don't believe you have
made a very happy investment. When will the book
be out?"
"Now very soon. It is in the hands of the publisher."
"Easier to place it there than to place it in the hands
of the public."
"He went away and I looked after him, sorry for his
ignorance. He was from the North but he had not so
much confidence in the ability of the Negro as was the
inheritance of the old time Southerner who had sat
enraptured with the recitals of Bre'er Rabbit and Bre'er
Fox, as pure inventions as were ever conceived by


76 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
Aesop, and which, retold by the white man had become
famous. I had heard these stories long before I had read
a line from Joel Chandler Harris. But the Negro
received no credit for them; and now this white man
from the North would take me on a lecture tour, not
that I might have a thought, but that I might be as a
monkey imitating the tricks of man
How slow were the days and how drawn out the
nights! Why had not the publishers telegraphed to me
their congratulations? Why had I not seen in the news'
papers the headline. "A Negro genius has been found."
A month had passed when one morning I received
notice that there was a package for me at the post office.
My knees were not steady as I walked toward the
place. Surely the publishers had not returned my man'
uscript. They were men looking for novelty and I had
sent it to them. Could it be that they were in such
haste as to have sent to me the proof sheets? I was not
now to be long in doubt. It was my book returned and
my heart bled as I walked home with it beneath my arm.
Mima was standing in the door. "Whut you got, er
present fur me?"
"No, a millstone," I answered as I passed into my
room. I tore off the covering, gasping for some word
of encouragement, but there was no letter of explana'
tion, just the printed words, "Sorry, but not available."
In a letter I had told them that I was a Negro, and
this was all the encouragement which their narrow and


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 79
"Er man doan tell his sweetha't ter run erlong. He
say come erlong."
At this moment I was thankful for the voice of a
garrulous neighbor, an old woman who always began
loudly to talk as soon as she came into the yard. Mima
snatched another kiss and hastened off, and again I sat
down inwardly to groan. I might have lost my money,
my degreed right to preach the gospel, and could have
found some text in the holy book to comfort me, but
neither texts from sacred writ nor proverbs from philos'
ophy could touch me now. At my bedside I knelt
and prayed, not that some other publisher might take
my book and with its success make mine enemy grieve,
but that I might be cured of ambition, my inherited
disease. Morning came with a sprout of hope. Some
other publisher would take my book and make me rich
and famous. I hastened through breakfast, pleased to
observe and to feel that Mima had recovered somewhat
from the heat of the night before. I wrote a letter
emphasizing the fact that I was a Negro, the first in
America who had written a novel to portray truthfully
the characteristics of his race, and was so pleased with
this bit of advocacy that I read it over several times.
There was almost a defiant vigor in my stride as I
walked toward the post office, and when I returned
there was a growing leaf on my sprout of hope. Out
in the yard beneath a tree Mima was doing the house
hold washing. Her sleeves were rolled up and her


80 Confessions of a Negro Preacher.
yellow arms appeared graceful as the shifting sunlight
glinted them. Drawing near to her I spoke.
"Beautiful morning, sweetheart."
She turned about and looked at me, wringing the
suds from her hands. "Night is de time fur de sweet'
hea't, an' not in de sunshine. De truf is you dun had
you' chance and you flung it erway. Go on now
erbout you biznez."
.... A month, and again I walked from the post'
office with a frozen hope beneath my arm. Along with
the rejection slip the publishers enclosed an estimate
from one of their hired readers, expressing the opinion
that the book must have been written by a white man
masking as a Negro. In my bitterness I could have cut
that man's throat and sanctified the knife by wiping it
on a leaf torn from the New Testament. A few days
of moping in despair and then another sprouting hope.
To another publisher and with another letter. I then
preached a sermon with hope as my text, and old folk
whose hope one would think had all of it long since
been buried, came up to tell me that I had renewed
their interests in life. And when that night in my room
alone a strange belief came to take a strong hold upon
me, that I had not, in humiliation, approached near
enough to Jesus. It was only to reward my vanity that
I had implored His help; and with my head bowed
over the hearth I prayed to Christ and to my mother to
strip me of ambition. And yet I could feel that had it


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 81
not been for ambition the world would have never
arisen out of savagery, intellectual ambition such as
possessed me and made of me its slave. I pictured
myself preaching to the hogs in Aunt Silvy's pen and
wished that I might again be as simple, and yet, even
then it was ambition
Back again came my manuscript and now I walked
forth into the woods, not to pray but to curse the
earth and all that it possessed. Well could I understand
why men committed suicide, ah, but not black Negroes.
Whenever a Negro ended his life with his own hand it
was a streak of white blood that prompted the act; and
I recalled having heard my humorous old grandfather
say that it was rare a Negro had a trouble that a din'
ner of pork chops could not cure.
And what was this? A new sprout? Yes. Now I
would send my story to a magazine and have it pub'
lished as a serial. I sent it and in due time it came back
with a kindly letter. "You may be a Negro as you say,
but it would seem that a Negro so close to the soil
would be simpler in his style. It is not that you are
given to the use of big words, but you write somewhat
after the manner of a professor. Now we must print
what the people want, and in all ages that is what has
made literature. Critics do not make a book immortal.
Wisdom in slang is more potent than wisdom in plati'
tude. Let us hear from you again."
He did not hear from me again. In my soul I cursed


82 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
him and did not call upon the Lord to forgive me.
It was a cool night and with the fire crackling I sat
beside my hearth. From Mima's quarters came a song
and the strumming of a banjo. A Negro man was with
her, a foppish waiter from a city. My manuscript lay
open before me and taking it up with a shudder I began
to read it. Yes, the words were simple, but here and
there I found too many traces of Andrew Shaver's mind.
He had schooled me with the white man's classics, he
had helped me to deplore that I had the simple and
believing soul of the Negro. After all, though, I had
striven to write the romantic annals of a race once
enslaved. I had not caught the barbarism that would
have made my work original. And now an impluse
came upon me. I took up all of the sheets, so labored
over and interlined, smoothed them out, pressed them
to my aching heart and laid them upon the fire. The
blaze leaped up, glad of the food. I heard the banjo
strumming. I saw my work blacken, blacker than the
Negro; and catching up a handful of smut, I sprinkled
it on my head.


Chapter IX
The Gnu. in the Elevator
TVTEWSPAPERS came out with an announcement
that Robert G. Ingersoll was soon to lecture in
Atlanta on the "Mistakes of Moses." I was in a humor
to listen to flaws picked in the annals of the Almighty.
I had read IngersolTs nominating speech in a national
convention and had been much taken not with his logic
but with the power of his eloquence. Atlanta was not
far distant, and one evening I found myself traversing
its busy streets. The lecture was to be given in the opera
house, the gallery open to Negroes and to vagabonds
who had the price, and thither I went up into the dusty
loft. The house was far short of being crowded. Inger'
soll's party affiliation, his atheism and especially his atti'
tude toward the Negro denied to him the admiration of
the South. There was no music to herald the orator's
approach, just an occasional cough and rather a mild
clapping of hands as he came out upon the stage. I had
expected to see a mighty giant, but he was rather short
and somewhat inclined toward obesity. He looked out
over the audience and before speaking a word gave a
chuckle as if he were preparing to enjoy himself. Soon


84 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
I forgot everything, swinging as I was in the grape
vine loops of his rhetoric. I know now that his style
was too measured for prose, that he often thought more
of rhythm than of strength; but I was enraptured,
coming down out of the place with my mind teeming
with his figures. Now it came upon me that I would
give more than my railway fare home for a talk with
him, and straightway I went to the Piedmont Hotel,
bold to request an interview. But this must be man'
aged adroitly. I had heard of the proprietor of the Pied'
mont, an East Tennesseean named Parrot. It was said
that he would leave his own dining room, where epi'
cures sat nibbling, to go down into the Negro quarter
and to eat a dinner of turnip greens and corn meal
dumplings. It was this that gave me encouragement,
and telling a brass'buttoned boy that I wished to see
Mr. Parrot I waited at the door of the lobby. Soon he
came, a man of pleasant and friendly bearing; and when
I told him of my mission he laughed.
"Well, I reckon he'd rather talk to a nigger than a
white man."
On a card I wrote this message: "Colonel Ingersoll,
have you the time to talk for a few moments to a Negro
preacher?"
Down came word that the great man would see me.
The elevator was operated by a Negro girl, pretty with
a touch of paint, and she grinned at me, firing me
somewhat.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
85
"Ah bet youse er preacher," she said as we were
going up. v •
"How did you know? By my clothes?"
"No, by dat nippy eye o' yourn."
I made as if to chuck her beneath the chin and she
giggled at me as I stepped out of the elevator. IngersolTs
door was open, several men standing to take their leave,
and waiting until they were gone I tapped and was bade
to enter. The orator was standing. He came toward
me with his hand held out, shook with me; and when
after the manner of my training I had dropped my hat
on the floor, he took it up and placed it on a table.
"Sit down," he bade me. To do this I was somewhat
loath, but he gestured courteously and I sat down.
"Colonel, I heard your lecture."
"Yes, and you a preacher, and survived," he laughed.
"I not only survived but I fear that in a way I was
strengthened."
He looked at me in astonishment. "Fear that you
were strengthened?"
"Yes, in a skepticism that sometimes enters my
mind."
"Are you afraid of truth?"
"No sir," I told him, "but sometimes I am afraid that
I may mistake error for truth. I know in my soul that
the bible is the word of God, and yet you almost make
me question it. Do you believe, Colonel Ingersoll, that
it would be right to take from the Negro his simple


86 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
faith?"
"Perhaps not, and so it sometimes seems a cruelty to
take from the child his faith in Santa Claus. But neither
the infant nor the Negro can always be a credulous
child. You have come to me frankly, and I do not wish
to project an uneasiness into your mind, but I must say
to you that a personal God is just as impossible as Per'
sonal Nature."
"But may it not be true, sir," said I, "that behind
nature there is power?"
"Nothing can be behind nature and surely not a
personal power."
"But don't you put chance behind nature? Don't you
believe that the earth came out of chance?"
"You assume to give my meaning, very well. Then
let us take a view of chance whatever it may be and
term it more in accord with probability than the creative
word of a being who lived in darkness during countless
ages and then commanded that there be light. I beg
your pardon but such discussions and especially with
a preacher never advance us beyond assertion and
denial. Just now you asked if I would take away the
Negro's simple faith. If a pleasure be innocent I would
rob no man of it. But belief in a revengeful God is not
innocent. It is not innocent to look upon blood as the
cordial of the soul."
He hesitated, looking at me, and I said to him: "You
may stagger my faith and yet not weaken it. You smile


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
87
at a Christian's simpleness when he says he believes in
the God'inspired book, but is not a sneering disbelief a
sort of unbolstered arrogance?"
"I am pleased to know that you do not hesitate to
say what you think. It may be that every belief and
every disbelief is a sort of arrogance. But before we go
further let me say that such discussions are almost con'
stant with me. Next to getting a murderer ready for
the gallows the average preacher would rather hold an
argument with me. More than one divine schooled into
belief that God had called him to preach has sent to me
a written prayer in which he implored the Lord if He
should find it convenient, to save my soul. How did
you happen to become a preacher?" he laughed. "Was
it because you wanted to keep out of work?"
"No, sir, I labored like a galley slave that I might
get into the ministry. My mother was a saint. I know
that the Lord inspired her and I believe that she inspired
me.
"You seem to have been carefully taught the use of
words. I suppose you went to Booker Washington's
school."
"Yes, sir, but I found no such teacher there as came
to me when I was only a child. Andrew Shaver—"
"What!" Ingersoll interrupted. "Andrew Shaver!
For a time he lived in my town of Peoria, preached
scholarship whenever he could get any one to listen,
tried to take orders for a cigar house, and finally got a


90 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
there was merriment, music, dancing. Soon I learned
that my housekeeper had been taken to wife by the
foppish waiter. He came forward and held out his
hand as if he expected a tip, and there was a tip, not
to him but to me when Mima stole a chance to whisper
in my ear: "Ah offered mahse,f ter you but you didn'
'pear ter hab no manhood in you."
On the following day she told me that she and the
fop were to live in Birmingham, but that I might keep
my room, furnished as it was. This was not ill news. In
a spirit of trustful humiliation that came unto me just
before getting off the train, I conceived the notion to
write perhaps a whole volume of prayers. I could not
recall that any Negro had ever written prayers and thus
was I to engage in producing a novelty. The Lord no
doubt had naught to do with the production of a book
of fiction but surely He would help me to compose a
volume of humble supplication. In the night I took up
my saddened and neglected pen and proceeded with this
new composition. But I found that the bitterness of
disappointed ambition was still in my heart. I got down
to pray, upsetting my ink as I did so, and I remember
that I termed the black fluid ambition's sop. I com'
pleted one prayer, finishing it with numerous correc
tions and went to bed; but in my dreams that elevator
girl with painted lips came to dance before me. She
knelt at my feet, and gathering her in my arms I kissed
myself awake.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
91
It was imperative that I should have a housekeeper,
or at least to employ some one to look after my meals.
I gave this out to the congregation and soon there came
many applicants. I trust that the Lord gave me credit
for one virtue, that of removing temptation by selecting
an old, wrinkled woman.


Chapter X
Mrs. Hester
J^OW I enter upon a part of my recital that I recall
with a shudder. One day when I was sitting with
my prayerful pen in hand four white ladies called, glib
with greeting, and at once I knew by their accent that
they were from the North. One woman, Mrs.MargU'
rite Hester, spoke the object of this flattering invasion.
She was young, plump and with a voluptuous smile.
Her hair was of a golden hue, so thrilling to a Negro,
with a sea'depth blue of eye, and with lips that must
have whispered entrancement to the man who had won
her love. But I could see that with all of her physical
charm she was a woman of inbred and cultivated refine
ment.
"We are members of the W. C. T. U.," she said,
when she had introduced herself and her associates.
"We have come to the South and I believe for a noble
purpose, that of helping the colored people."
"Please say Negroes, Madam. It is easier and more
truthfully expressive. I have never heard Booker Wash'
ington speak of colored people. He did not regard the
name Negro as a reproach any more than Asiatic or


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
93
European."
She smiled at me and turned to her friends. "Ah.
ladies, you see that we are fortunate in having to deal
with a sensible man. And now, Reverend, as to our
visit. We are going to establish a mission where shall
be taught religion in its original purity. We had not
settled upon the exact locality until we heard you preach
the other night, and then we decided to build it here."
"Yes, we have," the other ladies chimed and I bowed
my grateful acknowledgements. "Ladies, you honor me.
It is my constant prayer that I may do something to
help my race."
"You are surely doing it," said Mrs. Hester. "You
are proving that the colored man—I beg your pardon,
the Negro," she added, smiling — "proving that the
Negro has an eloquent soul."
When the other women had ceased to laugh, which
they did pleasantly, I remarked:
"Madam, some of the most eloquent of men have
been barbarians. What I am trying to bring out is that
the Negro when given the opportunity may be just as
progressive in the ways of civilization as the white
man."
Up spoke an oldish woman, Mrs. Conner: "I don't
see why he shouldn't be. The Negro is one of God's
creatures, endowed with an immortal soul, and souls
have no color."
"You are apt in estimate," I told her, and Mrs Hester


94
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
spoke:
"You surely prove Mrs. Conner's statement when
you show us how well you have mastered the use of
words."
"Madam, my use of words may mean but little, and
if I have an easy and meaningful use of them I confess
to have been taught by a white man."
"But you couldn't have been taught if you hadn't
been receptive. My husband, Mr. Hester, was a preach'
er, a powerful speaker, but he never ceased to lament
his lapses from the strict rules of grammar. And yet he
was a man of learning. In the broadness of his religious
faith he placed the Negro on an equal moral footing
with the white man. He did acknowledge, however,
that the Negro had not yet succeeded in mastering his
animal emotions."
"And neither has the white man," I told her. "When
we completely kill the animal within us we shall have
become too anemic not alone for the enjoyments but for
the ordinary affairs of life."
"Oh, how I wish Mr. Hester could have heard you
talk. He would have enjoyed you so much."
There fell a pause and then I asked of Mrs. Hester:
"How are you to go about the establishment of your
mission? And may I ask as to what is to be its direct
object?"
"It is our aim to create a school, unique in its way,
a school in no wise industrial but a cultural institute


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
95
where the Negroe's mind, and especially his religious
mind, may be developed. It may be said that our aim is
over altruistic, but I don't think so. This will require
quite a liberal sum of money, but this we hope to collect
and with your assistance, Reverend," she added, giving
to me a smile that made glad the warm blood within
me. She continued when I had bowed to her: "We
find that the white people in this State of Georgia
are not ungenerous toward our project. In fact we
have discovered that they do not hate the Negroes.
But what I can't understand is this: I heard a lady in
Macon say that she loved her tawney maid, and yet she
would not sit down and dine with her. I can't under'
stand that."
"It is something, Madam, that no one reared in the
North can comprehend. I have known white boys that
would have risked their lives to fight for me, and yet
if I had suggested that I sit at table with them they
would have been outraged to the point of stabbing me."
"I confess that I can't understand it," said Mrs. Con'
ner, and the beautiful Mrs. Hester declared it to be a
foolish inconsistency. "But getting closer to business
we must insist upon your immediate help," she said.
"We request you to make the circuit of the neighboring
towns to lecture in favor of our project. I will act as
your manager."
"That would be most flattering to me, Madam, but
discretion would suggest a man."


96
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"Why so? Don't you believe me capable?"
Into her marvelous eyes there came the shadowed
expression of disappointment, rendering me quick to
say: "Oh, capable? More than sure enough, but you
must remember that you are in the South and that to
go about with a Negro not your servant would be
worse for you than a disgrace."
"What nonsense," she deplored. "Can't the people
of the South be sensible of a truth? Must the color of
the Negro constantly blind their eyes toward the color
of all justice? You go with me under my management
and I will take all the blame."
"That would not show as courage but as a sort of
social desperation, Madam. Now I am more than will-
ing to enter into your plan but must insist upon care
not to offend the social rule. The money you expect to
raise would come mostly from the white folk. It does
not require a broad and experienced mind to decide that
as even big business must be discreet, little business
must at least be careful."
Then came a genuinely feminine indorsement for one
of the ladies cheerily spoke up, "I think he's really
cute."
This brought merriment, a spirit ever ready among
the ladies to put business aside, and then a concession
on the part of Mrs. Hester. "No doubt, Reverend,
what you say is true. We will employ a man to act as
manager, but I shall appear occasionally to see that


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
97
everything goes smoothly."
"Well, as that is all settled we might as well enjoy
ourselves," said the woman who had termed me cute.
"Just as well," Mrs. Hester acknowledged, bowing to
me. "I understand that you went to Atlanta to hear
Ingersoll, the infidel, lecture on the 'Mistakes of
Moses.' Do you think that you were benefited by it?"
"Madam, I was surely not harmed. Ingersoll is a
poet, and whatever else King David might have been,
he was a bard. In many ways the poet may go wrong
but whithin his soul there is inspiration, the truest love
of God."
Mrs. Hester smiled upon me. "I am more than will'
ing to pardon much in a poet. But after all, what is the
ultimate hope of poetry?"
"I am not schooled enough to say, Madam, but I
should think that the truest hope of the youthful poet
is finally to become the aged philosopher."
"I keep on telling you he is cute," spoke my defender,
good humoring us; but Mrs. Hester, determined upon
at least an occasional air of seriousness, said that cute
ness might make a moment pleasant but never solve a
problem. "But do you believe that any man was ever
profound if he refused to accept the gospel of Jesus?"
"Madam, there must surely have been profound men
before the name of Jesus had been spoken. But I freely
confess myself when I say that in my consciousness of
life there is but one glorified wisdom, and that is


98 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
wrapped about a Cross."
"Then of course no atheist can be a man of glorified
wisdom," said Mrs. Hester. "Well, ladies, I suppose
we might as well be going. Of course there are minor
details that must be arranged, Reverend, but we can
do that at almost any time. If any idea occurs to you
that you think ought to be discussed, you can find me
almost any time over at the hotel. So glad to have met
you and am so much encouraged. Good'bye for the
present."
I shook hands with them all, walked out to the gate
with them, spry in my vanity. As they were chatting
and laughing themselves away, one of them looked back
and "cuted" me with a parting glance. She had more
than once flattered me, but it was not upon her that my
mind was now to dwell, but upon Mrs. Hester.


Chapter XI
Prayed With Him
T\OWN humbly to write my book of prayer I settled
myself, poured out my inky supplications, sought
to summon abnegating ferver, but I could not banish
from my mind the bedizened image of Mrs. Hester. I
pictured the Cross on Calvary, saw miscreants casting
for the seamless garment of Christ, but dancing on tip-
toe among the dice was that woman, noting not her
dainty tread but giving to me her eyes. That this was
the art of satan I sorely felt, and I knew that he laughed
when strong within me my blood was made to bubble.
Why could not the gospel in which I firmly believed,
quiet my soul and make me gentle? Must I ever be an
emotional hypocrite? I wondered as to how many men
had ever made an honest search into their own bosoms.
Would it not be frank in me to say that man was more
nearly the creation of the devil than of God? Must
I wait for sex'destroying age to render me a true follow
er of the Nazarene? Young lambs could not be parted
from lechery, the Avon poet made a brutish man to
say, then what could be expected of the goat full grown?
In our neighborhood there lived a very wise white


100 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
preacher, and after a night of almost fruitless prayer I
called on him. He received me kindly and although a
man of the South, invited me to a chair in his library.
I sat down and after a few moments of silence he said
that I looked as if I might be in distress.
"Yea, verily," I bibled him. "I have spent a night of
prayer and I fear without avail."
"Have you committed a crime that moved you to
pray so long?" he asked, his eyes upon me.
"Not a crime within the reach of the law, but a
crime of desire, one that our Master would condemn."
Then to him I made a full confession, and I do not
believe that any human being had ever looked upon me
in so sympathetic an interest. "Poor soul," he said, "in
your prayer for virtue you were virtuous. Not many
ministers would be so frank and I honor you for it. We
all know that more than other men the preacher is
tempted. That he sometimes yields and falls is an unfor
tunate truth. And did you come to me because you
have heard that once I was arraigned for trial in open
court."
I was astonished. "No, sir. Of that trial I was wholly
ignorant."
"Well, I was tried and acquitted by twelve jurymen.
But there was a thirteenth juryman and he did not
acquit me." He bowed and touched his bosom and I
knew that he meant himself.
"Reverend sir, you may trust me to hold in sacred
confidence what you have said to me. And now do you


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 101
feel that you have been forgiven?" I added, pointing
upward.
"Yes, the Adam within me."
"May I be bold to ask a question?" He nodded his
permission. "Have you succeeded by prayer in keeping
—her image out of your mind?"
"Her image now does not reproach me. I last saw
her in her shroud. But let us remember that if there
were no transgression there could be no repentance and
that without repentance we could not feel the tenderest
mercy of the Saviour."
I went away conscious that I had found a kindred
weakness but not a sustaining strength
One afternoon, a few days later, I called on Mrs.
Hester. It was only in the lobby that I could meet her,
and to stand in her presence while we talked. She told
me that she had written a number of letters and had
received gracious answers. "Our agent is to go forth at
once to arrange for the dates and I have settled upon
a man to act as your manager. You may receive a call
from him at any time." And now her dazzling smile.
"Did any one ever tell you that you have a sort of
classic face? You can't imagine what I said to Mrs.
Conner. I called you an ebon Athenian. Don't look
about so. No one is listening to us. Yes, that is what I
said to her, and believe it, too. How I wish Mr. Hester
could have known you."
"How long has your husband been dead?" I asked.
'Two years," she answered with a sigh. "Oh, and


102 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
the time has been long. He did not believe that any
distinction ought to be drawn between the white man
and the Negro. He said that it was climate that made
the difference in the color of the skin, but that climate
could make no difference in the color of the soul."
Here her handkerchief fell to the floor and I caught
it up and held it forth with a bow. "Oh, no, I wish you
would keep it. Won't you?"
I could see that it was trickery, but why should a
handsome white woman play such tricks with a Negro?
I went away, the handkerchief in my hand, and along
the road I sniffed its sweetness. Perhaps after all she
possessed a broad and generous soul and that her atti'
tude toward me was wholly innocent. Was it not
within God's province to create purity? Yes, I would
believe so, and yet the sweetness of that handkerchief
bespoke the slyness of satan.
The scent of the dainty rag had banished from my
mind all memory of the preacher who had confessed to
me, but now I could feel again his presence, as I looked
across a valley toward his house on a knoll. I must
have come upon him at a time when the apostle within
him condemned the man.
Along toward evening my manager called, a member
of the Y. M. C. A. he soon informed me. He was
slick haired and smirk faced, typical of his institution,
I thought, and never had I held it in high esteem; and
I recall that Shaver once said to me, "Boy, once I owed
the 'V for a week of lodging and though I was stricken


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 103
with poverty, the collector gibed me until I paid it.
They call themselves Christians, but had Jesus been of
the order he would have put the Roman coin into his
pocket."
My manager told me he was from Iowa where a
Negro who behaved himself was as good as a white
man. "As a white man who hadn't," I replied to test
his sense of humor.
He knew not whether to smile or to sniffle, but com'
promising between the two he said that no matter
where he might live, a Negro could be just as honest as
any one else, "And surely just as religious," he added.
"Yes," he went on, "and when I was a student at Drake
University I had for a time a Negro room mate and I
want to tell you he was some scholar. I don't know
whatever became of him."
"That is the trouble with scholars," I replied. "We
rarely know what becomes of them."
"Yes, that's no lie. Now let's see: when will you be
ready to start out?"
"As soon as the dates can be arranged."
"All right, and I believe we'll do a good business.
Mrs. Hester's got a good head on her. I suppose you've
notice that."
"I have noticed that it sits with grace upon her
shapely shoulders."
"Good. Oh, you are there when it comes to that."
We talked during more than an hour, and when he
had gone away I could not recall any definite arrangc


104 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
ments except that he was to receive a liberal percentage
of the money that might come our way
Now in the night I humbled myself down to work
upon my prayer book. Prayer book by a Negro. Yes,
that would be a novelty. And I caught my pen in the act
of telling the Lord that I was a Negro. Was I striving
to make a pride of my racial inferiority? Not so, for
there was no inferiority except in the stupid and unlet'
tered egotism of the white man.
Next morning Plunkett, my manager, called and told
me that our first date was only three days removed, on
the following Thursday. "Now we don't want to show
them how smart we are, but to show ourselves the best
way to collect," he said, revealing more of keenness as
he approached the "hold up." I thought that in his
caution against learning there was a sly thrust at me,
deeming me somewhat of the pedant, and I resented it.
"Mr. Plunkett, have no fear that I am going out to
air my scholarship. The Lord knows that I am in no
wise a scholar. I am a man who has studied and who
has read somewhat," waving my hand toward Shaver's
books, "but I know that I can never become a sage."
"Maybe not, whatever that is, but it is just like this:
We are out for a purpose and that purpose is to get the
money. Not for ourselves, you understand, but for the
establishment of our mission. I have heard it said and
I believe it that you would be quite a man if you were
a little more practical. And this morning I came near
having a row with a school man here who said that you


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 105
were a parrot taught by a white outcast from the
North."
"There was much truth in what he said/' I acknowl'
edged, looking toward the unfinished manuscript of
my prayer book.
"Ah, but that mustn't get out. It would hurt us.
Have you done any shaping as to what you are going
to say in your addresses?"
Evidently he was afraid of foolish breaks on my part.
"Yes, I am going to lay stress on the need of the Negro;
I am going to show how that he may be made a better
and a more successful citizen."
"That's all right and I believe it will fetch 'em. Well,
I've got a lot of work to do and must be moving along."
I shall not dwell upon my work in this new
field. The white people gave generously. Upon a mat'
ter of sentiment the man of the South is not close of
pocket.
One night in a town that aspired to be a city I was
told that Billy Sunday was registered at the leading
hotel. My heart leaped at the thought of a talk with
him and I spoke to Plunkett.
"That would be a good thing and I think it can be
easily arranged. Of course he can't come down here to
this wagon yard, so I'll have to make arrangements for
you to meet him at the hotel. Don't look so scared. He
won't hesitate to meet you. He knows how to handle
a crowd better than any man in the country and we
might get some effective pointers from him. I'll go


106 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
right now and see what can be done."
Wherein I was quartered was in truth a wagon yard,
and my window looked out upon a corral where mules
bit at one another. Were these mules in their way the
servants of the Lord? Many a one of their breed had
been freighted with bibles, laboring toward the top of
a frontier mountain. Yes, they were servants of the
Lord, and yet how viciously some of them would wheel
about and kick at a feeder from the same trough. But
had not even ministers, feeders from the trough of the
gospel, kicked in deadly hate, one at another? But I
must not think of such things. I must think humbly of
my prayer book.
Plunkett soon returned with the news that Sunday
would be pleased to see me. A cheerful voice bade me
come in and upon entering the room I found the evan'
gelist strapping a valise. His wife was with him, and
before proceeding further let me say that I have never
met a more gracious woman. Her face was sweet in
kindliness and her voice was the music of sympathy.
After she had spoken a few words which made my
heart glad, she withdrew, and Sunday, after washing
his hands, came smiling toward me.
"Your manager tells me that you are out to get money
for the establishment of a mission where true religion
and the right sort of education may be provided for the
people of your color. Good work. Sit down."
"I have heard of you so much, Mr. Sunday, have
read that—"


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 107
"That I am out after the money," he broke in, smil'
ing. "Well, I do get it. And what then? Is it ever used
as a political slush fund? Not much. And there is
another thing that has been brought against me. Some
of the preachers have charged me with being a clown
in the pulpit. What am I to do, stand up there and
yawn? They tell me of the meekness of the gospel, but
I want to say that the work of spreading the gospel can
be made too meek. The devil isn't meek, and we've got
to fight the devil, and you let a Christian start in to
fight meekly and you'll see where he lands. Yes, sir, if
the devil fights with fire, we've got to use the same
method."
"Mr. Sunday, what do you think of the future of the
Negro race? That is what most interests me."
He had arisen and was walking up and down the
room. Toward me he turned with a penetrative look.
"You might just as well ask me as to what I think of
the future of the white race. We are all the children
of God and therefore have the same destiny."
"I mean toward the attainment of an enlightened
state."
"My dear sir, there is no enlightened state without
a Christian state. And as Christ died to save the Negro
as well as the white man I see no difference. If you
regard material wealth as enlightenment, of course
there may for centuries exist a difference between the
two races. There are a few Negroes who have shown
a moneymaking faculty, some of them bankers, a few


108 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
lawyers and physicians, but the average Negro is not
inclined that way. The thing for the Negro to do is to
improve himself morally and religiously. I take it that
you have been carefully educated, and may I ask you
whether it has improved your religious attitude? Hasn't
your education somewhat stimulated you toward a
belief in evolution? I find that to be true of the white
man and I should think it equally a fact with the
Negro."
"Mr. Sunday, I cannot deny but that at times I
have wondered as to the truth of evolution. At times,
sir, I may have looked upon it in a sort of fear."
"See here, whenever I meet a man with what is
called advanced education I am almost tempted to
disbelieve in the immaculate birth of the Saviour. Do
you believe in a personal God?"
"I pray, sir, that my belief in a personal God may
become stronger."
"Ha, then you pray that you may become better
acquainted with your own soul. Do away with a per'
sonal God and you wipe out all life and all eternity.
God is the personal image of all humanity. God
spoke, and the impersonal cannot speak. God walked
in the garden and Adam saw him. If God is not
personal Jesus was not personal, and if Jesus was not,
neither are we. And now let me tell you that the
most dangerous error man can commit is to let the
books written by the enemies of God stultify his mind.
As you have no doubt heard and as you can doubtless


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 109
see, I am not what you might call an educated man.
I was a sinner called to repentance; and if I were
offered all the wisdom ever possessed by man in
exchange for my simple faith, I would scorn it."
He stood before me, young and an athlete, and bow'
ing my head low I said to him: "Mr. Sunday, please
pray for me."
"On your knees," he commanded, and down upon
our knees we sank, and he prayed fervently that the
Lord might bring back to me my mother's faith; and
when we arose he took me by the hand, his eyes bright,
and told me to go my way, a child. And so I left him,
my Negro soul possessing me once more; and during
three days I lived, a dependant lamb, pouring forth
my warm and emotional appeal, unselfishly glad to see
new men and women come forward with their contri'
butions to our worthy cause. Then, one night, I saw
Mrs. Hester sitting in the midst of my congregation.
Upon her I did not dare to dwell my eyes; I pretended
not to see her, but at the close of my oration she came
forward with her hand held out.
"Oh, we are so proud of the work you are doing,"
she said. "And we have about decided to give to the
mission your name. Aren't you glad to see me?" she
asked, stealing the chance to whisper.
I was thrilled but not glad. Her bright eyes stabbed
at my faith, while in my heart arose this thought: "Oh
that within you there might be a drop of Negro blood
to taint the white and to make you mine." As quietly


110 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
as I could I told her that I was greatly pleased, and felt
that she enjoyed the slavery in which she held me. I
knew that side by side we could not walk along the
street, and she knew it too, having now been in the
southland long enough to learn. But she could see me
in my mule lot domicile where there was biting and the
flying of hoofs in the air. She came and on a bench
in a sort of corridor we sat, the Negroes standing aloof,
with now and then a wise old mamma to give us a
suspicious squint.
"I am so glad to know that you have not forgotten
me."
"Ah, Mrs. Hester, who could suffer so complete
a mind blight as to forget you?"
"Oh, you are a true poet. Why don't you write
poetry?"
"I am—the poetry of prayer, writing it at night;
the saints, setting their breath to music, breathe upon
me."
She made as if to touch my hand, but a Negro woman
was squinting. "Why do they watch me so? Do
they think I came here to steal something? Well our
mission will cure them of that. Mr. Plunkett tells me
that you are very easy to get along with."
"Madam, it is easy enough for a Negro, keeping in
his place, to get along with a white man."
"But surely he does not seek to assert his white
supremacy. He is not well enough educated for that."
"Madam, in such matters education is a thistle down."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 111
"Oh, I just know you can write poetry. What do
you think of our modern verse?"
"In the sky at night there is no new sublimity, nor
in a sunrise a glory not discovered until now. The
school has not improved upon the poetry of the bible."
"No, that is true enough. But there may be new
estimates of the bible, in a poetic way, I mean. But I
want to talk business. How much money do you
suppose we have succeeded in collecting?"
"With the money part, Madam, I have not been
perhaps as much concerned as I should. During the
most of the time since I came out I have devoted my
thought to prayer. Just a few days ago Billy Sunday
prayed with me."
"Well, surely he is broad enough to feel that it
didn't hurt him. He is a marvelous man, and has
made many an old miser shake mildewed coin out of
his sock."
This figure must have been of sudden birth for she
laughed at it, the music of her voice echoing throughout
the place. "And that is what you can do," she said.
"Mr. Plunkett is much impressed with you, and you
know that he used to be with the Salvation Army."
"Madam, I knew that he had been trained in the
ways of getting money."
In this remark she saw no shade of reproach. "Oh,
yes, and we are going to find him very useful. You
leave here tomorrow morning, I understand."
"Yes, we have collected here about all we can. You


112 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
know that I must not wholly neglect my church: I
must run in at least once a week."
"Now, don't let that worry you. I have made
arrangements for a minister to take your place, a yellow
gentleman from Mobile, and quite a scholar he is, I be
lieve he told me. But of course no one could really take
your place, Reverend," and she gave me her eyes.
"But I haven't told you how much we have succeeded
in raising. Can't you make a guess?"
"Not an accurate one, I am afraid."
"Well, we have nearly four thousand dollars. What
do you think of that?"
I could not tell her at once what I thought of it.
To me the sum was vast. I had in my possession about
six hundred dollars, saved and left me by Shaver, and
I had begun to look upon myself as a selected possessor
of worldly goods. No, I could hardly grasp at the sig'
nificance of four thousand dollars. She came to my
relief.
"Oh, but it is not enormous. It is not yet more than
a third part of enough to build our mission house. But
well raise enough, never fear."
I did not fear and told her so. And again she gave
me her blood'dancing smile, the witch. Her heart,
though, must be thoroughly good, I mused. She was
working in an unselfish cause. Mrs. Conner was the
treasurer. "And a mighty careful accountant," Mrs.
Hester told me. "Why, she used to keep books for the
Singer Sewing Machine Company, and I understand


Chapter XII.
Shrieking Down The Road
When our canvassing season came to an end we
found ourselves to -be possessed of nearly twelve thou-
sand dollars, enough to give our establishment an ample
start. To me this was in a way a conquest, but I did
not desire to be merely an eloquent collector. To
become known throughout the land, to do something
to lift my people was my soul's yearnings. Toward this,
however, I was not progressing. Yes, there was my
book of prayer. That surely was a progress. But to
do effective work on it I must be in a humbly softened
mood. I must believe so devoudy in a personal God
as to feel his enwrapping presence, a mood which we
cannot summon at will though we grovel on our knees
for it. Occasionally it would come and always in the
hush of night, and then my quill seemed glad to write,
and in truth it was a quill, plucked from a neighboring
gander. Shaver had told me that scarcely anything of
worth had been written since man had begun to ink
his words with a sliver of steel, and to me it seemed
that a prayer must be smoother and more effective
quilled out upon a page of foolscap: yes, for all con'
nected with this work must be humble, pen and paper,


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 115
therefore I had purchased foolscap, when I might have
smiled at myself to reflect that the fool is rarely humble.
I had read books of prayer, some of them written in
the early fervor of the English church, but I found that
they gave unto me no inspirational incentive. I found,
too, that I must put behind me the most of my Shaver
schooling and turn to my mother's cabin, the ashes in
the fire place. One night a horned owl hooted near my
house, and I formed a prayer as a hoot at sin, and at
man's desire for fame, the most original prayer ever
conceived, I told myself. Over and over I read it,
chanted it as a hymn, imitating the hoarse voice of the
owl; and in my fervor I thanked the Lord that He had
so endowed me . "Ah, beat, Mr. White Man," I
remember to have said to myself. I went to my bed hoot'
ing, and then came the image of learned Shaver, frost'
ing my newly budded faith. Thus it was that I
engaged in constant conflict with myself.
One evening I saw my book of prayer completed.
The sun was smouldering in a bed of crimson clouds.
It was such an evening as gives the delicate tint to the
cheek of a ripening peach. Now had I truly conquered
the beast within me. There might come skirmishes but
the warfare with myself was done. A tap at my door,
I opened it, and there in the fading light was a brighter
light, the smile of Mrs. Hester.
"I have only a short time to stay," she said as she
came into the room. "Mr. Plunkett will call for me.
Oh, what a lot of writing you have done. May I


116 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
look at it?"
"It would be interesting only when you are in the
mood for it," I said to her. "It is prayer."
"Oh, that ought to be interesting at all times. It is
the spirit of prayer that keeps our world alive." But I
noticed that her interest flitted at once from my work.
She sat down and I saw a bit of dainty lace on her
bosom rise and fall with her breathing.
"I have been busy today with an architect," she
said. "He is drawing plans for our structure, and it
warms my heart to think that it is all due to you."
"No, Madam, I was only a talker. You did the
work."
"I'm sure it is kind of you to say so. But really the
better I know you the more I marvel at the gifts that
nature has bestowed upon you."
"You flatter me, but do not compliment nature."
"Compliment nature? I congratulate her. And
really when I am away from you and seek to recall
your feaures, you don't look black to me, and I have
thought I saw your soul, proving to me that there is no
difference between the soul of the Negro and the white
man."
. "That may be, Mrs. Hester, and yet if a test should
come it would not take you more than the hundredth
part of a second to see and feel the difference."
"Really, Reverend, I dont know what you mean."
"I mean if a Negro should ask you to marry him
your white blood would fly up in resentment."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
117
Into her eyes I gazed. She did not wince. "That
is something which I do not forecast. But if I loved
him I—"
"Ah, but could you love him?"
"Desdemona loved Othello, and she was as fair as
a lily."
"True, Mrs. Hester^but this was the tragic romance
of a poet. But in America, in the South, Desdemona
would not have flaunted her handkerchief in the face
of a rigorous prejudice. She would not have consen'
ted to be the wife of the Moor."
"Perhaps not the wife, and yet would have loved
him."
I gazed at her. "And would she have yielded to the
demands of that love?"
She bowed her head and whispered one word: "Per-
haps."
Into my soul flew back the beast, and bounding from
my chair I caught her in my arms. One moment of
ecstacy, her lips; and then a shriek that seemed to pierce
the heavens. Struggling herself free of my embrace she
rushed shrieking from the house, and down the road
she ran, shrieking. For a moment I stood to curse my
self, and then my Negro instinct shot me through the
brain. I knew what must happen within a brief time.
I knew that up would rise the mob, and biding no time
for explanation on my part, burn me at the stake.
I snatched a drawer open, grabbed what money I DOS'
sessed, and ran as only one who fears the fire can run,


118 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
in terror. Down the road I heard the woman, still
shrieking; and now there came a roar. The ever ready
mob was swarming. I ran across the road, through
vacant spaces and entered a wood on a hill; and here
I lay down behind a log. Reflection is sometimes as
swift as fear, and now I could see it all: that heartless
creature with trickery had tempted me, and I, a weak'
ling beast, had tottered and fallen. And then a thought
which I fancied might be saner, that she was enamored
of me physically, sex in a passion for contrast, but that
in one moment revulsion had come to frighten her with
shame. I was afraid to venture forth from my hiding
place, and it was with gratitude I remembered that in
the neighborhood there were no blood hounds. But
what was that light shooting skyward? My house had
been set afire. Peeping from behind the logs I could
see the mob, tough creatures, worse than blood hounds,
ever charmed with the chase for a Negro's life. The
house was constructed of boards and soon burned
down, leaving a darkness as terrorizing as the blasting
light. I heard horses galloping the road, and when
quiet had fallen I stole from my place of refuge, cross'
ing roadways as quickly as I could, seeking the thick
woods. When daylight came I hid in a jungle to wait
again for night. The active flurry had no doubt sub'
sided but I knew that a deadly warrant must be out in
search of me. How worse than desolate it is to be com'
panioned with a strickened mind. In my hiding place
I sought to pray, but how could I give myself to God


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 119
when the devil so possessed me? Prayer? Had not
my book of prayer been consumed with fire? Were
all my efforts here on this distorting earth to end in
ashes? My novel, once the fondest hopes that I shall
ever cherish, had gone to the stake, and now my
rhythmic supplications unto God had been blown away
with a blast. Ah, old fireplace in my mother's cabin,
what an altar of martyrdom thou hast ever been!
Night, and onward I wandered, being sure of only
one direction, that it pointed away from my church.
By this time I was faint with hunger, but I was afraid
to approach a house, not knowing whether it might be
inhabited by whites or Negroes. Sometimes I would
approach near enough to peep, dogs snarling and bark'
ing, and sometimes I was forced to run as fast as my
weakened legs could carry me, discovering through a
firelighted window the face of a white man. I knew
that in a Negro household I should be protected, held
as a secret, and that no offer of reward could tempt
the darky to betray me. I had gone a long distance
without seeing a light, along a narrow road, and turn-
ing the sharp elbow of projecting woods, I saw a fire
flame playing upon a window. It was too dark
to see the house, just the flame, rising and falling. In
my caution, I was about to turn away, when up arose a
hymn, rude but sweet; and I knew that I had halted
at a Negro's home. Approaching gently I waited
until the hymn was hushed, and then tapped on the
door. A voice set to music sweeter than a hymn


120 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
bade me enter, and I did so, and there were the singers,
a large Negro woman and two boys nearly grown.
"Come right in Mistah. Dave, gib de generman er
seat up nex de fiah. De night sorter chilly."
"Lord bless you for your kindness," I said; and
approaching me and without the least suspicion, she
held out her hand.
"You's welcome, sah. Is you had yo' supper?"
"No, mother, and I am desperately hungry."
"Wall, you come ter de right place, Mistah. Fur
supper we had er monstus chicken pie, mo' den twice
ez much ez we could eat; an' I say ter my husban, I
does, 'Mebbe de Lawd will sen' some hungry pusson ter
eat de res' o' it. Mah husban' he jes gone ober ter see
er man bout doin' some haulin,' but will be back putty
soon. Git de table ready, boys, an' fetch out dat big
dish o' chicken."
There is many an old gentleman and many an old
lady of the South who at the most sacred altar ever
reared, would take a tender oath that never on this
earth has there been a heart more possessed of the
Christ love of sympathy than the heart of the Negro
mammy. To her many a tribute has been paid, by poet,
the sculptor and the writer of immortal song, and if
there be no heaven for merely the just, there ought to
be one for her holy sake.
It was not long before her husband came, an oldish
man but strong and with a disposition ever to laugh.
Let me call him Tom, and apply to his wife the name by


122 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
perished. At the end of a furrow, near the road, I was
turning my mule about when two men rode up and
halted at the fence.
"How long have you been here?" one of them in'
quired.
"Bawned heah, sah," I boldly lied.
"I mean have you been hear every day within the
past few days?"
"Yas, sah, am' been offe'n de place."
"Haven't seen anything of a runaway nigger preach'
er, have you, the one that tried to outrage a white
woman?"
"Naw, sah. But I kain't look at er pusson an' tell
dat he er preacher an' dat he try ter outrage."
"I reckon that's right," and laughing, the two men
rode on their way.
Among the white folk in the neighborhood not much
heed was paid to the coming or going of a Negro, and
Tom gave it out that I, his brother's son, dissatisfied
with a brief sojourn in the North, had come back to
my native land. Nothing in a Negro can more please
a white Georgian than the fact that he has gone to the
North and has found it not to his liking.
Not many black faces were so fertile as mine in the
growth of a beard, and I let the jet bristles grow, kink'
ing about my jaws. With Tom and his family I re
mained about six months, and then as fear subsided I
began to grow restless. Long before this, and indeed not
long after my coming, I had been enlightened by a news'


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 123
paper which one of the boys brought to me. In a
black'headed recital of my violent depravity I was
charged not only with an attempt to outrage a white
woman but that I had run away with twelve thousand
dollars contributed toward the building of a Negro
mission. How clear now was it all. Mrs. Hester's
sweetness toward me, the mission itself, all a trick to
get money and shared in by Plunkett and Mrs. Conner.
Some of the women were no doubt honest, but Mrs.
Hester and Mrs. Conner were surely not members of
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
More and more restless I grew as the slow days
lagged toward the sunset, and one morning I told my
protective family that in the night I was going away.
The woman wept. She said that the white folk would
surely find out and tie me to the stake.
"I think not, mammy," I told her. "I can go North
and there I shall be free."
I took a tearful leave of them and set out, still dressed
in my workman garb, but I shuddered at the thought
of going to a railway station to take a train; and besides
one day while walking along the road, a man who had
got out of his buggy to tinker with a wheel, gave me
a suspicious look. Upon getting away from him I
changed my course. At night I found an ever ready
welcome at some Negro's house, but kept my secret
bosomed deep within myself. And then one morning a
plan arose. I would make my way to Atlanta and there


124 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
in its thickly peopled Negro quarter find safety looking
toward a journey Northward
In the great mart of Atlanta I was completely lost.
I had never before seen such towering structures; cloud
high, some of them appeared, a new spurt in architec'
ture since I had held my interview with Bob Ingersoll.
Inquiry directed me to a Negro boarding house, where
suspicion demanded that I pay for a week in advance.
Behind me I had left the childlike faith of rural life.
Soon I got work in a stonecutter's yard and in all my
speech exercised a care to employ the broadest Negro
dialect for it had been cast abroad that the outrageous
Negro preacher, so deserving of the fire, was aptly
spoken and a man of learning. To a railway station I
went three times, but my courage always failed me when
I looked in at a policeman who seemed to scan every
Negro that approached the ticket window. One even'
ing I saw in a newspaper that the outrageous preacher
had been sighted in Birmingham and that the officers
of the law were hot on his trail
Now am I about to enter upon something that
requires exceeding care. My desire is to be just to whites
as well as to Negroes. If at this moment I should pray,
I would not pray for fame but for a sense of impartial
right. I look back upon an awful time, a massacre of
Negroes. I do not say the Negro was blameless, for
surely he was not, but many a blameless one was called
upon to suffer death. It was charged and no doubt with
truth, that two Negroes who had committed brutal


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
125
crimes against white women were secreted and protec
ted by the sentiment of a whole district of their color.
The whites demanded that these criminals be surren'
dered. The Negroes protested and many of them in
strictest truth that they knew neither the identity nor
the whereabouts of the fugitives. This angered the
gathering mobs of white men and the massacre began.
I had heard the gathering forces of the whirlwind,
but had given but slight attention, having noted so
many threats of storm that ended in a gentle breeze,
except in my own obsessing and still painful memory;
so in my narrowness I was not concerned with vague
rumors, nor even with threatening gestures in the
streets.
My day's work was done and I was sitting on the
veranda of my boarding house. I had observed the
sunset, gridironed with clouds. A chamber woman
had sought to flirt with me, telling me after a look
of comic modesty that my beard was so attractive that
she would like to stroke it. She was fetching in looks
but the beast within me was dozing. Heartless trickery
had made me its victim.
The annoying chamber maid again appeared. "Did
you see dat perlice gennerman dat wuz heah jes now?
'Cose you didn't caze you doan look at nuffin, not eben
er lady. But dat perlice gennerman he say dar gwine be
trouble ef we all didn' gib up de niggers dat 'mitted
de crime."
"Please go away and leave me alone. I want to


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 127
lous. In a corner of the hallway I found charred kind'
ling where a fire had been started and extinguished,
and further along, the corpse of a half grown boy.
From a window I could see policemen walking up and
down the now quieted street, with only one sound to
reach me, the mournful tolling of the bell in a Negro
church
Let me not linger to draw upon this season of terror.
Let me blur its ghastly features. Disgraced history
records it. Let the white, the black American strive to
expel it from his mind. But this I must set down. A
careful estimate has it that more than three hundred
bodies of Negroes were put in pickle by the medical col'
leges for leisurely dissection, the playthings of science.


Chapter XIII
HE dark age of terror came suddenly to an end.
The light of the law arose. But I did not return
to work in the stonecutter's yard. Boldly I bought a
railway ticket for Indianapolis and set out on a memor
'
able journey, feeling that as a preacher my voice was
forever hushed, but budding a hope that I might fit
myself for the bar, having heard that as attorneys sev'
eral Negroes in the North had attained distinction.
Crossing the Ohio river I rode among the white folk,
was permitted to go even into the dining car at meal
time. I had never aspired toward the equality of eating
with a white man who might be as unacquainted with
the books I had read as I was with the language in
which the Lord conversed with Adam. My ambition
had been that the white man might be compelled to ac
knowledge that my mind was as fruitful a garden patch
of nature as the mind of the Caucasian. And then
flashed before that mind the dazzling image of Mrs.
Hester. I am honest enough, yea, animal enough to
confess a regret, that I did not possess her, she villain as
I now know her to have been. I have not given her
real name, and if she be now on earth and should
chance upon these, my memoirs, let her blush, if she


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 129
can
On the train I talked with a lawyer. He was a
Northern man, born in Massachusetts, he told me, but
did not give me much encouragement toward taking up
the study of the law.
"Why don't you study for the ministry?" he
inquired. "The great day of the emotional lawyer is
gone."
"And do you mean that I must be emotional?"
"Well, to be frank with you I must say that the
Negro has not yet arisen out of that state."
"Neither has the poet," I said to him.
"Very true. But there is as much difference between a
poet and a lawyer as between warm water and an icicle.
And to go further toward frankness let me say that the
Negro has not a legal mind. I might say that there are
whole races of white people who have not, either. I
believe that you would make an effective preacher, of
the Billy Sunday order. In the pulpit you could play
sensational baseball."
"I am sorry, sir, that you have such an opinion of
me as to believe that I could be only sensational."
He looked at me. "Religion is only sensation."
"Sir," I said, "you wrong the spirit that created the
world and which has preserved it. You slander your
mother's belief."
"Hardly," he said with a laugh. "My mother was an
educated woman, and held it against the Lord that in
all nations He did not make woman the equal of man."


130 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
This fellow disturbed me and I was pleased when he
got off the train. Although I was admitted to the dining
car yet I occupied a table alone, men and women shying
at me, though I took pride in the neatness of my dress,
having bought a suit of new clothes just before leaving
Atlanta. Taking my second meal on the train, having
just sat down, I looked up to see an impressive man
coming toward my table. I knew that he was a preach'
er and I gave him an inviting look. He halted and sat
down opposite me.
"I see that you are not from the South," I said
pleasantly.
"No," he spoke smiling, "I am a New Englander."
"And a minister I take it."
"Yes, a Congregationalist. Are you of the cloth?"
I did not wish to lie to him. "Yes, of a homespun
cloth," I answered. "I have held forth in the Meth'
odist pulpit."
"Ah, and I do not remember ever to have met a
colored Congregationalist. Your people seem to be
more nearly allied to the emotional order of faith." .
There it was again, the Negro's emotion. I was
growing weary of it, but within myself I was forced
to acknowledge that it was true.
"Sir," said I, "if you have but little emotion you
must, you and your people, take pride in the belief
that you have superior reason."
"Well, we have been charged with being too meta'
physical."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 131
'Tending toward evolution?" I asked.
"Well, we, the most of us or at least many of the
best educated among us, accept evolution."
"And God at the same time?"
"Surely. Evolution does not deny God."
"But it denies Jesus," I insisted.
He gave his order and I waited for him to lead off
with another opinion, but looking out, he spoke of
the weather. "God's weather or evolutions weather?"
I asked, and frowning somewhat he said: "Dark
brother, I see that you are trying to entrap me."
"I beg your pardon, not at all. I am casting for
enlightenment."
"Very good," he smiled. "Adhere to your faith. I
recall having heard my father relate a conversation
between Henry Ward Beecher and Fred Douglas, dur'
ing which the great preacher said that there was noth'
ing sadder than a Negro who had begun to question
his faith. I trust that you have never questioned yours."
"Unfortunately I have, and suffered for it, not
through any act that I might have committed but that
it seemed to dim in my mind the vision of my mother;
and I pray that the Lord will ever let my mothers
religion be good enough for me."
"Well put," he said, and then after a few moments,
"But if every man's religion had been good enough
there would have been no cross on Calvary. Are you
much acquainted in the North?"


132 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"No, sir, I am here as an experiment."
"On earth as an experiment," he replied.
"Is man God's experiment?" I asked.
"Yes, and to the degree that God once repented that
He had created him."
"Then what is to become of us all?"
"Continue to serve God's experimental purposes,"
he said.
"My dear sir, I would rather not believe so. I believe
in fundamental redemption."
"And so does the backwoodsman, but he does little
toward the advancement of civilization."
"Then, sir," said I, "you have no faith in Christ."
"Oh, yes but have ceased to preach His immaculate
conception. Study and reflection reveal to me the natur'
al but nothing beyond."
"But have books and observation revealed to you
what the natural is and how it came about? Can you
account for a sprout coming up out of the ground?
Can you hold to your ear a tiny egg and hear the song
of the mocking bird? You cannot, but the song is in
that egg." 
 \
"You talk in quite a remarkable way," he compli'
mented me. "You are perhaps the most educated Negro
I have ever met. Have you ever wooed the Muses?"
"I have written prayers and have sung them."
"And were your musical petitions answered?"
"I believe that they saved my life," I told him recall'
ing the time when I lay in an agony of fear beneath the


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 133
bed. Another silence and then I remarked: "I should
think that you might have been suspected of heresy."
He smiled. "I was, and my church split. But let
not that trial come to you. Hold to your faith."
"When so learned a man as you seeks to weaken it?"
"Perhaps I was testing it."
I arose, bowed to him and ended our acquaintance.
Learned, yes, but why did I not hold him in higher
respect? Because he had eaten with me, a Negro. . . .
Indianapolis was to me a wilderness. It held beauty,
a circle centered with a monument; in its broad and
unprejudiced view it promised every man a living if he
was skillful and industrious. But I saw at once that in
this fresh atmosphere man must make himself useful.
And this I was determined to do. I knew that waiters
in hotels often found their jobs remunerative, and
looking for a position of this sort I called at the Bates
House. The clerk referred me to the head waiter, a
tall, grave, yellow man, dignified of gait and with a
touch of sanctimony in his countenance. It did not
require much of insight to gather from him the notion
that Ke was of the church. A few words brought it
out that he needed another waiter, but he hesitated,
leading me to believe that there was a hitch somewhere,
and there was, my beard. He said that it was not usual
for waiters to wear whiskers and asked me if I would
mind shaving them off. This was requiring too much,
the surrender of a safeguard against recognition, I
believed.


134 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"I don't see why my beard should be resented on the
part of the public," I told him, and then after another
look at the touch of sanctimony in his countenance:
"Bearded men foretold the coming of the Saviour, and
bearded apostles spread the gospel."
That caught him. "Well, you might trim it a bit.
Have you got a dress suit?"
"No, but I can get one within half an hour, I should
think."
"All right. Come back at about five o'clock. You
can room here."
"Quick and easy," I mused as I turned away. I remem'
bered to have heard a man who was acquainted with
the quirks of this life remark that if you want to get
a swallowtail low in cost go to a pawn shop. Thither
I went; to three places, and finally found what I sought.
The headwaiter met me rather graciously for one in
so superior a position, and at once assigned me to my
work, requiring agility with a small degree of common
sense. My bed room was in a basement and none too
free from dampness. While I was arraying myself for
the first move of my new campaign of life, an honor
fell to me, a call from the headwaiter. He told me that
his father, chef during many years at the leading hotel
in Mobile, was honored with an immense funeral and
that a white evangelist, a Southerner, had preached
over his remains, a distinction rarely enjoyed by a
colored gentleman in Dixie. This was intended, no
doubt to lead up to a question:


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 135
"Didn't yau run away from Atlanta to keep from
having your head shot off?"
This startled me somewhat, but my presence of
mind demanded that I should lie to him: "No, I am
from Texas."
"I took you to be a preacher runnin' for your life,"
he said. "But you are a preacher, ain't you?"
"I have pondered over a text."
"That's what I lowed. Well, as the sayin' goes, we
niggers have got to stick together."
He appeared to be kindly of heart and I liked him.
He told me that his mother, an octaroon, was a very
remarkable woman, and that his sister had made her
marks of credit as a teacher in one of the public schools
in Indianapolis. "And after roomin' here for a few days
if you don't like your quarters you can come out and
live at our house, and not at a high cost, either."
To this I agreed, thanking him for his interest in me,
and proceeded to make myself ready for my first evening
of service in a line so new to me. The work was easy,
mostly a matter of memory, and I rather enjoyed it, but
tittering at myself to think that I was waiting on white
men and women not so far removed from the bogs of
ignorance as I, pupil of Andrew Shaver. It must have
been on the following day when Nick, the head waiter,
told me that James Whitcomb Riley and a party of
friends were to dine with us. He saw that I was keen
in interest.
"And I'll have them seated at one of your tables," he


136 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
said. I thanked him so feelingly that he seemed pleased
with my gratitude. I had read and loved Riley's
poems. Shaver had told me that the Indiana bard was
only a home poet, a neighborhood singer, and that all
great masters of verse must be masters of the universal
mind and heart. This had raised an issue between us.
I told him that the heart of the crossroads was as
universal as the heart of the capitol, and he compli-
mented me for my comparison but maintained that
Riley had failed when he attempted the majestic, the
same as Burns had failed when he addressed himself to
society. "Society itself is a failure when compared with
the human heart," were my words that came back to
me now, standing near the door, waiting for the first
glimpse of the poet. He came in laughing, holding a
companion by the arm. In his appearance I was disap'
pointed, being as he was rather small and slightly
stooped. His party consisted of four, two men and two
women, all cheered, and by something more than good
news, it seemed to me. One of the ladies was quite a
well'known singer, the other a speaker campaigning for
universal suffrage. As to the poet's male companion
I gathered that he had achieved success in business.
My ear'traps I set keen of trigger to catch every word
that the poet might utter, but for the most part the
ladies did the talking, and I waited. Business at leisure
is ever ready to talk, success in any line claiming that
privilege, and this man was not shy.
"Jim, who is going to be the next president?"


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 137
"Well, really I haven't decided," Riley laughed, and
the singer clapped her hands encoring for another
remark. "But as you doubtless know I am not inter'
ested in politics."
"What are you mostly interested in?" inquired the
woman campaigner. And quick was the poet's answer:
"In a wonder as to how the Lord could have created
so much stupidity."
"Indeed?" spoke the campaigner, raising her eye
brows.
"Yes, for one would think that the Creator is
endeared of the commonplace. "Look at nature, beauty
nearly everywhere, hills, valleys, rivers, lakes and that
mighty eternity of water, the ocean. Then look at the
human family, dull in the plod of business except when
it goes to war and then brutal in slaughter."
"If you think business is dull," spoke the commer'
cial man, "you just take a peep in at the stock exchange
in New York or the Board of Trade in Chicago. There
you'll find the keenest minds in the world."
"Almost rivaling the minds at a poker table," said
Riley, and again the singer clapped her hands. Now
the campaigner:
"You gentlemen forget statesmanship. Lincoln did
not find man dull nor did he give himself to the flurry
of a stock market
I was called from the table to serve another party;
actors and actresses holding forth at the opera house, I
gathered. To me their talk was jargon until one of


138 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
them, a man of estimation, I thought, began to speak
of Joseph Jefferson. "A man not of parts but of one
part only," he said. "But for this we cannot place him
in other than the almost universal position of man, one
artistic part in life, the other parts all of them mediocre.
Isn't that Riley over there?" Some one answered that
it was. "A home, sweet home singer," he said. "You
couldn't put a line of it on the stage, but it is the best
Rube verse ever written. And for that matter we
might say that the Rube stuff in Shakespeare has out'
lived time, when the high'flown bluster of Byron has
perished."
This man impressed me and I asked the head waiter
whether he knew his name. He did not and I was
disappointed. Now I returned to the poet's table and
hung about, to pick up the crumbs of wisdom that fell
and hopeful I might sneak a crust. It seemed that the
talk had turned to the subject of education.
"There is more of over than of under training," said
Riley. "Many a man has been educated away from
success. Text books are snak'slimed with failure. The
gospel has educated itself into pedantic unbelief."
Had he looked at me he might have seen me cringe.
Back to me flew the talk that I had held with the preach'
er, dining with him; and I quaked to think that every
thing I heard was to remind me that I might stagger
from my faith.
I had listened to a poet and an actor and had not
learned over much.


Chapter XIV
Markeet
N a car going out toward Nick's home, to make my
habitation there, I recalled the talk at the two ta'
bles, rendered not much wiser, it was true, and yet to
be noted down among my experiences. Once Shaver
told me that if he possessed a memory such as mine he
could conquer the world, but thus far my memory had
not served me a vital turn.
The headwaiter lived in rather a roomy cottage, sur'
rounded by a garden and a paling fence. The mother
came forward rather graciously, but lost it all when
she said, even though with a laugh, "My but you are
black."
I told her that I was of pure blood, gibing at the
white crossing in her family. She was lighter than her
son, and with long grey hair as straight as wires tightly
stretched. She laughed at my gibe and bade me sit down
and make myself comfortable. "Oh, I like 'em black,
they are so genuine," she said. "My son Nick tells me
that you are a scholar and we like this for we have tried
to educate ourselves. Markeet, my daughter, is the
pride of all our stock. Nick has no doubt told you
about her."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
141
thing higher than anything I can possibly reach. Once
in the night I prayed to God to make me white, and so
strong was my simple faith that I believed my prayer
answered; and then suffered there in the darkness to
think that my mother, the purest saint of this earth,
must remain black."
Markeet's mother had been stirring about. Now she
halted and with a serious look regarded me: "And so
did you remain black?" she said. "It was weak of you
to offer such a prayer."
"Yes, and the most fervent of prayers come from the
weak."
"Yes, that's true," she admitted.
"But we ought not to think so even if it be true,"
said her daughter. And now her eyes were fixed upon
me. "Do you know what I am going to call you?"
"By his name," said her mother.
"No, I am going to call him Cato. You remind me
of the sturdy Roman."
"Oh, she will give you book talk," said her mother.
"In that line she can put it all over the most of the white
women I have ever met, but surely she has gone to
school enough. Well, I must see about getting a bite
to eat."
She withdrew to the kitchen. Nick was out in the
yard, standing with his arms on the gate. Markeet
spoke: "Do you like the theatre?"
I must have flinched. "I can't say, Miss. I have
read dramas but I have never seen a play."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 143
Having to go early to my work I did not see her the
next morning, and when I returned rather late at night
she had company. A week passed before I had another
chance for a private talk with her. It was my day off
and I spent the afternoon at the house, longing for her.
The old woman told me that many opportunities of
marriage had come her daughter's way, and this I felt
as keenly as a hound scenting the lair of a fox. "But I
don't want her to get married until the right man comes
along," said the mother. "Marriages are made and
unmade so easily these days that they don't seem to
amount to much. Have you ever married?"
"No, Madam. I have been as careful as you wish
your daughter to be."
She laughed. "I should think the twist of your black
beard would have caught some woman long before this.
Markeet is doing very well teaching, but I'd rather see
her well married and settled down. There is a man
coming to see her and they say he has all sorts of money.
He is a widower with three children but I tell her he
may have money enough to offset all that."
This woman had not only educated herself out of
her Negro dialect, if indeed she ever spoke in that musi'
cal way, but had taken up the view of most mothers
concerning their daughters and marriage. But I resent'
ed it.
"I should think," said I, "that you would prefer to
see your fair daughter happily rather than financially
married."


144
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
She sniffed. "Oh, I haven't time to argue that point,
but I want to tell you that love finds itself a cripple
when the money's gone. Now don't talk to me: I know
all about it."
"I am not going to argue, Madam, but I trust that
you will let me ask this question: Does your daughter
hold your view?"
"I don't know anything about holding views. She's
sensible, I'll tell you that."
Off she went stirring about her household affairs, and
I took up a book to wait for Markeet's coming. The
book was a sex rotter of the day, written by a woman
and jargoned with the cramp colic of slang. I remember
that once my attention had been called to a whole chap-
ter in Hugo, slang as its subject, but Hugo made it leap
with vitality. With this girl author, however, it was an
infantile paralysis. Markeet came in while I sat reading
the book.
"Daintier than a moth. I did not hear you," I said.
"Were you listening?" she asked, easing herself down
into a rocking chair.
"Yes, for the thrill of your footsteps."
"Now, Cato, I don't need always to be flattered. Be
natural, won't you?"
"Yes, but what is more natural than a Negro in the
awe of admiration?"
"As a boy in my school might say, cut that stuff and
be natural. Do you know that you have told me very
little about yourself?"


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 145
"In your presence my mind is not on myself."
"Oh, we shall never get anywhere this way, Cato.
You are a study to me, and I should like so much to
know all about you. Tell me about your education."
She seemed sincere and I told her, and she gave me
not only the heed of her ears but rewarded me with her
eyes. "And you feel yourself more indebted to the
white man Shaver than to the Negro Washington," she
said.
"Yes, Booker spoke to my mind but Shaver walked
hand in hand with my soul."
"Cato, I don't see how the white man walked so close
to your soul and left in it a taint of doubt. You may
not realize it but he put ratsbane in the faith born of
your mother. You try to convince me that you are a
fundamentalist but you show me that there are times
when you are almost an evolutionist. Is that why you
quit the pulpit?"
I had told her too much and now it was up to me to
lie or to make a full confession. I lied. "I did not quit
for any want of faith but feared that I had not been
truly called."
"And did a woman have anything to do with it?"
she asked.
Woman, always woman. "No Negro woman has
ever had a strong hold on me, and you may readily
believe that a white woman would not cast my shallow
pool for even a nibble."
"Vague but interesting," she laughed. "But you


146 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
haven't told me why you aren't preaching. From what
you say I gather that surely you have never been disap'
pointed in love. Is it possible that your warm nature
and your poetic mind can so escape the intuitive search
of woman?"
"And you say this, so moving me with your mind?
Let me tell you and in all frankness that in mind you
are vastly above all other women I have met. And
surely you don't read such books as this?" and I held
up the novel I had been deploring.
"It is mother's book. She bought it."
"But have you read it?"
She smiled. "I looked in, looked out and then looked
back again."
"And what hope can there be for purity and grace
of expression when you would read such a book? Is it
that the beast is in us all?"
"Beast? What beast?" she asked.
I was betraying myself and I sought to change my
tone. She listened to my threadbare ethics, smiling but
calling me hypocrite with her eyes, and from one trite
saying to another I winced and squirmed. Her mother
came into the room.
"What are you two gossiping about now?" she
inquired, and Markeet answered her: "We were talking
about the soul."
"About the soul? I heard you say something about
a beast. You don't call the soul a beast, do you?"
"Yes, Madam, the soul that wanders off from God,"


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 147
I said.
"But whose soul is wandering off from God? Mine
isn't, I know. I go to church every Sunday, and Mar'
keet with me the most of the time. But the question is
now what did I do with my pocket book? There's not
much in it but I want to know where it is just the
same. There it is over on the lounge. Now who threw
my book on the floor?"
"Madam, I let it fall by accident," I replied, handing
it to her.
"Now who's coming in at the gate? Markeet, it's
Mr. Moffett."
Now I was to face the petitioner for Markeet's
hand. He came in, a tall and rawboned fellow, and
of the color of a frosted dock leaf. Markeet met him
graciously and presented me. He took my hand with
a "how are ye?" but did not say that he was glad to
meet me, in which I conceived that he played not the
part of the hypocrite. He had made his mark in a
lunch counter way I was given to understand, having
devised a dish of hog knuckles and sauerkraut that
appealed to the glutton. He was native to the North
and was as ignorant as the average citizen. Markeet's
mother gave me a look which I knew to be a writ of
ouster, and up the narrow stairs I went to my room.
Soon I heard footsteps and then a tapping at my door.
In came the mother. She said that she hoped I might
say nothing to make her daughter think less of the
worthy wooer. She had observed that Markeet paid


148 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
much heed to what I had to offer in the way of opinion,
and she hoped that my estimate of Moffet might be
fair. I could not tell her that I scorned the fellows line
of barter. For labor in its truest sense I have ever had
a high regard, for the man that makes something, for
the digger of a trench or the man of bristled arm who
neatly fits a shoe to the hoof of a horse; but for certain
buying and selling, I must have been born with a sort
of contempt, engendered of the atmosphere of the plan'
tation where the gentleman saw his prosperity dewed
by nature, peep up out of the soil.
"But what do you think of him?" Markeet's mother
asked.
"Oh, he may be all right," I confusedly answered.
"May be! I tell you he is. He could buy us all and
sell us."
"And then pick hog gristle out of his teeth," I said.
Like a hen she fluttered at me. "Now look here,
don't you try to stand against him. And before we go
any further let me say that I don't want a black grand
child creeping about my floor. Oh, I'm out and out
when it comes to that. Now don't say that you haven't
tried to make love to her. I heard you talking about
soul and all that sort of thing. Soul nothing. We've
got to have a living on this earth."
"Madam, I beg your pardon. I have not spoken a
word of love to your daughter. I would not presume to
lay a claim at her feet. In every respect she is far above


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 149
"Well, I'm glad you feel that way, but keep it up."
She was an outspoken thing and I was not urgent
that she remain long in my room; and when she was
gone I strained my ear to catch the words spoken down
in the room of courtship, but I heard naught save a
laugh now and then from Markeet. Out to the gate
she walked with Moffet and there they stood, talking;
and angered because I could not hear what was said,
I fumed and peeped through the window.
At dinner Markeet was so bright and so cheerful
that I was sure she must have reached a decision, per'
haps given her consent to a marriage which I could
look upon only with horror. Nick came shortly after
dinner and when he inquired of his sister whether she
had received a call from Moffet, his mother gave him a
significant look, and I thought, cast a meaningful glance
at me. Why was it that I could never be cleared from
trouble? Why was my bosom a rebellious ground
wherein warfare was continuously waged? I looked at
the young woman and gave an inward groan of ac-
knowledgement that I would give my life to possess her,
as a husband, yea, as a beast. And now Nick said
something that brought back the past to jibe me. He
told us that the Negroes were preparing for a great revi-
val within the near future, having been granted the
largest church in the city. "If I may be fortunate to
repeat the past and to stand before that meeting I will
preach to Markeet as once I preached when the wanton
girl ran to me and bit my lips," I mused; and conscience


150 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
whispering, asked me whether I would always turn the
gospel for my advantage, throbbing it with sex, a lop-
eared hound in heat; and answering not my conscience
I looked at Markeet. We were now in the sitting room,
she in the rocking chair, with a tawdry necklace lying
snakelike in her lap. The ever restless mother was
busying about, picking up things aimlessly and putting
them down, trying, it seemed, to overtake her mind.
Nick was continuing to talk about the great meeting.
His sister gave me a flash-light look.
"Wouldn't you like to go?"
"Yes, I am always ready to hear the gospel."
"And to preach it?" she asked.
Her mother had taken up a pinkish cushion from the
lounge and was patting it into daintier shape. "Any one
that can ought always to be willing to preach," she
said. "Markeet's father was a minister."
"And Nick's father too?" I was impertinent enough
to inquire.
"I was married twice," she said, patting the cushion
down upon the lounge; and to myself I whispered, "yes
married twice and more than thrice associated."
"What are you thinking about now, Cato?" This
from the young woman. "Your face is a blackboard and
sometimes you almost chalk your thoughts upon it."
"If it were a screen and my heart's image thrown
upon it there woud be the picture of another Calvary
and another crucifixion, I sometimes think."
Markeet's mother turned upon me. "Why are you


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 151
always thinking about yourself? Good Lord, ain't there
other things to think of. By the way, I am expecting a
visit from my sister that lives in Mobile, and I'm afraid
that we'll have to ask you to vacate your room."
This was a deadener and I looked at Markeet. She
sat rippling her necklace. "Did you hear what I said?"
the mother spoke.
"Yes, Madam, and I am ready to take my leave at
any moment. Ever since I can recollect I have been
forced to face an urgent call."
Markeet reached over and dropped her necklace on
the table. "Cato, we shall wait until my aunt comes.
She is always coming and never does."
This made me bold. "Will you take a walk with
me?" I asked.
She arose. "Yes, I need the exercise."
As we were going out I glanced back and saw the old
lady reproach me with a look. Outside we were in the
first dim twilight. Was it the girl's breathing that so
stilled and softened the air? There was no bowered
lover's lane to stroll, but a quiet street, with children
playing; and I saw a boy catch up a handful of dust,
throw it upward and stand to let it settle down upon his
head. Back to me flew on holy wings the old fireplace
and the ashes.
"There is nothing dirtier than a boy," said Markeet.
"Quit that, you little rascal."
The boy laughed and ran away and we walked
onward for a time in silence. "Your mother didn't like


152 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
the notion of our walking out together," I spoke, and
Markeet laughed and with a pluck at my arms as if her
ankle had turned, threatening to throw her. "But it
didn't seem to make much difference with you, Cato."
"Nor with you, I was glad to see. May I ask you an
impertinent question?"
"Certainly. Impertinent questions are always the
most interesting. Well?"
She had not turned loose my arm. "Are you going
to be Moffet's wife?"
She let go my arm. "Are you?" I insisted.
"Who told you I was to be his wife?"
"You didn't, and therefore I am asking you. Surely
you can't love him, you, perhaps the best educated
woman I ever met."
She shifted. "My education came out of my own
mental industry, but perhaps the incentive was a matter
of inheritance. My father was one of the ablest of
preachers, a white man. I shall save you the trouble
of asking whether he was my mother's husband. He
was not. Yes, I am of the forest, a wood's colt, as the
racehorse men would say. Are you grateful for my
frankness?"
"Yes, I am. But you have not answered my question.
Are you going to marry that man?"
"The man marries, the woman is married," she said,
the school teacher speaking.
"Oh, no purist quibbling, please. Do you love the


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 153
brute?"
"Brute?" But she could not restrain her laughter.
"Who called him a brute?"
"I did."
"But not to his face. Haven't you heard that he has
money? And is the acquisition of money more of a
brutish than of a philosophic instinct? Didn't the
Athenian Peripatetics have money out at interest?"
"Markeet, every thing you say assures me that you
could not love him. Your going to his home would be
culture housing in a pigsty."
"Thank you. But didn't you tell me that once you
preached to pigs, and perhaps your best sermon?"
"Yes, I told you that, but—"
"And are again to preach to pigs," she broke in upon
me. "I shall arrange it that you address the big meet'
ing. No, not all pigs, but the big sermon is caught up
and enjoyed by the advanced ape."
"Markeet, you are the most astonishing creature that
I have ever seen. And within you there must be divine
talent. What is it?"
"The instinct of rebellion against everything. You
may think that you have encountered much to disgust
you with life, but I have had more. Every inspiration
I have ever had has been smothered with failure. I tried
the stage but was told that I couldn't act. My soul was
buoyed with the ambition to sing, but they told me that
I shrieked. So they sentenced me to the hum'drum of


154 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
school teaching. And now do you blame me for being
as I am, a rebel?"
"Ah, and suppose the rebel might marry that ven-
der of rotten cabbage. What then?"
"The rebel might smother him and flaunt with his
money."
"Markeet, please don't talk that way. You crush me.
Girl, I have enshrined you."
"Is that to be taken as worship when I know that you
humanized a lot of hogs and preached to them. Cato,
we are two riddles seeking to solve each other. Here
you are, black, and I almost white, but both termed
Negroes. You have been educated beyond a Negro's
commonsense, and I am a lettered failure. We both
are travesties. I do not believe your moral nature is
strong, and mine, I feel, if tempted too far might be
weak. Perhaps our minds and our natures are of the
wrong race and the wrong age. Perhaps we are the
mocking children of another era, of the past or mayhap
the future."
"Then let us love, Markeet."
Close beside her I felt for her hand but she with'
drew it from me. "Cato, I have told Moffet that I
consent to be his wife."
Now it was my ankle that threatened to turn. "And
you are going to give unto that brute your maiden
self?" • 1
"I did not say that," and now her laugh was cold


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 155
and cynical.
"Pardon me, Markeet, but must I infer that you are
not—a maiden?"
"You may infer what your thoughts inspire, but you
must know that, born as I was, I am not rocking in a
cradle of innocence. We have gone far enough. Let us
go back."
"No, let us keep on and walk throughout life
together."
"And leave my mother? We have both been foolish
in our talk. Believe as little as you can of what I have
said."
"Believe as little as I may, you have broken my
heart."
"And Cato, you have been called upon so often to
mend it that now you may easier patch it with your skill
and experience. Brush what I have said out of your
mind. But listen now and be a man."
"That is asking too much. You would crush my
gentler self and arouse the beast within me"
"No, you brute, you must not touch me. I see that
I have been too frank."
"Markeet, let me kneel here in the dark and pray you
to forgive me."
"It was my fault and I forgive you," she said.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 157
"There you compare me ill, for the trick dog forgets
all trickery when his neighbor dog, a female, comes
toward him scented with a sudden heat."
She looked at me a long time, not scornfully but
seeming to search me. "You are the strangest human
being I ever saw, and for a Negro you are astounding.
You could not have learned all of your oddity of expres'
sion from that school teacher. You must have been
born a sort of freak, and would be just as astonishing
as a white man as you are a Negro; in some respects,
I mean. You are at once a philosopher and an ape. One
moment you are a preacher and the next, the sort of
dog you spoke of just now. I won't ask you to be
natural, for doubtless all these phases are natural with
you. But I find that I must protect myself against you."
"Ha, Goddess," I spoke almost in a cry, "touch me
with reformation."
She smiled at me. "No, I shall not sit close enough
to touch you."
"Mistrusting your passion, Markeet?"
"Why do you presume that I have passion and why
are you arrogant enough to think that you could arouse
it? Please put out of your mind the thought that you
have power over me. You must know that a woman's
passion, unlike the passion of a man, is aroused only by
love."
"How do you know so much about the passion of a
man? Do you get your sex wisdom from books written


158 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
by girls shrewdly guessing? Or perhaps you yourself are
one of the shrewd guessers. A man does not have to
guess, he knows. I have met a few women in my time
and not always innocently, I must confess; and some of
those women showed that their passion was just as
natural as mine."
Markeet's mother came into the room and I felt that
she had been listening. "They tell me that the revival
meeting is going to start off great," she said. "Well, its
time for one in this town."
"And I am going to see to it that Cato delivers one
of the first sermons," said Markeet.
"He could preach about women, no doubt," the old
lady replied.
"A text, Madam, in which all men might be inter'
ested," I spoke. "But Markeet, I hope you are not jok'
ing, for nothing would please me more than to preach
to that crowd"
Soon came the time. How the girl managed to
arrange it I have never sought to find out, but one Sun*
day afternoon, when the meeting had been in progress
during several days, the loud voice of a fervent Negro
preacher requested me to come to the platform. More
than once I had restrained an impulse to arise and to
shout forth the glad tidings of redemption, for I felt
that I at last had been redeemed. I had prayed my old
faith back into my soul, and had seen the beast within
me cringe and wither and die. Up I sprang buoyantly


160 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
to my newly born importance. Our family journied
home together, and on the street car our talk was not
of the affairs of casual life but of religion. Toward me
the old lady was completely changed. She gave me to
know that the pouring out of my soul had more than
overjoyed her; she had not thought it lay within me
to know so much of Christ. More than once on our
way home Markeet revealed to me the tears that dewed
her eyes; and now on the seat beside me her hand was
near my own but I did not seek to touch it.
"You are a wonder," she whispered to me. "Who is
it that would not give his white skin for your illuminat'
ing mind?" ....
In a trance I went to bed that night, thankful even in
my sleep that I had made a conquest, and upon going
down the stairs while yet the early sun was low, I was
rejoiced to see Markeet with the morning paper flut'
tering in her hand, for I knew that she was reading the
gracious print of my victory. And there it was with
my picture. Had not the old lady been present the girl
would have let me kiss her, I believed, the sweetest
reward that could have fallen to my eloquence.
Numerous persons called at the hotel to see the
waiter who so suddenly had proved himself a wonder,
the mayor himself halting as he came out of the bar
room, to speak to me. That night my performance was
more than repeated, Markeet happiest among the
immense throng, and this time I stole her hand as home


162 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
installed, though it was understood that I was to assist
in the work of the revival until the close of the big
meeting. I had preached several times in my own
church when at the close of a sermon came a gentle
man, tall blond of type, polished of manner, a preacher
I knew and a white man free of prejudice toward the
Negro race. His name was Walter Holcomb, he told
me, and did not hesitate to add Reverend. Soon it devel'
oped that he wished to hold with me a serious talk on
business. The preacher's cultivated placidity of coun-
tenance is ever broken when he uses the word "busi'
ness." His attempt at practical seriousness results in a
frown, which the Rev. Holcomb now gave me. "I
have a proposition to make to you that will mean much
to us both," he said. "I am staying temporarily at the
Hotel English. Would you mind going there with me?"
I gladly went with him to his room, flattered every
instant, and housed with him I sat, waiting for him to
spread his plan. This he was not long in doing.
"Now, my dark brother, I am a Methodist, free from
the hardening and I sometimes fancy the almost heart'
less tenets of Calvin, yet I cannot but feel that you and I
are destined to combine and to do a notable work. I
have a project that will require somewhat of financing,
but this can all be arranged. We can go to the smaller
communities, set up a gospel tent for a week at a time
and reap—well, a harvest of good. I am not seeking to
make the gathering of money my aim, but as you and


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 163
every intelligent man must know, money is the circu'
lating blood of our civilization. We may scorn it in
words but must have it in act. Meetings conducted by
a white man and a Negro would be a sort of apostolic
novelty, and in this way we might bring about a better
understanding between the two races. Does it appeal to
"Yes, surely; but what am I to do with my people
here—a congregation that has given to me such spon'
taneous confidence? I can't run away and leave my
charge."
"Surely not. But in a way you can take your charge
with you. I have talked to Brother Harris of the
immense amount of good you might do, and he agrees
to release you within two months from now, having it
understood that your church here is always ready to
welcome your return."
"You are a quick worker, Brother Holcomb."
"I trust so. The slow worker in our field enters upon
either a conscious or an unconscious compromise with
satan. Brother Harris will hold a financial interest with
us. Now of course it must be in your mind to ask me
something about myself. I believe that I have an abil'
ity, you might say, a genius for revival work. But not
until now has the proper opportunity come my way.
Like you I am young and vigorous, and I believe that
like you I am a moving orator. What do you think of
the project?"


164 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"With it heart and soul, Brother Holcomb."
We arose and shook hands. It is known that to the
white man the Negro often has an offensive odor. But
the white man is not wont to consider that to the Negro
he has a smell not always agreeable. Holcomb gave off
a peculiar scent, not offensive, but a strange perfume,
such as I had never sniffed before. I remember that the
Negroes used to wet themselves with a sort of Cologne
which soon gave off the scent of musk, blending with
a natural perspiration; and this man's scent was a musk
of his own making, not like other perfumes, bringing
back the past, but a smell that seemed to trend toward
the future, a foolish fancy, no doubt, but I could not
keep from holding it.
As he had led me to believe him a student I asked him
whether he had formed an estimate of the Negro, not as
a problem in this country, but as a race of human beings.
"Yes, and I see that I must be frank with you," he
replied.
"And I am not one who believes that what we term
higher education is good for the Negro. Of all men the
Negro has the most spontaneous laugh; that is, the
Negro free from what we term culture. But educate
him, touch him with the charred stick of metaphysics,
and his music is gone. He has ever been eloquent
because he is musical."
"I had hoped, sir, that the Negro might be something
else.V I answered.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 165
"Well, what would you have him become? An
astronomer, big business organizer, inventor? These he
shows no premonition of becoming. You may say that
he has not had the time. But the Negro is as old, per'
haps older than the white man. When the Aryans
migrated into India they found a race of Negroes. They
were the original settlers of the country. A race of
Negroes mixed with a lighter race and out of it came
the Egyptian."
"You give me but little hope," I said and must have
spoken sadly for he quickly replied:
"Oh, yes, the hope of happiness, something which
the white man has not yet wholly attained. The Negro
has a soul."
"And a beast within him," my memory prompted me
to speak.
"My dear brother, not more of Negro than of white
inheritance. We may not only believe that the serpent
tempted Eve but that he bit her. All this, however has
nothing to do with the work we shall soon have in
hand. In my nature there is no jealousy, and mark me,
I am going to make you famous."
I left him, the scent of him, that strange odor in my
nostrils, nor was I depressed with what he had said
about the Negro. His promise to make me famous
thrilled my soul.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
167
to sing and had been disappointed. I should think that
the gospel tent would give you the long deferred oppor'
tunity. I hear it tapping at your door."
She was interested. "Cato, I know that I can sing."
"I know, Markeet, that you loo\ a hymn."
"No flattery, please," And then after a pause: "But
mother might object. She has her heart set on my mar'
riage with Moffett."
"Lord, but I had forgotten him," I cringed. "Have
you promised to be his wife?"
"Yes. But I am tempted to break it."
"For fame?" I asked.
"Well, it might be for more than that."
I sprang out of my chair. "Do you mean that you
could requite my tempest of love with at least a breeze?"
"Sit down, Cato, and be natural in act and I hope
in words. You always fly off so furiously. Your school'
teacher, the white man, must have been a cyclone. Don't
you know that he taught you to warp words?"
"No. His aim was to teach me to smooth them. I
was born with an ardent nature. But to the point: You
know that I love you. You know that I would give my
life for you. You must know that when I look at you
a devil and an angel dance within me. Markeet, with
that restaurant Negro you could but lead a dull exis'
tence. His only fire is in his cooking stove. Mine is in
my heart."
"Please let me think, Cato."


168
Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"Must you think before you can tell me that you
return my love?"
"Perhaps not, but we must sometimes think in order
to know what to do with love."
"Then you acknowledge that you really love me!"
I cried, now on my feet again.
"Sit down, please."
"I will not sit down until you have told me."
"And if I tell you? Then what."
"I'll ravish you with kisses."
"You shall do nothing of the sort. Any woman
admires passion when she herself excites it, but you
scare me. Wipe that fierce look out of your eyes. Stop
wiping. You make it worse. I just don't know what to
do."
"But you know what you feel toward me."
"Yes, Cato, and I love you."
Now she was in my arms, yielding to my
kisses. It seemed that I had been famishing and was
now at a feast. She did not fight me off but mingled
with me, and within me I felt a glory surging, no ashes
of a burnt prayerbook, no ambitious novel flaming in
a fireplace, but the achievement of a panting soul.
"There now, sweetheart, mother might come."
"Let her come and your brother too, and all the
world. Glory be to the Lord."
When the old lady came the girl and I were far
enough apart, but the mother's quick eye saw some


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 169
thing that I could not hide.
"You have been making love to my daughter."
"Madam, nature made love to her, and I but follow
nature."
"Of all the men I ever met you are the strangest,"
she said, and with a want of resentment that to me was
pleasing. "Well, if she doesn't care for Moffett that's all
there is to it," she declared herself. "I am religious, it
is true, but I have never wanted a preacher for a son'
in'law, and especially one as black as you are."
"Mother," Markeet spoke up, "he is at least genuine
while you and I are mixed, tainted, at least. I love him
better than if he were as white as snow."
"Well, now, my dear, I'm not reproaching him for
being black. What I want to feel is whether or not he
is to make you a good husband, and preachers are not
noted for that, you know."
"How should I know," she laughed, giving me a
delightful wink. "I've never had one for a husband,
that is certain."
"Well, we must make the best of it," said the old
lady. "The minute this man came into the house I
knew that something was going to happen. Now don't
tell me about his education, for education is not a Irv-
ing, and besides, it is unnatural for a black Negro to
have a white education. Your father used to say that.
Well, make your arrangements and we'll do the best we


170 Confessions of a Negro Preacher.
One day about a week later Brother Holcomb came
out to see me. He said that to take proper advantage
of the season it would be necessary for us to defer our
project for three months, by which time he and Brother
Harris would have the tent and all details well in hand.
Our territory was to be northward, where the rigors of
winter had made the people serious minded; and he
proceeded to point out that the soft air of southern
climes, Italy, Spain, rendered religion a sort of luxury
while the chill air of England and Germany made faith
more devout. This was a theory that meant little to
me. All I wanted now of Brother Holcomb was a
chance to pour out my emotions. While we were
talking Markeet came in and I presented her. He looked
at her in astonishment as well he might, her beauty
sparkling as she met him, and when without embarrass'
ment I told him that soon she was to be my wife, he
looked at her and then at me noting the contrast
between us, I well knew.
"I congratulate you both." he said. "And when is
the event to be?"
"One week from tonight," I answered.
"Ha," he smiled, "you are not losing much time, I
take it, and for that I congratulate you again."
I told him that Markeet, being a singer, was going
along with us, and to this he offered no objection,
either bluntly or with shrewdness; but he said that he
should like to hear her sing. This was something which


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 171
I had not heard, and I urged her, though that was not
necessary; she was willing enough. We had no piano
but in the room there was an old'fashioned melodeon,
and through it she wheezed a tune and sang, and to me
in a voice but little short of divine. You may convince a
woman that she is not handsome, that she has a medio'
cre mind, but a woman with a notion that she can sing
is as immovable as a mountain. Brother Holcomb
seemed to be much pleased with her voice. He said that
it had volume, which was true, and that it would reach
the heart of the sinner looking toward repentance, which
I was more than ready to believe.
Holcomb remained for dinner, eating with me as if
I had been a brother of the flesh as well of the spirit,
and though this did not add to my respect for him, I
was thankful for his well'secreted condescension. After
dinner Markeet sang again, an old love song; but the
preacher lead her back to the tunes of the repentant
bench. The old hymns had never been to me so sweet
as when she sang them, and in Holcomb's eye there
were tears, a proof of his tender and religious soul.
"I don't know when I have spent so delightful a
time," he said when he arose to take his leave.
"And may we invite you to our wedding and expect
from you more than one visit when we have been set-
tled in our home?" Markeet put gently to him; and tak-
ing her hand and bending over it as if he were tempted
to touch it with his lips, he assured her that it was a


172 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
pleasure in store for him.
When he was gone Markeet turned to me. "What
are you sniffing at Cato?"
"At his peculiar scent, his perfume. Don't you smell
it?"
"No, and you smell only your imagination."
In selecting a sort of parsonage for our home it was
my desire to find one resembling as nearly as might be
the one most to remind me of my old preacher refuge
in Georgia. A log hut such as Shaver and I lived in
would have delighted me, but had I been able to find it,
an obstacle would have arisen, Markeet's repugnance
toward living like "white trash." She told me that for
a long time in Mobile she had not been the maid but
the companion of an aristocratic young woman. This
woman was unhandsome enough to have been told that
surely she could write character fiction. To this work
she devoted herself for a long time, but with even Mar'
keet's artistic help had not succeeded in winning a pub-
lisher.
"I really believe it was because her taste was too fine,"
said the girl who so soon was to become my wife. It
was evening and we were walking the quiet street,
recalling a stroll which now seemed so long ago.
"Right along here is where I was so frank with you,"
she said.
"Yes, when I felt for your sake I would have stabbed
the heart of the world and let out its ocean of blood."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 173
"Dear old Cato, always extravagant," she laughed,
nudging close beside me. "But I wouldn't have you
otherwise, my dear. And I have to smile when I think
of what an ignorant woman said about you the other
day. She said you would be the prize nigger at a state
fair. Now as to that house, we might better take it, for
a time at least. It is near the church, is not too large
and can be easily kept."
"For the most part it must keep itself, Markeet. We
shall be out on our tented bridal tour."
"Yes, that is true, and I feel that we are to have a
delightful time."
"At least a fruitful time for our modest gospel," I
replied, thinking of the good to be done, and of the free
will offering toward our financial ease.
Markeet began to laugh. I playfully pulled at her.
"You are tickled, but 'wharfo?' says the darkie."
"Oh, nothing much, just a foolish thought."
"Foolish thoughts like foolish girls are sometimes
pretty. Out with it."
"Oh I was just wondering which you would rather
see, coming toward you, a brace of repentant sinners or
a hat well lined with greenbacks."
"Well as for the sinners I might politely and sympa'
thetically tell them to take their time but as for the
greenbacks let them hasten a bit."
"Cato, how close you can get to the truth when you
seek only to be pleasant. But really I want to feel that


174 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
we are to do good on our gospel tour."
"And you couldn't guess what feature of it most
appeals to me. It is that our animated work will keep
you warm toward your husband."
"I don't understand, Cato."
It was dusk and about her I slipped my arm. "My
love, it is because the mourners' bench is a furnace
where passion flows in white heat, molten."


Chapter XVII
A Bible Lying on the Grass
"^TOT alone the choir but the entire congregation
broke forth in song. The beautiful creature was my
own, the soul of the song they were singing, and
although several girls came up and made bold to kiss
me, I did not taste the passion of their lips, tame com'
pared with a feast awaiting
"Love satisfied is a moral imbecile," I recalled that
Shaver once had said, forgotten during years but now
recurrent in my mind. Was it true? Let me not think
that it was.
Markeet's mother came over and made herself handy
about the house. She removed a rug and scrubbed the
floor. She made sud'bubbles gleam in our sitting room
and then sat down to bore me with her complaint of
weariness. Holcomb came early to visit us, his mind
bent upon our business stretching far toward the north'
west. "Idealism and especially religious idealism is
ennobling," he said, calling me Cato after the manner
of my wife. "But we must have the coin. Every now
and then the home of a successful evangelist is pointed
out to me, and why shouldn't we have pleasant and


176 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
attractive homes? The servant is worthy of his hire,
you know."
"That is a consoling text," I assured him. And look'
ing at my wife so graceful and so fair, he said: "And
why shouldn't you wear silks? I have seen the word
of the Lord clasped with gold. The poverty stricken
gospel has been put aside. We have now entered upon
the gospel of prosperity. We do not deem it too much
of a luxury if a preacher loves and finds his love requit'
ed. The day of reward so long deferred is at hand.
The richest man in the world is religious. The most
poverty stricken may be ah atheist. But before our
audiences, Cato, we must keep this quiet. We shall
solicit, but humbly and in the name of the Lord. And
behind the scenes we must carefully count the contents
of the hat. Mrs. Cato, am I too practical?"
"No indeed, Brother Holcomb," Markeet quickly
spoke. "We can be practical and yet have a worthy
end in view."
"A sensible woman, I say. And Cato, we must name
an object, though we solicit in the name of the Lord;
so, I have thought out this plan and have discussed it
with Brother Harris. Let it be known that we are work-
ing to establish mission churches for the Negroes
throughout the South."
To this I brought forward the objection that every
community in the South had a Negro church. "And
besides, Brother Holcomb we shall not be telling the


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 177
truth."
"Why not? When we have fairly compensated our-
selves we can devote the remainder of the money
toward the building of Negro churches, can't we? The
plan is simple and honest enough, I should think. Broth'
er Harris approves of it."
To me this plan seemed far from honest and I told
him so but he appealed again to Markeet and with
effect. She said that she had helped in many charities
and that they all held something up the sleeve. So I
was thus enforced to give my reluctant consent, becom'
ing more and more reconciled toward the project and
especially after I had held a conference with Brother
Harris. And now it seemed that what I needed most
was to be alone and to commune with myself. It was
evening and Markeet with her mother had gone to con'
gratulate a neighbor woman who had presented the
world with a set of yellow twins. I sat slowly rocking
with a thought, my chair creeking a sarcasm, now and
then I fancied; and my thought was that my ambition
was dead. For me there must be no more aspiring van'
ity, no novel, no book of prayers. I would seek simply
a contented life, see children grow up about me and in
old age mumble my reminiscences.
But if only this, why had I been born with such
sinewy longings? Was it that I had not so yearned to
startle people as to bring astonishment unto myself?
Markeet returned while I was still at the bar in rigor'


178 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
ous examination. She told me that the twins were as
cute as they could be, but when I asked her whether she
would like to be so prolific a mother she frowned.
"Cato, I don't wish to be a mother at all."
"But you are going to be."
"Not if there's any potency in skillful devices," she
answered. "There are enough children in the world
now, you well know, and why should we be called
upon to add to the world's unhappiness? Oh, you may
say that the Lord expects you to rear a child, but He
doesn't, anything of the sort. Would you like for a boy
to inherit your disappointed ambitions? Don't talk to
me about having children."
She surely did not appear motherly as she stood look'
ing at me. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were
touched with red. No, I would put it out of my
mind that there was a suggestion of the bawd about
her
My associates were men of their word and promptly
we set forth on our tour. Markeet's mother came down
to the railway station with us. It was not in her nature
to shed many tears, but she managed to squeeze out a
few. She told me that I must be patient with her
daughter and pardon her frailties. I responded that if
she had any frailties they were still beyond the frontier
of my discovery.
"We are all frail," she said, drying her eyes. Hol'
comb spoke: "Not necessarily, Madam. It is now con'


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 179
scious strength rather than conscious frailty that must
shape our course."
Brother Harris bustled about sometimes searching
his pockets often with a railway ticket between his
teeth. How well it was to have so active a manager!
He told me not to attempt to grasp at details, that my
part lay wide from the material, and for this arose my
gratitude, for if there be anything on this earth which
my nature calls upon me to despise it is the measles of
small business breaking out upon me. Holcomb, how
ever, was more practical. Soon I observed that he was
much given to talk about what he termed facts. I can
stand all sorts of speculation, upon the flood or Sampson
tying fire to tails of foxes, but somehow I shudder
when a preacher begins to insist upon facts. To me one
parable in the New Testament is of more worth than
all the dates of history. And no matter what date may
have been set down, some close figurer will dispute it.
How delightful it was to speed in a parlor car, Mar'
keet beside me. Brother Harris rode forward where he
might boldly smoke his pipe, and sometimes upon look'
ing at Holcmob I suspected that he would like to take
a whiff of perhaps a drink if the bottle were passing. In
his seat opposite us he was continuously searching mag'
azines, making a note on an envelope now and then,
and once when in making a notation his countenance
seemed to leap, I fancied that he had plucked a nettle
with which he might sting the current sin of the day.


180 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
Harris paid our dining car expenses, and to me it
was a pleasure not to fumble for money. "A concert
company?" the head waiter asked of him: "Yes, singing
the choruses of the Lord."
"Oh, a religious organisation. Well, we haven't
enough religion these days, they tell me. I haven't time
to go to church, you know."
"But you have time to pray," Holcomb suggested.
"Yes, time for that all right enough."
"And without having a contribution box thrust
under your nose," spoke up a grim old fellow who sat
near. Holcomb looked at him. "And yet I suppose you
would put your name on a campaign scroll and dig up
money for politics. But political money is often satan's
fund, sir, I would have you to know."
"Yes, that may be true, too. But how about all the
money that Gypsy Smith grabs off? Over in my town
of Omaha some time ago they made up an extra purse
of about fifteen thousand dollars and presented it to
him."
"Sir, he was worthy of his hire."
"You bet he thought so," said the old fellow as he
got up to go. Yellow Harris smiled but Holcomb spoke
in the white heat of rebuke: "Ha, representative of that
class of old fools that are trying to railroad the world
to hell. Nine chances to one that he made his money
by misrepresentation or perhaps by thievery. These
are the men we have to fight, Cato."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 181
"Or rather the men we must persuade," I replied.
"Right" said Harris.
Thus I set forth the atmosphere into which
we were entering. It was America, rude but free, and
with ever a sneer toward the modern methods of gos'
pel. Constantly I heard that the human family ought to
return to simple faith, and yet every effort in that way
was scoffed at, nor could I feel that within my heart
I was unselfishly sincere. I felt that I was to be produc'
tive of good, yes; and yet I knew that it was money
which for the most part spurred me on. I wanted to see
Markeet the mistress of a bright home, the perfume of
the vines about the door mingling their sweet breath
with the breath of an evening cradle song; and then
would come a twitch, for she had almost sworn against
the rearing of a child.
The want of proper advertising was the hitch in our
first town. This aroused Harris to the need of a press
agent, and quickly he employed one, an experienced
man who had outlived the reporter's activity but who
knew the newspaper world. Our project so appealed
to him that he was willing to enter upon his part of it
on a percentage basis, and shrewd Harris knew that this
would stimulate his energies.
A tent is always attractive. Dogs pay no attention
to the rearing of a house, but when they observe the
setting up of a tent they gather about it to play, feeling
some sort of game is afoot. The dogs gave us a wel'
come, their enthusiasm breaking out in an occasional


182 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
fight; and the mayor of the town, a man who could
almost speak English, started us off with an initial jab'
ber. Holcomb devoted his first talk mainly to me. He
told of the depth of my soul, religious by nature and by
training, eulogized my mind which he said was a melody
unto the Lord. And as I listened I mused: "Perhaps I
have been wont to misjudge you. Selfishness cannot
hold a place in a heart so generous. Hereafter I shall
have more faith in you, and find no complaint against
the strange and peculiar scent you always bring with
you." How well he had played to make me elo-
quent. The audience, cool at first, began to glow, and
though there was but a sprinkling of Negroes, burst
out in a hymn of gracious applause. There was to be
no hint of an offering until the final night and then it
must be driven, our object being plainly set forth. One
glorious diabetic sang out that he would give a thousand
dollars. Women came forward, eager to subscribe; and
a minister stationed at the town, prayed an extra hun-
dred from a rancher who had never been known to
help a worthy enterprise.
At the next stand for a week we did even better,
our press man having done his work, and while our
expenses were heavier than we had forseen, yet our
collections assured us of a successful season. Markeet's
singing was delightful. The press agent printed it that
she had turned down many an offer from the big opera
companies, so unselfishly was she determined to give


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 183
her voice to Christ. It was ever a promising joy to me
to hear her singing among the warm seekers for salva'
tion for I knew that later she would be ardent within
my hot embraces
How different was old Georgia from these Scandina'
vian communities. But I have naught to say in disfavor
of the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danes. They are
among the most genuine folk of the earth; but may the
Lord deliver me from a neighborhood tainted with the
Russian, this strange creature, wild without enthusi'
asm. He does not seem to enter upon ideas but is ever
ready to fly into a fury against a prevailing order. The
old joke has it that the Irishman is ever against the gov
ernment, but the average Russian seems to me to be
against himself. Shaver had at one time been much
taken with Russian literature, but in it I could see
naught but misery. In North Dakota we gave up a
town because it was largely surrounded by Russians.
Their Greek church looked with contempt upon our
simple worship, a priest of their order had told us.
They were above all superstition and yet it was known
that they would seal their window at night, knowing
that evil spirits rode upon the darkened air.
Holcomb kept up his flattery of me in every town,
making of me a saint of eloquence. Once I told Markeet
that I was afraid he was going too far, and she turned
about from combing her hair, put her arms about my
neck and whispered something.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 185
is that you rarely if ever repeat. With me I must give
a talk four or five times before I can make it effective."
I had observed that Holcomb like nearly all preachers
was either a sly or an unconscious thief of images, a
gobbler of figures of speech, and nearly always marring
them with big words. Sometimes he would rephrase a
parable from Jesus, giving to it a modern interpretation,
he said, but I could but feel that he always marred it.
But when I asked him if it might be well with me to
modernize he shook his head.
"No Cato, stick to your simple eloquence. The ladies
like it. Oh, yes, the men, too. But business men are sus-
picious of eloquence. With them it is the bunk of the
promoter. It is the boast of business that it uses but
few words. Leave the hard facts to me, Cato."
I sought to assemble some of his hard facts and to put
an estimate upon them, but it seemed that they were but
distorted and scrambled. I now know that what I really
sought was a valuation of his moral character. I soon
had discovered within him a trait so common with his
color and a singular phase we must admit; no not singu'
lax but peculiar, as peculiar as the scent that attended
him, but even now I wonder whether I can set it forth.
It is this: The white man is ready to acknowledge that
the Negro may be endowed with almost prophetic
insight, with a genius for apt expression, for the free
gifts of nature, but the white man is ever determined


CHAPTER XVIII
A Man Without Emotion
"VTOW trending southward we crossed stretches of
land where I had labored as a harvester. My mind
found a calm in hovering over that time and I was wont
to dream that soon I should see Shaver, feeling that in
Kansas he was waiting for me. Our affairs were prosper'
ous, but whenever I hinted upon the establishment of
Negro missions, Holcomb seemed ever to flinch.
"You know that it is our avowed purpose," I told
him.
"Yes, surely; but not until we have paid the servant
for his hire."
"Oh, it is all right with me," I confessed. "I am will-
ing that the Negro should wait while we assure our-
selves of money enough to meet present necessities."
"That is the proper way to view it, Cato. Look at
the good we have done. Look at the numbers we have
added to local churches. The other night a man told me
that he had been reading Ingersoll until he was an
avowed atheist, but that your eloquence had so painted
the Cross that he could see it and that now he had
decided to join the flock."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 189
It is a preacher's habit to tell of a conversation that
never occurred, of an accident that never happened.
That sort of lying is one of the privileged graces of the
pulpit; and yet I was flattered, feeling a new warmth
within me taking the place of a chill now growing old.
Perhaps in many ways I had misjudged the man. No
doubt I had misunderstood his silence when on the
train he and I would ride for hours with never a word
after I had felt that an outburst on my part had been
rebuked with a grunt. No doubt but that his mind was
a busy workshop. And for one thing I was forced to
give him credit, his attitude toward Markeet. His eyes
told me that it was only by restraint that he did not
prove himself lecherous, but toward her he was always
considerate in action and in look. I wondered whether
she would give him encouragement and knowing that
she would not, I muttered a curse against my Negro
suspicion. For the most part how gentle she was toward
me except when we were alone and then she met my
passionate embraces, ever thrilling me with improvisa'
tions divinely her own, I fancied. Rarely was she jeal'
ous. But when one night after I had come off the plat-
form a blondish young thing with not more than eight
words of English at her command hung about me and
pressed my hand to her bosom at parting, Markeet gave
me a frown which I tried to smile off but failed; and
when we had reached our room she did not as was her
wont throw herself at me with kisses and sweet laugh'


192 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
cross mark. Now I would not wait so long.
"What's on your mind, Brother Holcomb?"
"Oh, nothing in particular. A very fervent meeting
last night."
"Yes, and were the contributions good?"
"Yes, I presume so. Er—what I wanted to say, how
ever, is that we shall have to be careful. In some of
these communities a Negro is a novelty, and the white
women, you understand may not know exactly how to
treat him. Now for instance that young creature last
night. She was no doubt perfectly innocent, but it
didn't look very well."
"No, not to eyes seeking flaws."
"Don't misunderstand me, Brother Cato. To me it
was of no consequence whatever, except to the degree
that it was an annoyance to—to your good wife, let
me say. It hurt her, as she no doubt has made known
to you."
"She surely did, Brother Holcomb, and perhaps by
your advice."
"Come, man, don't do that. Hold yourself. You
know very well that I should deplore a quarrel between
you. Why, brother, I am deeply attached to you both.
You have impressed me more than any other man I
ever met, and to your fair wife I give a brother love."
"I couldn't wish it to be more, sir."
"Now there you go again. More! How could it be
more? Cato, suspicion is not a good companion for the



Confessions of a Negro Preacher 193
Cross."
'True, Brother Holcomb," and I took him by the
hand
How swiftly the season was sobering, the russet mood
of the year approaching. Soon I should have to return
to my charge in Indiana, a quiet life; but with Markeet
all life must be a daily and a nightly happiness. Thus
was I musing when Harris joined me.
"We can't go over the same territory twice," he said,
"but there is still a big scope of country left, you know.
There's all of the Pacific Coast yet."
"And we ought to collect money enough to build
quite a number of missions." said I.
"A number of what? Oh, missions, yes. We'll get
down to that in good time."
Harris had no more notion of establishing a mission
than he had of rearing a monument to Judas, and I
must confess that project was now dim with me but I
felt it my duty to remind myself of it. Holcomb liked
to talk to farmers about prices. I did not suppose that
he ever risked a penny in speculation, and yet he would
read stock exchange reports with eagerness. Once I
asked him whether he regretted that he had not devoted
himself to business.
"I can't term it a regret when my heart and soul are
bound up in apostolic work," he answered. "But I have
made somewhat of a study of economics, just as most
Americans do either consciously or unconsciously. I


194 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
should like to live free from money care. That must
now be my ultimate hope. Unlike you, Cato, I cannot
look towards the rewards of love. I had my romance
and she was as pure a being as ever existed. When we had
lived together nearly four years she passed away, with
her frail arms about my neck; and I then knew that
never could I love again. They may tell you that reli'
gion is closely allied with sex, but not so with me. To
me, Cato, there is no sex."
My sex would deem him a liar but my religion bade
me trust him One day we had to wait a long
time at a railway crossing not far from Sioux Falls.
Tired mothers walked up and down with fretful babies.
Rude boys playing about a water cooler tried to splash
one another. In came a man whom I took to be a Luth-
eran minister. He expelled the rude boys and spoke
comforting words to the tired mothers. Then he gave
attention to me.
"I heard you preach last night," he said.
I bowed to him. "I trust that you were not disap-
pointed."
"Not having anticipated, I could not well have been.
But I must say that I was astonished. Your emotions
are very strong."
"My emotions, sir, are fed by my faith."
"And in that," he smiled, "there should be no over
feeding. I take it that your dish of faith is not new,
that it must have been a favored article of diet in your


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 195
family."
"Sir, my mother was a saint."
"Then let us hope that education on your part may
never unsaint her. It may not be true that the Lord
chooses the foolish to confound the wise, but we do
know that a sort of over education mystifies intelli'
gence. And I have read that this is strangely true with
those of your color."
There it was again, color, the Negro. "What you
read, sir, may have been purely speculation of a white
man feeling his superiority over the Negro. It may be
true that culture sinks into decay while barbarism
flourishes, but culture with the Negro is still an almost
untried experiment. Time alone must determine
whether or not he can equal the white man. One might
think that such discussions are new when in truth they
have been going on for ages."
Near by stood a tall man, listening. I had noted
him, and it seemed to me that his pale countenance
must be incapable of expressing an emotion. He came
nearer and slightly bowed.
"Gentlemen I trust that you may not think it rude
if I say a word. There is just as much hope for the
Negro in all walks of life as for the white man. But it
does not lie in what you might call education but in an
enlightenment older than all alphabets. It will make the
Negro and the white man brothers."
"And you term it an enlightenment?" I inquired.


196 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"Undoubtedly an enlightenment. And what is that
enlightenment? Science."
Here the Lutheran took it up. "But I am given to
understand that the Negro's mind does not lend itself
to scientific study or experimentation."
The unemotional man came near unto smiling. "The
science which I mean, the only true science, depends
not for a moment upon experimentation. To be per'
fectly plain with you let me say that I mean Christian
Science. Have you ever given it a thought?" he added,
addressing me.
The Lutheran was sniffing, and Brother Holcomb,
standing off took a step nearer as if moved by the
impulse of resentful disgust. The Scientist repeated his
question.
"I have never been prepared to think about it, sir.
I have tried at times to read myself toward an acquain'
tance with it, but could never find a modicum of com'
mon sense in anything printed about it. I have looked
into your foundational book, Science and Health, only
to ride on a wild mare through the dark, a star glim'
mering, a ray of piercing light, and then a ditch. Your
theory would establish belief without emotion. With
you conviction must be calm. You would not as Jesus
did, cry out in his last hour. You say that everything
is Love, and yet God so hated the world that He would
destroy it. But I shall not presume to tell you of your
faith. What I want to know is how can the Negro


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 197
gather such benefits from it?"
The Lutheran sniffed. Brother Holcomb took two
steps nearer. The Scientist actually smiled. "The
brotherhood of Science is the brotherhood of perfect
love, which means flawless equality. The Scientist, put'
ting aside all physical blemish, would obliterate all
color. He would see naught save spirit and spirit
could have a hunch back as reasonably as a black skin.
Now, I accept you as a brother, but—",
"And so do I, sir" Holcomb broke in. "Yes sir, nor
does it require a cold'blooded jargon to convince him
of the fact."
The Scientist threatened to laugh but turned it into a
dry cough. "Well, let us calmly look into it. I was at
your meeting last night and I must say that you and
your dark brother work in effective unison. And
although it was his eloquence that brought forth the
money, you posed in a cool logic that proclaimed your
superiority over him. Wait a moment. This was so
natural on your part that it was in no wise assumed. I
could see that his mind was superior to yours, not in
cold calculations, but in expressiveness. Then in what
lay your superiority? It was purely racial; and this is
what Science would wipe out. And let me make this
statement, sir: if the world should turn to Science it
would mean the end of war."
Holcomb was in a rage but held himself fairly well.
"The end of war? By the eternal heavens it would


198 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
mean the established senility of man. Don't talk to me.
I have looked into your petrified forest where never a
dove sings her song. I have seen a mother smile upon
the agony of her child and tell it that there was no such
thing as pain. Jesus was the God of suffering and of
sorrow. Your faith would have had him love himself
off the cross. And now you would convert our black
brother by telling him the worst bunk that the ages
have been called upon to record.,'
"I beg your pardon," said the Scientist, "but it was
far from my intention to raise a controversy. But since
you have been so plain, let me say something that was
plain to me last night: that you are working your black
brother. Nor was I the only one that noticed it."
Holcomb's fury was breaking its bonds when Mar'
keet sprang from her seat and came toward us. "Oh,
gentlemen, do have some sense of shame. Standing here
in a public place and about to get into a fight over
religion! Cato, I should think you would drop down
on your knees in humiliation."
"Not while the others are standing, my dear," I told
her. "And why should I be the first to show humilia-
tion? Because I am a Negro? This would prove as true
what the Scientist has said. Besides, I was seeking
information and caught no glimpse of a coming quarrel.
Please reserve some of your censure for Brother Hol'
comb."
Holcomb bowed to her. "Yes, Madam, perhaps I


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
199
deserve it. But really this man who calls himself a
Scientist was insulting."
Markeet looked at the Scientist and now he smiled.
"Madam, I did not intend to be. I was moved by the
thought of the great good your husband could do in the
field of real love. Science never forges a link to chain
a slave. Science knocks off all fetters and liberates the
soul. And begging your pardon, there must have been
a liberalizing touch of Science within you when you
looked beyond color and found a soul."
It was now Markeet's turn to smile. "I thank you
so much, sir. Do you live in this part of the country?"
"No, Madam, I am out lecturing for our cause."
"I should like so much to hear you. And you may
be wrong but I believe you are sincere. Cato, this gen'
tleman took your part. Why don't you shake hands
with him?"
I did, and while Holcomb looked on with a snarl.
Now came the train, Markeet and the Scientist sitting
together, leaving me to rub elbows with brooding Hol'
comb. "A woman is always the first to take up with a
fool cult that comes along," he said, casting, I thought,
at the Scientist. "He's got bunk if any one ever had
it. Insulting, too."
"Well, I don't believe he intends to be," I replied.
"No, I suppose not when he went out of his way
to speak in your favor and against me. He knew he was
a liar when he said I felt myself above you. I was mad


200 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
enough to have knocked his head off."
"I am given to think, Brother Holcomb, that you
ought to have more patience."
"Ha, and Peter ought to have had more patience
when he drew his sword, I suppose."
"Well, Jesus thought so. He told him to put it up."
"Ha, but afterward He told him to sell raiment to
buy a sword. And if such fellows cross my path very
often Tll sell my raiment, 111 tell you that. Now just
look at Markeet, pouring his ear full. She doesn't talk
that way to—us, Cato."
To us! Why the deuce did he say us? "I mean to
me," he quickly added. When the Scientist had got off
at a station I took his place beside Markeet. I gave
to her ample time but she did not pour words into my
ear. She sat slowly turning the pages of a magazine,
lingering to look upon a wanton, half naked in the arms
of a lowbrowed brute.
"Well, your friend's gone," I said.
"Your friend too, Cato."
"But he didn't say that you ought to be proud that
you won me, Markeet."
"Of course not. Why should he say that?"
"I don't know that he should. But didn't he say that
I ought to be proud to have won you, handsome and
almost white."
"No, didn't even hint at such a thing. But he did say
that we ought to be proud of each other. Funny doc


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 201
trine he has, isn't it?"
"I can't say that it's funny. It seems to be deeply
serious."
For a time she mused and then remarked: "I read a
life of that Mrs. Eddy woman in a magazine quite
a while ago. And as I recall, it didn't give a very flat'
tering account of her. It said that she neglected her
children."
"Yes, but didn't deny that she had them, Markeet."
"Now, Cato, that's a dig at me and you needn't sit
up here and say it isn't. Is it that you want children
because you are so fond of mottled colors?"
"And is it that you wouldn't mind having children
by a white man, Markeet?"
I looked about at Holcomb and Markeet's gaze traced
my own.


Chapter XIX
Two Notable Men
"^TPON reaching Marshalltown,Iowa, we found rath'
er an embarrassing kink in our affairs. A big Chau'
tauqua meeting was listed for the week of our setup.
We could not go forward for that would mean derange'
ment in other places, so we decided to rest during seven
days, nor of this was I sorry, having labored hard; and
a fountain with half of its water shut off is not less
potent than jaded eloquence.
The Chautauqua program promised that we were
during the week to hear from several men of national
importance, and to listen to voices that had won distinct
places in opera. The first night brought a great out'
pouring, tradesmen and farmers, all of them bearing
the countenances of keen interest. There were reserved
seats down in front, and I was pleased to find that com-
ing forward with the extra dime, I might sit beside the
judge of a circuit court. I was enraptured with the
music but for the moral and political tirades I cared
naught. One afternoon, out upon the platform came
as genial and as pleasant a looking gentleman as I had
ever seen, Warren G. Harding. His subject was, if I


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 203
recall correctly, The Necessity for the Combination of
Capital/ In lucid sentences he began to set forth his
views, and it was not more than three minutes before I
heard it whispered, "Employed by the trusts." What
he said was true, that railways, constructed by a combi'
nation of capital, made the farm out there more valu-
able, but the farmer said no, that it was the farm that
made the railroad rich.
Seated where I might look about and well observe, I
saw that there were groups here and there that were
antagonistic to the speaker, and he knew it instantly. It
aemed that he would put forth feelers to touch coun'
tenances and if he saw them inclined to flinch, he would
instantly modify his statement, trim it nicely and with
an apt pleasantry jolly the entire audience. Whenever
he found that the majority sided largely with him, he
made his utterance bolder, and "without the fear of
successful contradiction," shout an aphorism of his pol'
itical creed. He had pleasantry rather than humor, and
was shy of figures of speech except those that were
rocked in the same cradle and swopped nursing bottles
with American Democracy. At the close of his speech
not many of his hearers gathered about him and these
were mostly oldish ladies who, not knowing what he
had said, were pleased to offer their congratulations.
Boldly I approached him and extended my hand. He
grasped it and giving me a straight look in the eyes,
said that he was pleased to meet me. I asked him


204 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
whether he could spare a few moments of his time, and
with a good humored laugh he responded:
"As much as you want."
Upon reaching the hotel he made no hesitation of
inviting me to his room. I drew back, for a woman had
stepped forward, but the pleasant man laughed courage
into me and presented me to Mrs. Harding. If I am at
all a judge of women that woman had a great heart.
Her voice was soft, her every attitude a mother tender'
ness. After a few words she withdrew to the writing
room, leaving me with the future president. At this
time he might have had a skyward ambition in politics,
but I do not believe he had ever looked upon himself
as a probable master of the White House. Of politics I
could have confessed a library of ignorance, but in him
I saw not a shapely sapling in a presidential grove. He
may have been physically as brave as Hotspur, but I
could but feel that he was morally timid. Nor would
I have accepted his judgment of men. He thought
McKinley to have been one of our greatest statesmen,
and this estimate came no doubt from kindred temper'
ament. Any one, however, could see that Harding's
heart was warm and always beating for a friend.
"I have never been inclined to rave over Jefferson,"
he said. "I admire him, yes; but it seems that he was too
lax in all of his notions of government. If Hamilton
could have given him a few touches he would have been
a really great man."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 205
Any politician can talk politics, hiding the mind
oftener than revealing it, so with this thought prompting
me I tried to get a nonpartisan glimpse of this man's
intellectual mechanism.
"Sir," said I, "with all respect to our White House
and our senate chamber, let me bring up a reminder of
what a historian said, that in no age had the greatest
minds lent themselves to politics."
"That historian didn't know what he was talking
about," Harding replied. "Where would the world be
today if it hadn't been for political minds? I suppose
Lincoln made a mistake in not shutting himself up and
writing a book on law. That historian was writing
through his hat. I take it that you are a preacher."
"Yes, sir, and sometimes after vagrant reading I find
a flaw in my faith and then with prayer seek to glow
it with Nazarene love."
With fresh interest in his eyes he looked at me.
"Well, you certainly know how to express yourself. Did
you go through one of the big colleges?"
Briefly I gave a sketch of my education and Harding
listened though he yawned my story short. He was
not interested in education, there being for him only
one horse to ride, the nag of politics.
"Why haven't you looked into politics as well as
religion when they both go together?" he inquired.
"Because, that until of late I lived in the South."
"Ah, I see. But times may change."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 207
I explained that I was engaged with a tent show of
the persuasive gospel and he told me he would willingly
subscribe ten dollars, but I declined his money, feeling
that he had none too much of it. And when time
had flown, how this talk came back to me, a headline
bellowing the news that he had been nominated for the
presidency.
Now there came before that audience at
Marshalltown a man of different type, a student orator,
a preacher who used words not only for their sound but
for their strength, Samuel Parks Cadman, with his sub-
ject, "The Puritan in Two Worlds." I sat rapt
before him in the strictest of attention. He was not
what might be termed eloquent. His manner was too
even and restrained, never addressing himself to the
mediocre but to the intelligent, and though his subject
was not new to him, he would use a word, reject it and
employ a simpler and more convincing one. In Scholar'
ship there may be a pretense but not hypocrisy. The
learned are ever sincere and it seemed to me that this
man's ideas flowed out of a well of deep conviction.
Markeet, beside me, was inclined to fidgit about, and
upon her arm I laid a gentle restraint, but she flinched
from it and whispered, "Oh, don't touch me. I don't
care anything about the Puritan who swopped rum for
slaves. You may stay here and talk to him if you want
to but I am going back to the hotel."
Soon I discovered that Cadman was an Englishman


208 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
and not disposed to bubble. He took my hand, making
no difference between me and the white man that came
forward to shake with him; and I remember that one
old fellow, a preacher I could see, was quick with a
never-foiling question:
"Doctor, what is the matter with the church?"
"You mean what is the matter with some of the
people. The church is built upon a rock."
I got a chance to request a brief interview and he
granted it. Several men went up with us to his room,
but as they asked only commonplace questions, he an*
swered them in a conventional way; and when they
were gone I turned upon the learned man and asked
him as to what he thought of the Negro.
"The Negro? Why he presents no more of a prob
lem than is presented by the white man. In his rude
state he is a child of nature, a savage; and so is the white
man. Trace him back and he ate his brother. So did
the white man. His soul is the same as the soul of the
white man and that is the point that ought to be most
interesting to you."
"But you have no doubt heard and read, Doctor,
that the Negro is not capable of employing the benefits
of higher education."
"The highest education that any one can acquire is
the development of the soul. There is more of vital
wisdom in one sentence from Jesus than in all the uni'
versities ever reared by man."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 209
"And yet, Doctor, I can sec that the greatest pleasure
of your life lies within the leaves of man's books. And
you cannot help but make of religion among the Puri'
tans, a sort of glorified fanaticism."
"I am sorry, sir, that I gave you that impression. The
Puritan at times no doubt had an overwrought ferver,
but I should not call it fanaticism."
"Doctor, like you I had to dig for my education. You
dug yours out of a coal mine; I dug mine out of the
cotton field. And it seems to me that all education, no
matter how acquired, prompts an inquiry into matters
that old'time religion would have shied at or scorned.
But there are certain phases of speculative science that
we cannot or rather should not dodge. And this leads
me to the question: What do you think of evolution?"
"My dark brother, no matter how much you may
seek to expand your mind into territories that are wild
rather than fruitful, you will find in after years that
faith is worth more than all wisdom."
"But unless faith be of wisdom it is not of the Lord."
He looked at me, up and down as a tailor would look
in estimating the amount of cloth for a suit of clothes.
"You will pardon my frankness but if you are going
into anthropology you might better take up Darwin
and put aside Jesus."
"I take it then, Doctor, that you reject evolution."
"As an established fact, yes; as an interesting theory,
no. But I don't see why evolution should so much con'


210 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
cern you, a Negro, when the religion of Christ favors
you as much as it does the white man, something which
the law of this land does not, I assure you. Stick to your
bible and leave evolution to bald headed scientists."
I bade him good night and went to my room, feeling
that had I been a white instead of a black brother in
the Lord this Brooklyn preacher would have given me a
more liberal view of his own mind concerning evolu-
tion
Markeet was lying in bed, reading an insult to in'
telligence, the romance of a cowboy, sexing a princess
into flaming love for him. "I thought you would never
come," she said. "What have you been doing all this
while?"
"Oh, trying to get Dr. Cadman's ideas on evolution."
"You simp! Did you think he would give them to
you? Don't you know that his bread and butter
depend more on his expressed belief than on his edu'
cation?"
"No, I must not believe that."
"Oh, and you must always go along dodging the
truth because your religion tells you to. I am getting
sick of it."
"I should think so dear, when you read such books
as you've got as a bedfellow."
"It's the eternal talk about religion that puts me to
bed with such books. Lord, enough to put a woman
to bed with an ape. One would think that religion had


Chapter XX
A Keen Investor
^^UR season closed at a small town neighboring the
Ozarks, in Missouri. When a man shuts his fingers
upon every possible penny he consoles himself by
declaring that he has done the best he could. Such was
the attitude of Brother Harris. He reminded Holcomb
and me that rimes were not of the best and spoke hope
fully of a tour slated for the Pacific Coast. I was witt-
ing. My part of the season's earnings amounted to a
goodly sum, more than four thousand dollars, a for'
tune; and in the night when the fall winds were blow-
ing. I got down on my knees to return thanks unto God,
but shame fell upon me, the conviction that I was an
imposter; and then I groveled for divine forgiveness. I
was alone in my room, but fearing that some one might
be spying upon me I got up and looked about. I heard
Markeet and Holcomb singing in the parlor of the
hotel. Down I went to join them, but as I neared the
door I heard some one say, "Oh, but really he is too
black to come in here. It might cause a scandal in this
part of the country, you know."
I drew back. The hotel was operated by a northern


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 213
man, otherwise I should not have been permitted to
register with my wife, a woman as white as snow com'
pared with me. I approached the parlor door.
"Come in," Holcomb bade me, and I entered. A man
and a woman arose and without a word stalked forth,
their heads high. Holcomb laughed but Markeet
fumed. "Cato, if you were a man you would follow
that fellow and knock his head off."
"No, Markeet. I don't blame him so much as I do
us, for coming with our project so far south."
"It was a mistake," said Holcomb. "Harris ought to
have known better but he is of the North. Well, we'll
get out tomorrow morning"
What a pleasure to ride swiftly homeward, with
Markeet sitting beside me. The landscape held the suT'
prise of continuous beauty, with here and there a touch
of red in the woods, dame autumnal nature, daubing
her cheeks. I touched Markeet attentive to it all and
she said: "Yes and that reminds me of many things I
must buy when I get home. Men may keep up all right
but women run down on the road. Travel frays them
out, such travel as ours has been. I don't mind travel'
ing if I feel that I am going somewhere and not from
one country town to another. And this reminds me
that we now have money enough for a tour of Europe.
And I warrant you would raise a sensation in England,
Cato."
"I suppose so, and then would come the eternal


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 215
to walk was playing "I Spy," and gave many a peep
at Markeet. She reached forth and caught him up,
kissed him fondly and hugged him to her bosom. The
little fellow looked at her, reached up and touched her
face and laughed. I asked my wife if she would not
find joy in being mother to such a child and she ans'
wered:
"Yes, Cato, such a child as this. But it wouldn't be
like this one you know," and in imitation of the little
fellow she touched my face.
"And yet, Markeet, you would advise me to forget
that I am a Negro. Why don't you forget it?"
"You won't let me," she laughed and kissed the boy.
His mother called him and he ran away, and reaching
her he turned about and pointed at me.
Holcomb came over and turning a seat, sat opposite
us. Was it in shame of me that his skin appeared to
become more blondish? Was it in pride of his light
hair that in my presence he so often combed it? "Are
you going to remain for a time in Indianapolis or have
you a charge in some other city?" I inquired.
"Well, I haven't any special charge, Cato. I was
just thinking of some way that I might invest my earn'
ings.
The word earnings made me cringe. Where there
has been misrepresentation no earnings can be honest,
I not only knew in my mind but felt in my heart.
"A preacher must live, you know" said Brother


216 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
Holcomb. "Yes," he added, "and we are as much
entitled to some of the luxuries of life as are the sue
cessful thieves of trade. Several times I have hit close
to prosperity, once in real estate. I went into it in a
flurry, made a quick shift or two and cashed in about
twenty thousand. But I couldn't keep out and lost it
all. I did the same thing in oil. But the next time I
shall be wiser."
"We always are," I told him.
"Cato," spoke Markeet, "don't try to discourage
him. He is looking toward business, and I wish you had
more of a business mind."
"No, business would spoil our eloquent brother,"
was Holcomb's smiling comment.
"Look here Holcomb, and you, too, Markeet, I am
sick of being made a constant exception when anything
of a practical nature comes up. Grant to me one recog-
nition, please, that I am a human being."
"Oh, surely a human being and sometimes a very
touchy one," said my wife." But you are aware," she
added, "that you don't know and don't seem to be able
to learn anything about business. Why not let Brother
Holcomb invest your money for you. He has had exper'
ience."
"Not on your life," I slanged her. "He knows how
to talk for money, as all evangelists do, but when it
comes to business judgement I don't see why there
should be much of difference between him and me."


218 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
your mockery by adding that with them a woman is as
safe as she desires to be. I want to tell you, Cato, that
no man could be truer to virtue than I was to my wife.
And I would make oath, sir, that I am true to her
memory."
"Which means, I suppose, that you are a good
judge of an oil well."
Markeet almost bit at me. "Now none of your sar-
casm, Cato. Brother Holcomb is trying his best to help
you. He feels that it is his duty. And hasn't he?
Didn't he project this profitable tour? Hasn't he made
you more money than you ever had before? This ought
to prove something to you, but it doesn't seem that it
has."
Holcomb roached his hair at me and so keenly did I
feel the rebuke of it that I broke forth in rebellion.
"Yes, the tour has been profitable, and why? Because
Brother Holcomb shouted the platitudes of Billy Sun'
day's saw dust trail? No, but because of the astonish'
ing eloquence of a nigger. But I beg your pardon,
Brother Holcomb."
His hair had fallen out of its roach. "Oh, don't stop
Cato. Speak your mind."
"I spoke a foolish impulse, brother. My mind is of
truer estimate. Ah, the first call. Let's go into the din'
ing car."


Chapter XXI
The Essence of a Visitor
TpVERY ruffle had been smoothed before we reached
Indianapolis. I had begged Brother Holcomb's par-
don, and with his arm on my shoulder he had forgiven
me. But I had not agreed that he might invest my
money. Markeet, too, when I had talked with her alone,
had turned somewhat toward my view, and to Brother
Harris, the business man, I had spoken. "You'll be a
fool if you do," was his reply and I knew that the hard'
fisted old fellow was sincere in his estimate.
How pleasant it was to be again at home, among my
books. Gradually I had almost regathered a library, not
the volumns with Shaver's endeared marks upon them,
but in the correct and generous spread of "Every Man's
Library." My classic companions were housed well up
beneath our modest roof, and here I could sit in com'
parative freedom from annoyance while Markeet enter'
tained visitors in the sitting room. Her mother was joy
ous in gratitude of the hundred dollars I gave her,
gowned herself anew and cooked our turkey on Thanks'
giving Day.
My congregation warmed me with welcome, in


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 221
new rugs and must stay here to see them put down
properly. You go and reap all the honor you can and
111 accept my share of it. And don't fail to have them
take up a special collection for you. Why, they don't
for a moment suppose you would come for nothing, do
they?"
I did not urge her. In truth I wanted to be alone.
There are times when we desire a rest from even the
sweetest of embraces. There are times when love itself
lapses towards a vacation
Markeet went with me to the station and it seemed
that passengers hastening through the gates halted to
look upon her as she wrapped me about the neck with
her fond and graceful arms; indeed I heard a rural lout
snicker a disgraceful comment: "Wow! She's caught a
black sheep."
Yes, I wanted to get away but when Markeet had
come with me upon the train and was ready to give me
her parting kiss, I was somewhat loathe to speed away
from her.
"Now don't worry, sweetheart," she sought to soothe
me. "Everything will be all right and you'll be so glad
to see me when you get back. Mother says she will
come over and stay with me while you are gone, and
she and I are going to perform such miracles that you'll
hardly recognize the old place when you return. Good-
bye, and may the Lord bless you."
Sweet creature, I was flying from her, but not for


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 223
kept his horse in the lead. Ah, Shavers books, you
put too much of questioning in my head. And must
there ever be a guerrilla war between the broadened
mind and the love of Jesus? No, I would not believe it.
An abandoned ice house had been turned into a sort
of tabernacle, and it was herein that our meeting was
held. It required many a century for sawdust to
become religious, to soften a trail toward redemption.
Here we had it in plenty, raked and smoothed for the
foot of the sinner. Billy himself, gazing at it through
a microscope could not have found fault with its qual'
ity, pine from Michigan and white oak from the hills
of Kentucky.
Groans are the effective applause of a sermon. One
groan from a sinner is worth more than a dozen amens
from the deacon's bench. The shriek of a mother is an
arrow shot into the scaley hide of satan. I had not
spoken a dozen sentences before I was assured of sue
cess. Nothing is more potent than stock phrases warped
and I warped them. I saw the smiling countenance of
my host, the jockey. He saw coin in the tears about him.
His comforting staff was the rod to which the contribu'
tion box was attached.
The success of my sermon pleased me but I was not
thrilled. The young women who pressed forward to
breathe in my face, stirred not now the sex beast with'
in me. The hungry monster had been stalMed.
A preacher accompanied me to the home of my


224 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
jockey. He was'two thirds black but thoroughly Har'
vardiied. This meant that in simple religion he was a
hypocrite. To me he admitted that he had read Hobbes.
Our host spoke up that he once knew a jockey named
Hobbes and that he won a race at Nashville. But he
was not religious and at Memphis his horse fell with
him and forever put him out of the running.
I asked the preacher as to what he thought of evolu'
tion, and after looking at our host, he answered that
so'called science held many theories that could not be
proved. Smilingly he told us that he was known as the
Yankee nigger, having been born in Vermont. I told
him that once I heard Ben Tillman say that he could
take a rabbit s foot and with it back Booker Washing'
ton into the river.
'Tillman made capital of his own narrowness," he
said. "His strength lay in the rude wit of ignorance.
I don't suppose that he told of his fondness in secret
for Negro women. It is known that a half drunken yel'
low girl once raised a laugh by rushing up to him and
calling him her Benny."
"Have you ever met Mr. Watterson?" I asked, my
nearness to Louisville prompting the question.
"I have talked with him in his stuffy office. He is
able, powerful in the stimulating of a herd following,
but he is a disappointed man, not politically but in a
more artistic way. It was his ambition to be a novelist
after the manner of Thackery. And it was this feeling


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 225
of art within him that now gives to his editorials so
delightful a touch."
"What have you sought to do other than preach?"
I inquired, feeling that so wise a man must be urged by
ambition.
He laughed. "I wanted to be a prize fighter. Now
let me tell you, brother, you may educate a man's mind
but you cannot educate his blood. Solomon was more
than educated; he was wise. But his numerous wives
and concubines prove him to have been the most lust'
ful of men. The palace of the mind is too often a
bawdy house."
"And yet the Negro is censured for the beast that is
within him," I replied.
"Yes, and for the same reason the white man might
blame himself. But it is no doubt true that the Negro is
still closer to nature than is the white man."
"Then what can we do about it?"
"Smile indifference upon it, that's all. After hear'
ing you preach I make no marvel that you should be
concerned. You have a quick flow of primitive inspu?
ation. I have not. I am much older than you, and have
been schooled into creed discussion. Men yawn when
I preach my doctrinal sermons. You are simple, and
my advice to you is to keep yourself such. An over'
educated Negro has in a way banished himself. He
expounds theories but cannot invent them."
"And has the love of the Lord cooled toward him?"


226 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
I asked.
"Our degree of love tempers the love of the Lord.
But I must bid you good night. Let me say that I
enjoyed your sermon. Keep to the simple faith. Good'
bye."
Yes, it might be better to keep my faith simple, and
as there is nothing more primitive than a desire for gain
I dropped to the jockey a hint as to the chances of a
special donation in my favor, whereupon he told me
that the money end of the meeting must be well guard'
ed lest the public bring forward an accusation of avar'
ice. But I should be well remembered, he assured me.
On the last night a collection would be taken and a
check for my part of it sent to me. . . .
Now was there enough of separation from Markeet,
and I began to dream of her, the charm of her nestle
beside me. In my daytime musings I could see her,
hear her singing as she stirred about the room. It was
her habit to bolt the front door at night no matter how
securely I locked it, and I could hear her footsteps on
the stairs, coming toward me. It was true that some
times her temper was wont to flare at me, but I felt
that her love for me had never cooled, nor should it
since she was still a bride. Some women are brides until
they become mothers, I fancied, and then I indulged
the hope that Markeet might not too long remember
her bridal veil, depriving the cradle.
To myself I now admit that after finding a rule


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 227
against special donation for me, my eloquence felt a
cooling breeze. And so much was I influenced by it
that I begged for a shortening of my stay. When this
had been granted I snatched the first train and soon was
speeding homeward. It was near unto midnight when I
reached Indianapolis, then called the Negro Heaven;
and surely it was the city holiest to my heart. Some
noted politician had arrived and a brass band was play-
ing in the station. In my eagerness I took a cab, and
was not resentful of the bouncing I got so long as I
was bouncing toward Markeet. In her room, our room
sweetened with new memories, a dim light was burn'
ing; and up the front steps I ran and hammered on the
door for I well knew that it was bolted and that my
key would serve but a fruitless turn. Was she asleep
that she did not flit down the stairs to meet me? Harder
I hammered the door and then I heard her coming."
"Who is it?" she called.
"A traveler hungry for his home," I answered.
Back shot the bolt, the door flew wide and she was
in my arms. She was not light but in my eager strength
I carried her up the stairs, into the room and playfully
threw her upon the bed; and in her drowsy dreaminess
how beautiful she was.
"You have been gone an age," she said, smoothing
a pillow for me; and upon my knees I dropped and
bowed to pray. But up I sprang with with a cry.
"Why Cato, what on earth's the matter."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 231
for me. I did not doubt the existence of God but bullied
myself in enmity against Him. I told Him that it was
of but little wonder that He had consented to the mur*
der of His innocent Son. And had he not brought forth
mockery against me at every turn of my life? A white
man would have denied His existence, Ingersoll would
have smiled at the flimsy fabric of such a fable. But
I, a Negro, was compelled to believe. Compelled by
what? Superstition? But why should superstition be
stronger within me, educated, than within a white man,
ignorant. Having forgotten to take a car I was wan*
dering about but instinctively drawing nearer to the
habitation of a dog that had bitten me. His hydrophoe
bic tooth had set me mad. Ha, I would pull out his
hair, take it to Markeet and with it stuff her bosom.
Holcomb was not at home, had been away during
three or four nights, his landlady told me. Perhaps I
had left him hidden in my own house. If any thought
could have added to my madness this would have
frothed me. Back toward home I hastened, speeding
in a cab. I tried the door and it was unlocked, unbolted,
and I sprang up the steps and into the room. Markeet
was gone. On the table I found a penciled scrawl.
"I have gone away, you black boar. Did you think
I could continue to love you, a beast? I love the man
you would murder. I will go with him to the end of
the world. He stands beside me as I write. I leave to
you my contempt, and he leaves the message of per'


232 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
fume."
I sat down, and oh, how I longed for my mothers
cabin. How I longed to put my head into the ashes, to
eat them! And then this thought came to me: Who
are the most religious? The stricken. The serene face
of the Christian Scientist arose before me. What
would he do in so staggering a condition? Could divine
love sooth his mortal agony? "Oh, let me pray!" I
cried, opening a closet and dropping upon my knees.
Into the darkness I crept, and then I came out upright
and swearing, with the scent of Holcomb smothering
me.
After putting upon myself as much of calm as I could
I went over to the home of Markeet's mother. She
answered my ring at the door, looked at me and drew
back.
"Why, what's the matter? You look like a black
ghost if there could be such a thing."
I told her. The poor thing wept for she really had a
heart.
She stood there and wept, wiping her eyes on her
apron. When she had quieted somewhat and had sat
down I gave her Markeet's note, and reading it, she tore
it into bits and threw them on the floor.
"Poor man, I don't know what to say."
"You can't say anything, mother."
"Don't call me mother, please. Don't do that. Oh,
I couldn't have believed it of her. And just dunk of
I


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 233
what her education has amounted to. I'd rather she had
not been able to read. Oh, the Lord have mercy on us."
"But He hasn't had mercy on us, Madam. He has
mocked us."
"Oh, you musn't say that. He knows best and we
must bow to His will."
"And let me say frankly, Madam, that I am tired of
His will."
"Merciful heavens, man, you musn't say that. The
lightning will strike you."
"I wish it would."
"Oh, how can you feel that way? I know it is enough
to drive you mad but you musn't feel that way. It was
the devil's work, I just know it was."
"But why should the devil be so much stronger than
God? The devil can have no power except that God
grants it to him, and God granting it stands in with
him. Madam, I have been forced almost to believe that
religion is a sort of slavery and that the church is a
shop where the chains are forged."
"Cato, in your shame and agony you must not for'
get Jesus."
"No, and I must not forget that he upbraided God
for deserting Him. And now as for me, I don't know
which way to turn. If I could find that wolf I would
choke him to death and go singing to the scaffold. And
if I thought that the God of vengeance would assist me,
I'd get down on my knees and lick the dust from his


234 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
feet. How can I explain to my congregation? How can
I ever preach again?"
"Poor man, you won't have to explain to the congre-
gation. They'll soon know all about it and sip it up like
molasses, they will. But if I were you Td go to Brother
Harris and tell him all about it. By the way, she didn't
grab your money, did she?"
"No, that is safe in the bank. But I wish she had
taken it and my life at the same time."
"Cato, you are not the only sufferer. Think of my
shame and the humiliation of her brother. Lord, Lord,
what is this world coming to! Brace yourself up, now,
and go to see Brother Harris."
I took her advice. On the way I calmed myself some
what but I was as bitter as gall. The sunshine was a
dazzling sneer .... I found Harris sitting at his desk
casting up his accounts. And they must have been to his
satisfaction for he greeted me pleasantly. I began at
once to relate my distressful story, brief almost unto an
exclamation; and the old man arose quickly out of bis
chair and walked up and down the room in silence, sat
down, reached over and took my hand.
"Brother it is time for us to pray."
"No, not feeling as I do. There is no prayer within
my heart."
"You musn't feel that way."
"Ho, Brother Harris, if I can feel as I would, then
there is no use in prayer. At best it is hypnotism."


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 235
"Brother," he said, "even that is better than atheism.
Let us pray."
With him I got down on my knees and he prayed
aloud, my heart rebelling against it, and when we arose
I was calm but cold. "What am I to do, Brother Har-
ris? Must I speak my distress from the pulpit?"
"No, don't mention it. The newspapers will do the
speaking. It is better to have the straight of it printed,
m have a reporter sent out to interview you."
"No. In a way it can be kept quiet and anyway it is
not a very startling piece of news for the public, only
something that happens every day, and this time with a
slight variation, a sort of evangelical theft."
"I tell you that you must not feel that way. It will
ruin our business."
"It is already ruined as far as I am concerned," I
replied. "Bitterness is but a bad exhorter and would
win only sneers for the contribution box. And this
thought prompts me to resign my charges and to go off
somewhere and labor in other lines."
"No, put that out of your head. There's no place
where you could do better, and besides we are going to
make that Pacific Coast tour. Those westerners are lib-
eral, you know. The eagle never shrieks with their
pinching. Your wife has torn herself out of your heart,
so if I were you I'd put her out of my mind. Bad, yes,
but such things happen every day. Why, I could see
that there was a love affair between them. But I didn't


238 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
yet the God who favored him would command that I
should temper my words with gentleness. From the
old book I turned to the new, and now came the words
of mercy. I could see the Saviour as he spoke, his brow
so smooth and yet so cast with sorrow. Upon me it
seemed He bent his eyes, tearful in their sympathy; and
into the dark of my closet I crept and prayed
When came the time for my first sermon after my
heart'crush I looked out over the congregation and felt
that the gossips had been busy. A preacher scandal
swells the crowd, and on this occasion I could but feel
that it was jeering flattery. A pupit orator acquainted
with books talks learnedly when his mind wanders.
Ponderously he prates while thinking of something to
say. With broken wing my bird of eloquence fluttered
to the ground. Men were inclined to yawn, and young
women, disappointed of bosom'heaving thrill, took
forth their paint to bawd their lips. Harris came up to
me.
"Cato, you did all right considering. I'll go out home
with you."
On the car he said but little, satisfying himself with
the humming of a tune, but when we were seated in my
dust'gathering home he was glib over his western pro-
ject. "I've had a long and most interesting talk with
that Minneapolis preacher," he said. "And what I want
to tell you is that he's right there every time. Hell be
out here to see you within half an hour or so. I didn't


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 239
want him to hear you preach today, knowing that you
wouldn't be at your best. His name is Wellsby."
"But Brother Harris, it seems to me that you are
inclined to rush our western jaunt."
"My dear Cato, the trouble with the gospel is that
it has been too slow. Good news ought to be swift, and
Fd like to know what better news there is than the news
of the gospel. Get back your eloquence and we'll rip
things, I tell you. This time we'll have our press agent
from the start and make things hum. But I heard some
thing that I don't like. I heard that you are going out
to look for Holcomb."
"I have never said so, Harris, couldn't know where
to look, but I wish to the Lord I may come across him."
"Why, what would you do?"
"Do? I'd break every bone in his hide."
"Oh, no, Cato, that would muss things up horribly."
"Would for him I assure you, Harris."
"Yes, and for us too. It would ruin our trip. Why
man, everybody has trouble. Dosn't the bible tell us we
are of few days and full of trouble? Markeet did'nt
get her hands on your money and you ought to be
thankful for that. And now I'll tell you something but
you need'nt say anything about it. My wife got
tangled up with a man."
"With a preacher?" I asked.
"Of course. I mean yes. I caught 'em and we had
quite a time over it. But she was so sorry and repentent


240 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
that I took her back. Since then she has behaved her'
self. So you see what forgiveness does. Wellsby hasn't
wasted any time. I see him coming."
My new visitor was as typical a parson as I have
ever seen. His countenance bore the look of a persistent
effort to put forth a holiness of expression. His words
came through the thin split of a sad smile. They
were as soft as pats of butter falling on the floor. I
knew that he was trying to fool me and this was the
first amusement that had come my way since my cal-
amity.
"Brother Harris tells me that a goodly harvest is
waiting for us away out toward the edges of our com*-
try," he said. "I feel it, too, for I know that all terri'
tones are the territories of our Lord and Master. Even
in the desert the gospel has been fruitful."
"Have you done much of evangelical work?" I
inquired.
"Well, my sickle has not been wholly idle. Once I
was assistant to Gypsy Smith, in several cities. Pardon
me, Brother, but I hear that a sorrow has fallen upon
you. Really now, I am sorry I mentioned it."
I had got out of my chair and had turned from him.
But I faced about and standing, spoke: "Yes, Satan
entered my household."
"And Brother, he entered Eden also."
"By permission of the Lord," my cynicism prompted
me to reply. Some men knit their brows. With Wells-


244 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
hand he believes that you ought to resign your present
charge. He will be out today and bring with him a
handsome singer from St. Louis. She has been in opera
but was converted by Billy Sunday and has quit the
stage."
This was the only interesting thing that he had said.
But why should a young woman singer no matter
how handsome, hold any attraction for me?
Harris came and with him the young woman, an
old maid with a long and corded neck. Her nose was
thin and her eyes, close together, seemed to be sighting
down it. I doubted that she had been in opera but
was in no wise astonished that she should have been
converted. At once she invited a friendly familiarity,
and requested that I call her Jenny. Ah, but when
she sang she astonished me. Where Markeet was wont
to hover, Jenny falconed her voice in graceful flight.
The beast within me lamented that she was not better
looking, and reprovingly I felt that I had not prayed
enough. Jenny told me that she was of French extrac
tion and that therefore she had not been born with pre
judice against the Negro, and now as I viewed her I
could have sworn that she was better looking. Yes, and
I could condone the stretching cords in her neck as she
turned her head.
"I see that you have quite a number of books," she
remarked.
"Only a few but cherished," I told her.


248 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"Cato, I could wish that they were a trifle more sor-
rowful. Prosperity and a disposition to laugh do not
combine to form a good atmosphere for a religious
revival. For the most part these people would rather
dance than pray."
"David danced," I told him.
"And Jesus wept," he replied.
Something within me resented it when he spoke the
name of Jesus.
"Oh, there is something I have in mind to speak to
you about," he said. "Hope you won't feel offended
for I think it my duty to speak about it, and shall always
welcome anything of the like from you. It's this, Cato:
this forenoon I saw you sitting here reading a cheap
novel."
"Cheap indeed," I responded. "I found it lying
here, and it cost me nothing whatever."
Jenny laughed, but Wellsby was inclined to frown.
"Please don't shift out from under my meaning. It is
all right to be seen with a newspaper or a magazine but
not a novel. It would indicate that your mind is bent
upon the frivolous things of the earth."
'Then our main study should be of appearances, eh?"
"Now, I don't mean that, Brother Cato."
"Don't mean that in all things I must be a hypocrite?
That's liberal enough. But I want to tell you that even
hypocrisy becomes tiresome . God, but Td like to go
back to a cotton field and be natural."


250 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
old man soon found out something for himself. Our
local preacher had inveigled him into a sort of national
pawn shop speculation and beat him out of five or six
thousand. And Brother, let me tell you this: I don't
believe all ministers to be shady, but I'm giving you a
truth when I say that every preacher that has gone into
politics has proved himself a crook. And who would
trust a preacher in business? Damned if I would."
The big fellow had summoned an audience. Wellsby
looked from one man to another and for inspiration
settled upon an old fellow with whiskers. Whiskers
are wagged sagely but rarely in doubt as to the holy
worth of religion. Beards are akin to the seers and the
prophets.
Wellsby spoke: "What you have just said, brother
of the flesh, has been spoken myriads of times in the
slums and the troughs of iniquity. You resound an echo
and would have your hearers believe it an opinion based
upon your own observation. When you say that you
declined to become a preacher you may tell the truth,
but surely it was not virtue that restrained you. If you
were philosopher enough to take it I would explain that
had it not been for the Christian religion the world
would have gone to hell ages ago. And what is it, sir,
which to this day stands as recruiting officer for the
pulpit? Mother love, sir."
"I was expecting you to get to that bosh," said the
fat man. "And I suppose," he added, pointing his gourd


252 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
said about money. What we wanted were the prayers
of the people, hymn messages unto the Throne. My
time came, and standing there I could not banish from
my mind the fat fellow with his gourd pipe. No man
fumbling ever found a musical word, a word of persu-
asion; and Harris who sat behind me on the platform,
raked me with a whisper, "Get down to it, man." I could
drip but soon found I could not pour. But after a while
the congregation began to lean forward, and an old man
whose head shook as he sought to rest it on his cane,
cried me an amen. At the close the women came to me,
the men hanging back. One frail dame proceeded to
tell me that throughout the neighborhood she had made
a reputation reading the psalms, and that for a slight
compensation she would go along with us.
"Wellsby told you that they were too infernally
happy," said Harris, as we went toward our quarters.
"But we'll fix 'em when we get down into California.
We'll talk about earthquakes."
Along toward the end of our stay somewhat of inter'
est was awakened but there was no enthusiasm, no big
bank notes wet with tears. "Dry quarters and halves,"
said Harris. Our next stand was somewhat better
though nothing to glee over. Wellsby improved in his
talk, having been advised by Harris to devote it mainly
toward the praise of my simple inspiration. One or two
towns in Oregon proved fair, reviving our hope. Lord,
if the early gospel had depended upon money it would


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 255
a powerful sermon. I knelt at my bed side and begged
the Lord to make me a child. But would child'like
faith permit me to collect money in a way that was
tainted with fraud?
Wellsby did good work, but he was ever ready for
an argument, seeming especially primed when on a train
among men who might guess but who did not know
his business. It seems to me that men of meek countc
nances are ever the most ready to engage in verbal fisti-
cuffs, and I recall hearing a very old lady, referring to
a young woman, remark that she looked sweet enough
to be a hellion at home.
Harris was gloomy. The flesh of a baby is not more
sensitive to the touch of a briar than what we call
business acumen is to an adverse financial breeze. For
hours he would sit, glooming over his accounts. One
day on a train he took Wellsby to task.
"Talk Jesus when He told 'em to sell what they had
and give the money to the poor. And for the love of
the Lord don't talk politics. God don't care anything
about politics. The bible doesn't tell us to vote but to
give. Stress that point. Why some of these fellows are
so ungodly as to grin when the hat is passed over to
them. I tell you we've got to take in the money or this
thing will go by the board. And Cato, get in as many
weepy strains as you can."
Tediously we drifted down into California. What
we gained in one town we often lost in another, and


Chapter XXIV
Another Interview
IVID in my mind is Santa Rosa. After three disapc
pointments I was granted an interview with Luther
Burbank. I met him in his modest home. He was frail
and rather shy of manner, but his eyes were brave. He
looked at me as if admiring my strength and kindly
invited me to sit down. Hard was it for me to realize
that I was in the presence of so great a man. After a
few moments of general talk I asked whether many
preachers called on him, and he laughed softly.
"Yes, quiet a number. The other day there was one
out here, and he told me that I was an enemy of the
Lord, inasmuch as I sought to disarrange His plans.
He said that if the Lord had wanted a thomless cactus
He would have created one. 'How about the mule?''
I inquired. 'The mule is a cross, you know.' This
question did not in the least disconcert him. 'And that
is the reason the mule is so vicious,' he said. The mule
will kick his best friend. No one can cite an instance
where the mule has shown any gratitude. The mule,
sir, is a product of the devil with the connivance of
man. And sir, one of these days, you will be taken to


260 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
task for the work you are doing. Nature is the daughter
of God and you are trying to debase her/ To me this
was more welcome than the inquiry, so often put, as
to whether I have ever studied botany."
"But Mr. Burbank, I have called in profound res'
pect," said I. "To me, sir, no matter what your relig-
ious belief may be, you are illustrating the infinite
artistry of God. Whenever I meet a profound man
there is a question that I cannot keep down: Do you
believe in evolution?"
"As firmly as I believe that I was born. Everything
teaches it. Now I find fault with no man's religion; I
grant to him the right to believe as his mind dictates,
but I mu6t insist upon a like privilege. As for me, I
can find no foundation for any superstitious belief, and
to me religion and superstition are the same."
"Mr. Burbank, you surely do not call a belief in Jesus
a superstitution."
"The belief in His immaculate conception? Yes. That
he was worthy of love, of worship, I do not question.
So was Socrates, but the Greek philosopher would have
smiled at the notion of his own immaculate conception.
You are a preacher with the revival tent over yonder.
You have an aim in view. So have I. In the honesty
of my purpose reposes my faith. Upon my purpose let
the light be thrown. You have a purpose, had it when
that tent was put up. Are you willing that the light
should be thrown upon it? Do you ever, in your own


264 Confessions of a Negxo Preacher
"I don't deny the purity of love." I told her. "But
love is purer in its longings than in its achievements, it
would seem."
"Oh, Cato, you are getting to be an atheist, and Mr.
Wellsby says that there's nothing sadder than a Negro
skeptic. I know you have gone through with enough
to embitter your heart, but you ought to have some
little consideration for other people. Love is older than
the law, but the law says that we shall not get married
just at this time. But when the Lord has put it into
our hearts to love, why should man's cruel law put
its heel upon us? Brother Harris understands and is
not offended, so why should you be?"
"Oh, I don't care. Within me at times there is a sex
beast as big as Goliath, and I confess, as nearly every
man in health could, if he were honest enough, that I
surrender to him; but it riles me when Wellsby prates
in censure of my talking with thinkers concerning the
affairs of the mind."
"Cato, it would be well for you to let the mind take
care of itself while you pay more attention to your soul.
I told you that I am of French extraction and that I
have no prejudice against the Negro, but I do believe
that a Negro can go too far in his imitation of the white
man.
"I grant you. And when we imitate him most we
are often at our worst. Now let me be frank to say that
I don't care if you sleep with Wellsby every night and


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 265
nap with him in the afternoon. All I ask of him is to let
my mind alone."
She left me and soon afterward Wellsby came over
and smiled himself down beside me. "Cato, you must
know that I hold your mind in high respect. I believe
you to be a genius."
This wiped out the stain of all he had ever said to
me. Tell crushed ambition that it is inspired by genius
and you pour balm upon the soul. I thought of my
novel, of my book of prayer, and I took him by the
hand. "Forgive me, please."
"Nothing to forgive, my dear brother. And now let
me speak a truth: I believe that within you there lives
and throbs a mighty poem, the epic of your race.
Preach, yes; but do not neglect that poem. It will be
translated into all languages and make you famous
throughtout the world."
I could have hugged him to my heart. Looking over
toward Jenny I caught the light of her smile. How
handsome she was, her hair in ringlets about her brow.
To our last town we came, and I felt that my career
as a revivalist was entering upon its close. But I was
not low in spirit for within me roses were budding, the
words of Wellsby. Generous man, he would guard my
simple faith from dulling rusts, knowing that faith is
behind all creative force. About Harris, however, there
was naught to inspire encouragement. But what did
he know of the mind and its creative union with the


Chapter XXV
In Brother Simon's Church
^^HEN I reached die jungles of Chicago the air was
heavy with depressing mist. Down into those deep
canyons it did not seem that the sun had ever shone.
I fancy that some mighty seer had preached the religion
of hurry and that these people all had been converted.
Some of them, I felt, could not have told why they
were in haste, except that it might be to rush from one
disappointment to another. The grave yards are replete
with the dust of men who never had time to play, to
think, to sing a song; and vanity prompted me to ask
of myself a question: would these people halt to read
my epic? Yes, and gladly, Wellsby would have told
me; and Jenny, now so sweet and handsome, would
have given to me the bright assurance of her eyes.
With the letter given to me by Harris I made my
way over to the West Side, to call on the Negro
lawyer. I found him in his dingy office. He was an
impressive man, a mulatto, and unlike a Negro, with
quick words that popped like a whip. It was said that
even among the shrewdest of white lawyers he could
well hold his ground, and that not only Negroes but
white criminals employed him.


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 275
stand for hours, gazing out upon the rapids of a life so
new to them. The younger men found employment in
the stock yards, not only employment but the enmity of
foreigners who looked upon the Negro as an invader.
In Washington Park, not far away, I lolled beneath
the trees, inviting my epic to enthrall me; and sometimes
in doubtful moments I wondered whether Fate had
taken up the cruel notion to play with me, as with
poor old Andrew Shaver.
To the Negro lawyer I sent my address, and waited.
In our neighborhood, off from the Boulevard, was a
darky church and thither I went to hear a doctrinal
sermon, an attempt to split hairs with a dull knife. The
preacher was almost as dark as I, but his words were
as characterless as a coin with the date and the letter-
ing worn off. At the close of his sermon I went forward
to greet him, lied that I liked his talk; and almost yawn-
ing he replied that he had prepared it with much care.
I told him that I was a preacher of his faith and he gave
me a second look.
"Where have you been preaching?"
"Through the country as a revivalist."
"One of the warm boys, eh?" and now he laughed.
"Well, it is not work that calls for chilliness. I sup-
pose you have revivals here in your church."
"Oh, yes. Our people can't get along without them,
you know. But I am not much fitted for it. I have been
too much of a student."


274 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
"But we can't study the tears out of conversion.
Repentance calls for weeping."
"Yes, in a way," he agreed. "But tears should not
hold us from keeping strong the bulwarks of our faith.
We must be prepared for attack."
I was itching to preach for I knew that his people
were tired of doctrine, and I dropped him a hint but,
as the saying goes, he ducked it
One morning there came a letter from Markeet's
mother. "My daughter has come back," she said. "I
was sitting here alone, thinking about washing the win-
dow curtains when she came up to the door and asked
if she might come in. I never was so surprised in my
life. She looked tired but she wasn't weeping, I can
tell you. I put my arms about her and must have
whimpered for she spoke right out and said if I were
going to cry she'd go away. I told her to sit down and
I'd get her a bite to eat. She said she wan't hungry,
and kept looking about as if she expected to find you
there, and her mind was on you for she said, 'What
has become of him?' I told her where you were, and
to try her out I remarked that you were waiting for
her to come back to you, and I hate to tell you what
she said but I must. She said, 'what, that beast?' just
like that; and I told her that you were a man of the
Lord and she must not call you a beast. Then she said
that no bull in a pasture was ever further from the
Lord. So it seems that you won't be called on to take


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 275
her back. I asked her what had become of that wretch
Holcomb, and she told me that he had gone away and
she didn't know where. Now we have talked every
thing over and she is going to try to get a school some
where; and I should think that now she is better fitted
than ever since she has traveled in Europe."
I tore the letter into bits and threw the scraps out
of the window to poison the air, I mused unto my
revengeful and unforgiving self. Now it came to me
that it had been a long time since I had prayed for the
regenerating love of Jesus, and kneeling, I supplicated
for faith; and arising I inquired of myself, "What is
faith?" And forthwith arose the answer, "Believing
without proof."
For a time I walked up and down the boulevard, an
atheist. I told God that if He did exist the Negro ought
to hate Him for his unjust discrimination. Where
were the mansions that the Negro had been able to
rear? And those little happy heads, playing beneath
those nurtured trees, what was to be their future? Ah,
my epic, it would balm them in the years to come. It
would make them proud that their skins were black.
But atheism could not write it. My soul must grovel
back to the old fireplace and repent amid the ashes. No,
satan inspires shrewdness but never a great poem. He
can give unto himself many natures, but never the
nature of a child, and in imaginative invention the great
poet of fancy and of the heart, must be close to his


280 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
are going to conduct it What do you say Brother
Simon?"
Even envy is cautious, not to say compliant, in the
presence of the source of its income, and Brother Simon
remarked that the same thought had occurred to him.
My feet were light as I walked toward home, not far
away. As I entered the portals of the mansion some
one called me and looking about I saw the lady of the
house coming up the steps. I had met her often and
especially when my bills were due, and to me she had
given but slight attention, being somewhat lighter of
skin than I, but now she bubbled, telling me that I had
made her soul get right up and dance. She gave me a
hug, pressing her bosom against me, and then I remem-
bered that she was a widow.


284 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
vision of the brutish police driving our innocent and
astonished people out of the house. The picture would
hang before me and clog my inspiration."
"Perhaps so," he agreed. "But you must know that
hereabouts there are no outlying Negro churches. The
Negro population here is not suburban. You came
from Texas. Did trouble beset you there?"
I must lie or make a full confession. I lied. "No, I
fancied that I had outgrown my surroundings."
"Ah, I know what that means, having with my study
and reflection found myself in that condition more than
once."
When he was gone I mused that in life nothing can
be less interesting than educated mediocrity, in which
I sought to compliment myself.
Now it was that I must cast about for something to
do. I thought of the subscription book publisher whom
Wellsby had mentioned and resolved to call upon him.
If he should have a book appealing to the taste of the
Negroes I might sell it among them. I found the man
a brusk fellow, quick to get to a point in business. He
told me that Wellsby would no doubt prove to be an
efficient man; and when I said to him that I fancied I
could sell his books, he gave to me a closer inspection.
He had a book, just out, that would address itself to
the mind of the colored man, and he brought it forth,
a bulky volume, brass'clasped and entitled, "A Tramp
Through the Holy Land." It was pictured with old


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 285
wells and camds, old buildings ready to fall and
goats on crumbling walls. Our arrangements were soon
made. The prospectus was an easy patter and could be
readily grasped. So out I went a book agent. The first
man I called on in my new capacity was the Negro
lawyer. Without looking at my repository of holy
knowledge he subscribed, paying me ten dollars. "You
are very kind," I said.
"Yes, and somewhat busy. By the way, I'll give you
a word of introduction to one of the keenest laywers
in America."
He scribbled on a scrap of paper, and going out I
looked at it and read the name and address of Clarence
Darrow. I went immediately out to his place of resi'
dence, hoping to catch him as night was approaching.
He lived just off the Midway, near Jackson Park, and
so high up that when he went home he was out of town.
At the door I handed in my note of commendation
and was soon admitted into his library, to wait until he
finished with his dinner. I looked about me, not upon
works of plastic art, but upon the assembled wisdom
of the ages, a mountain range of books. With dignified
but kindly greeting he entered the room. To me his
countenance bore a sort of Daniel Webster expression.
"Subscription book, eh? Well, we'll get to that pretty
soon. First I wish to say that it is well for a Negro
to offer books to the white man. He is in need of them,
having in this city so recently disgraced himself with


Confessions of a Negro Preacher
287
you groveled more the policeman might not have hit
you with his pistol. Did you ever- hear from the ortho-
dox pulpit a sermon on justice? I never have. Have
you ever heard a sermon in which the people were
told that the greatest progress of man lay in thought? I
never have. Did you ever know of a pulpit that didn't
shudder at thought? I never did. In order to be a sue
cess must civilization be a continuous he? When is the
preacher most happily in his element? When he is
talking to some poor wretch that is going to be hanged.
The despair of the criminal is soothing syrup to the
preacher. Is it not his training to despise happiness?
When he sees little children playing doesn't he warn
than not to go to hell?"
"Mr. Darrow, I cannot vie with you in shrewd say
ings; but I may make bold to tell you that with all your
intellectual prosperity you stand in the need of prayer.'"
"Ah, that I stand in need of telling God that He
ought to change His mind. I must call God's attention
to something that He has neglected."
"No, but you must show to God your humble heart,
Mr. Darrow."
"Show it to Him? Why, how could I hide it from an
all'searching vision? Now I would not rob you of your
faith if I could be made to see that what you term your
faith is of any good to you. My advice is, cultivate the
mind and the soul will take care of itself. The church
puts a premium upon compliant dullness. God, the


/Confessions of a Negro Preacher 291
take the easiest job you can get. And you'd be a fool
to let anything like conscience enter into it. No Negro
had anything to do with the cause of this war; it is a
white man's scrap. Ha, and suppose the Negro goes
over from America and shows himself the bravest man
in the field: will the honor of it serve him here at home?
Will they, even in Chicago, one of the freest of cities,
permit him to go in bathing along with white toughs
and chippies? I guess not."
The Negro lawyer's advice was not hard to follow.
I sought and obtained a chaplaincy in a Negro regi'
ment. It seemed that I was to preach patriotism, with
an incidental reference to the Lord. Religion and war,
I conceived, fit in well, one with the other: the Army
of the Lord, the Soldier of the Cross. It was interesting
to live in a camp. It reminded me pleasantly of the time'
when I tented with the harvesters. Even the most ignor-
ant Negroes vield readily to discipline and to drill; and
it was not Ions before our regiment appeared to be
fitted for the front. Now came the sea voyage, a Horn'
eric delight. We did not land upon the French but the
English coast, and it seemed an answer to prayer when
I was granted a three days* sojourn in London. In
Westminister Abbey there reposes not the dust of a
Negro, and only one reminder of an American poet,
but in this crypt of melodious glory I thanked God for
the souls He had created to sing earth nearer unto the
gates of Heaven. ....


Confessions of a Negro Preacher 293
goodhumored gentleman, who seemed ever ready to
laugh.
"I wouldn't go into your confessional but should like
to tell you something in confidence," said I.
"Go to it," he smiled.
"It is very serious, Father." It winced me somewhat
to say Father, but I said it.
"Proceed, brother," and now his countenance was
serious.
Briefly I told him of the breaking up of my home,
coming swiftly down to my hunting for Holcomb. "So,
I have revealed to you, Father, the murder that is with-
in my heart. I have tried to pray it out, but it seems to
get blacker and fixed more firmly. What must I do?"
From his bosom he took out a cross. "Have you for-
gotten Calvary?" he asked.
"I must have, but try not to."
"But you must know that the heart of religion is
forgiveness. Suppose that you were sitting here this
moment, knowing that you had shed the blood of that
man. Would it be a satisfaction unto you? Would
you not implore Christ to forgive you? What compen'
sation can vengeance find with the blood of murder on
its hands? When murder has been done, revenge dies
the death of despair. Let Christ put it out of your soul
and let your heart ever afterward bow in gratitude unto
the Saviour."
He said not a word about his creed. He was a plulos'


296 Confessions of a Negro Preacher
belief that a Negro wrote it; indeed, I myself am skepti'
cal. To me it would seem that some disappointed white
man has done the work, and has done it well in places,
I admit. The Negro mind, as in class I have had oppor-
tunity to look into it, is neither creative nor speculative.
Even at its best it is imitative, and granting that this
work was done wholly by a Negro it is but an imitation
of Homer and his imitators. Asking as you do my
advice, I must say that I do not believe that you would
find the publication of this book at all to your profit."
I sat immovable and in silence. "Here are several
other reports," said the publisher, heartless toward my
grief.
"I have read enough, sir."
"But here's one that strikes me as being rather to the
point. He says that the only poems that get anywhere
these days are short and snappy. Free verse, I believe
they call it. Well, if you fall down on one thing I
should think you can pick up with another, so how
about the Egyptian book? Ready to take hold ot it?"
With my insulted epic beneath my arm I went
home. Should I accept, the verdict of the professor,
himself an imitator and in the affairs of life a failure?
No. I would send my poem to publishers of repute.
And with this determination another hope was strong
within me. Months dragged by, and I was sitting in my
room one evening when the landlady brought to me a
package, hateful unto my sight. It was the final straw,


Confessions of a Nbgro Preacher 297
as the white man says, imitating the Arab; and poor
camel thirsting for the drink of achievement, I sank
down upon the sand.
Two days I waited for the revival of hope but its
head was weary and its heart was lead. In my room
was an ornamental grate about whose bright fire there
may have been many an ambitious longing in the earlier
days of a big town's throbbing growth. During many
years it had no doubt been cold but I would warm it
with a blaze; and I placed my epic and applied a lighted
match. Upward leaped the blaze, and then there came
a fluttering and a distressful cry, chimney swallows
singed out of their home. Thus three times had I set
fire to my vain ambition, my novel, my prayer book,
my epic; and within my drooping heart I felt that poor
old Andrew Shaver had been better off, dying with his
confident pen in hand.
********
Ambition gone, but now arose fair judgment. I pur'
chased a small farm in a state bordering the South, and
I live in a log house not unlike old Sflvy's cabin. I have
done what would purify and strengthen the white
man's civilization: I have returned to the soil. My
wife, almost as dark as her husband, is of the woods,
the fields; and within my home I hear an old'time
cradle rocking, and a mother's voice sweetly singing to
a child.











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