E MASTER'S SI 
 ILIJAH JOHN FIS 
 
 MILES MARK FISHER 
 
BX 6455 .Ybl' F57 1922 
 Fisher, Miles Mark, 1899- 
 The Master's slave, Elijah 
 John Fisher 
 
THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 
THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 By 
 
 HIS SON 
 
 MILES MARK ^FISHER 
 
 Pastor Zion Baptist Church, Racine, Wisconsin 
 Author of " Lott Cary " 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE 
 
 Rev. LACEY KIRK WILLIAMS, D. D. 
 
 AND AN APPRECIATION BY THE 
 
 Hon. MARTIN B. MADDEN 
 
 Sixty-sixth Congress 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE JUDSON PRESS 
 
 BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS LOS ANGELES 
 
 KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO 
 
Copyright, 1922, by 
 GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 
 
 Published June, 1922 
 
 Printed in U. S. A, 
 
TO 
 
 fig Mattyv 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE DARK 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 In this day when so much is written about the 
 Negro, so little is said concerning his church. What- 
 ever advancement has been made by him must be laid 
 largely at the door of those who lead his church. This 
 brief sketch is designed to represent one minister highly 
 typical of the great Negro Baptist denomination and 
 to reflect, in a small way, the opinions of Negro Bap- 
 tist leaders concerning the denomination during the 
 last fifty years. 
 
 I express my thanks for the many suggestions and 
 for much of the information herein contained to my 
 many relatives, and to Mrs. L. Davis ; Mr. A. Banks ; 
 the Rev. Lacey Kirk Williams, D. D. ; the Rev. E. 
 W. D. Isaac, D. D.; President John Hope, A. M., 
 LL. D. ; the Rev. Charles H. Young ; the Rev. Edwin 
 P. Johnson, D. D.; the Rev. Peter James Bryant, 
 D. D. ; and the Rev. Sutton E. Griggs, D. D. I also 
 appreciate the helpfulness and encouragement given by 
 the President and members of the faculty of the 
 Northern Baptist Theological Seminary of Chicago. 
 I am especially grateful to the Rev. Dr. Augustine S. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Carman and the Rev. Dean Shailer Mathews, who re- 
 spectively critically read my manuscript and kindly 
 advised me in this task of love. 
 
 I write, too, from the soul rather than to be heard 
 of men. I write for him who left no trace of his sail- 
 ing-self, save rippling waves and sheets upon the sur- 
 face strewn, which I caught up. I write that young 
 men everywhere might court a friendship not in vain, 
 that older seers who conquered pain might glory in the 
 young men's gains, I write. I write from promptings, 
 big and great, for hearts of friends and for mine that 
 
 aches. 
 
 And then, the last song 
 
 When the dead man is praised on his journey — * Bear, bear 
 him along 
 
 With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! Are balm- 
 seeds not here 
 
 To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. 
 
 Oh would we might keep thee, my brother ! ' — Browning. 
 
 M. M. F. 
 
 Chicago, December 25, 1921. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The study of the past, one element of history, is a 
 guide in forecasting the future. On the one hand it is 
 a caution, and on the other an inspiration. History is 
 the truest biography, or biography is the truest history. 
 The lives of men filling sacred or ecclesiastical posi- 
 tions have been the richest heritage of historians. 
 Secular and sacred history would be void of much of 
 its luster and potentiality, if it did not give the achieve- 
 ments of Luther, Calvin, Chrysostom, Wesley, Spur- 
 geon, and many other illustrious church characters. 
 
 Our race group and our churches must tarry here 
 long enough to learn the value of this subject and the 
 importance of the biographer's pen. That it is 
 " mightier than the sword " applies here with more 
 force and aptness than elsewhere. Deeply stirred by 
 this fact, the author of this volume presents to the 
 world the biography of the lamented Rev. E. J. 
 Fisher, D. D. 
 
 Now, reader, pause just a moment before you begin 
 the perusal of the remarkably interesting pages of this 
 volume. This book is a good deed. It deals with 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the life and the achievements of a masterful character : 
 a preacher of the last generation of slaves, and one 
 that clearly illustrated the possibilities of his race and 
 the all-conquering power of God's grace. 
 
 He, the late Rev. E. J. Fisher, D. D., was one of 
 nature's noblemen. He was blessed with an imposing 
 physique and a commanding presence. He possessed 
 a strong personality, was always moved by deep con- 
 victions and by purposes that were constant and cap- 
 tivating. He loved humanity with a deathless, pulsa- 
 ting devotion because he first loved God. His love 
 was not of the sentimental, evanescent type, but was 
 crystallized and expressed in altruistic services which 
 yet live to accentuate his memory. 
 
 Whatever may die or be forgot, 
 Work done for God, it dieth not. 
 
 This volume written by M. M. Fisher, a young 
 theologue, and the son of the Dr. E. J. Fisher, is con- 
 vincing evidence of the substantial worth of the labors 
 of his father, the slave, the freeman, the " ambassa- 
 dor of Christ," sailing in " turbulent seas," but bring- 
 ing into " calm harbors " at last his most valuable 
 cargoes. 
 
 The book is written with a facile pen and in a 
 charming style, and will, if read understandingly, be 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 an abiding inspiration to Christian workers and minis- 
 ters, " Knights of the Cross," " the slaves of Christ 
 Jesus." It shows plainly what God can do with man's 
 resources when these are fully surrendered to him. 
 
 It is history, biography, having a setting and a sub- 
 ject which alone are interesting. But the clearness 
 and general style of this author, his keen insight, and 
 his apt, faithful compilation of many scattered, tragic 
 facts, and his skilful interpretations of these increase 
 marvelously the interest and value of this life of the 
 Master's slave. 
 
 It is the pathetic story of an earnest, patriotic pastor, 
 beset here and there by unusual difficulties — but he 
 battles with them and converts them into stepping- 
 stones by which he " mounts the zenith," leading with 
 him innumerable hosts from the world's plains and its 
 miasmic lowlands. He was no creature of environ- 
 ments. He followed not " the line of least resistance," 
 but being a man of courage, he rightfully has his place 
 with those of whom Dry den discoursed when he said : 
 
 The brave man seeks not popular applause, 
 Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; 
 Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can. 
 
 Doctor Fisher wrought well. The present harmony 
 and progress of Olivet are eloquent and convincing 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 testimony of his useful life and labors. Here " he 
 being dead yet speaketh." 
 
 We pray that God's choicest blessings will rest upon 
 the book, give it a wide and ready circulation, and 
 thereby help to verify the promise of God, 
 
 " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing pre- 
 cious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 
 bringing his sheaves with him." 
 
 L. K. Williams, 
 
 Pastor Olivet Baptist Church, 
 
 Chicago, Illinois. 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 That poverty, obscurity, and lowly birth are no 
 handicap is frequently evidenced in the later develop- 
 ment and conspicuous achievements of men. Affluence 
 and opportunity do not insure leadership. Poverty is not 
 always a guaranty that those who live in its surround- 
 ings will reach conspicuous heights, but there is greater 
 incentive for those who have all to gain and nothing to 
 lose to exert themselves than is the case with those who 
 are supplied with everything which money and comfort 
 afford. A fixed purpose in life, integrity, morality, 
 industry, truthfulness, and determination are among 
 the elements necessary to success. It does not matter 
 that those who possess these elements are handicapped 
 either by lack of opportunity or wealth or influence. 
 Success comes to those who are determined to achieve 
 it and have but one object and that object the fulfil- 
 ment of an ambition, and who work toward it unceas- 
 ingly and will not be diverted from that ambition by 
 any obstacle. Obstacles to such men are but added 
 incentives to success. They bring out the best there 
 is in a man. Comfort and pleasure and luxurious sur- 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 roundings are not calculated to encourage the determi- 
 nation of individuals. Those who live under such cir- 
 cumstances move along the lines of least resistance. 
 The great men of the world have come from the poor 
 and lowly. They have achieved success because they 
 have had the will to work. They have overcome op- 
 position because they have learned the art of work. 
 Work is an essential element to any success sought to 
 be attained. The idle individual never overcomes ob- 
 stacles. He shrinks from the effort which the obsta- 
 cles make necessary, but the worker sees only the goal 
 to which he aspires and he has no fear of failure. He 
 knows that if he succeeds he must run the gauntlet; 
 that his success is dependent upon the display of a bet- 
 ter genius than that possessed by his contender. He 
 allows nothing to discourage him as he passes along the 
 journey of life. He does what he starts out to do, be- 
 cause he has made up his mind to do it. He grows 
 step by step, through his untiring efforts, into the 
 broader spheres of activity. His stature expands to 
 meet the greater responsibilities. He enjoys the inspi- 
 ration of the achievement to which he looks forward. 
 Having achieved, he begins to work to a higher level, 
 and while moving forward to the higher level he con- 
 tinues to enjoy in anticipation the next achievement, 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 and so life with him becomes one continuous joy as 
 he moves from one level to another. He does not rest 
 satisfied with what he has done, but continues onward 
 and upward until his work is finally accomplished. 
 
 There is no better illustration of this than the suc- 
 cess achieved by my late, dearly beloved friend, Elijah 
 John Fisher, born in slavery and further handicapped 
 by the loss of a leg which forced him to pass through 
 life on crutches. He, nevertheless, became one of 
 the leading men of his time. Loved by all with whom 
 he came in contact, not only for himself, but for his 
 work in which he was regarded by all who knew 
 him as foremost among his associates; a great orator 
 whose words rang with eloquence and whose patriot- 
 ism knew no turning, whose life was devoted to the 
 upbuilding of his race, whose word was law with his 
 congregation and his people, he established a great 
 church, surrounding himself with a happy and con- 
 tented multitude of people, with whom his word was 
 supreme. 
 
 It was a delight to know this man; to realize that 
 out of slavery he worked his way to the forefront 
 among the great divines of the nation. It is a great 
 comfort now to look back upon his life and to realize 
 that, though he has passed from the scene of activity, 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 his work still lives on and his memory continues to 
 be honored and revered by those who knew him. His 
 example may well be emulated, for no man I have 
 ever known was more worthy of a place in the hearts 
 and minds of a people than he. He was my friend ; I 
 was his. While he loved his people as a race, there 
 was no race prejudice in him. He was a typical ex- 
 ample of a true American whose every act was for the 
 promotion of a better life among the human race, bet- 
 ter conditions in the home, and better opportunities in 
 the nation for all who might choose to embrace them. 
 His, in fact, was a work which was calculated to make 
 the country better, friends dearer, and home brighter. 
 His memory will live and his work endure as one more 
 evidence of what it is possible for an individual to 
 achieve whose mind runs in the right direction. 
 
 It is a pity that men like Doctor Fisher could not 
 continue to live on, but that, of course, is not in accor- 
 dance with the plan of the Omnipotent Ruler of the 
 universe. We come, we do our work, and we pass 
 on to receive our reward. 
 
 As a leader of men Doctor Fisher was always fore- 
 most in every movement for the advancement of the 
 human race. We all mourn his passing from the scene 
 of activity ; and yet there is no reason why we should 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 mourn his death, because it is just as natural to die as 
 it is to live ; and rather should we rejoice that God gave 
 him life that others might profit by his example. His 
 was a life of noble deeds and personal sacrifices in 
 behalf of his people. His ambition was to see them 
 elevated to a plane of higher usefulness. He worked 
 to prepare their minds, hearts, and souls for the ac- 
 ceptance of the blessings which the God of our fathers 
 continues to bestow on his children who are ready and 
 willing to receive them. 
 
 Doctor Fisher's life was one continual song of 
 praise. He radiated happiness everywhere. His 
 friends will always be happy in the knowledge that 
 while he lived he sowed the seed of virtue, patriotism, 
 peace, happiness, and good-will among men, which 
 will continue to bear fruit for all time. It is a consola- 
 tion to know that the world is better for Doctor 
 Fisher having lived and that his separation from us 
 is but temporary. 
 
 Martin B. Madden, 
 Congressman from Illinois. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Bound and Branded, 1858-1879 1 
 
 II. Loosed on the Swan Road, 1879- 
 
 1 889 1 7 
 
 III. Sailing Due North, 1889-1901 31 
 
 IV. At the Coaling-station, 1901-1903... 47 
 V. The Storm, 1903-1904 61 
 
 VI. The Calm, 1904-1910 85 
 
 VII. On Unknown Seas, 1910-1912 109 
 
 VIII. Precious Cargoes from Many Ports, 
 
 1912-1915 1 3 1 
 
 IX. Into the Harbor, 1915 151 
 
 Appendix, Olivet Baptist Church, 
 
 1 9 1 5- 1 922 1 73 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 E. J. Fisher Frontispiece 
 
 Florida Fisher 14 
 
 Mount Olive Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia... 34 
 The Spruce Street Baptist Church, Nashville, 
 
 Tennessee 52 
 
 Young Girls Missionary Circle, Olivet Baptist 
 
 Church 92 
 
 Grow! Grotv! Grorv! Kindergarten Children 
 
 Getting their Daily Milk 100 
 
 Elijah John Fisher, at Sea 112 
 
 Kindergarten, Olivet Baptist Church 120 
 
 Kindergarten Closing, Elizabeth McCormick 
 
 Fund Exhibit / 28 
 
 A Group of Workers of the Bethlehem Associa- 
 tion 136 
 
 Children of the Kindergarten in the Olivet Bus 142 
 
 Elijah John Fisher 148 
 
 Home Care of the Sick Class, Olivet Baptist 
 
 Church / 58 
 
 Boy Scouts, Olivet Baptist Church 168 
 
 Lacey Kirk Williams, D. D., Pastor, Olivet 
 
 Baptist Church, Chicago 176 
 
 Marching from Olivet to the First Church 180 
 
 The Olivet Baptist Church, Thirty-first Street and 
 
 South Park Avenue, Chicago 188 
 
I 
 
 BOUND AND BRANDED 
 
 1858-1879 
 
BOUND AND BRANDED 
 1858-1879 
 
 Slavery was the rule in beautiful La Grange, a small 
 town, among the red-clay hills of Georgia. Dr. Robert 
 Ridley, a physician, tall and gray and stern, was 
 master of cotton-fields and human souls. Guardian 
 magnolias stood watch over his colonial dwelling, 
 which, offset by an escarpment of white rocks, was 
 strikingly contrasted to the dilapidated habitations of 
 slave men treading their mournful way from the cra- 
 dle to the grave. A gulley worn by the weeping of 
 high heaven for a fettered race, and meandering 
 gently from yonder hill, served the purposes of drain- 
 age and walk to the mud-chinked cabins along " slave 
 row," where the household of " Fisher " lived. The 
 hut was of two rooms, bedecked without with trellised 
 primroses and within with whitewash. Its only aper- 
 ture was a door of logs, cut in halves, swung on leather 
 hinges, which served also as chimney and window. In 
 such a place seventeen children and their parents lived. 
 Elijah John was next to the youngest of eight boys. 
 He was born August 2, 1 858. 
 
 His mother, Charlotte, was a typical slave parent, 
 giving birth to twenty-one children. She was a large 
 brown woman, fully six feet tall, and was formerly 
 
 3 
 
THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 owned by Balton Amos, a young master, who, when 
 his wife died, gave her as property to his friend, Doctor 
 Ridley. Her eyes were small, deep set, overshadowed 
 by narrow eyebrows, arched and black; her cheek- 
 bones were high and prominent, and her mouth was 
 characteristic of her posterity. She could neither read 
 nor write, but knew instinctively happy truths. She 
 " walked with God " hourly, and at any religious ser- 
 vice she would shout, " I'm pure gold tried in the fire." 
 She worked incessantly in the field, humming, singing, 
 or shouting a melody, only stopping intermittently to 
 croon the plaintive lullaby to her accompanying young : 
 
 Going to tell Aunt Tabby, 
 Going to tell Aunt Tabby, 
 Old gray goose is dead. 
 
 Her mate, Miles, was also the property of Doctor 
 Ridley through purchase from Mr. Fisher, of Vir- 
 ginia. He had been purchased for his skill as a 
 carpenter and was generally considered a good work- 
 man. He was a stately, broad, smooth black, a com- 
 plement to her character. He, however, was a sort of 
 lay preacher and had named most of his family after 
 Bible characters about whom he had heard or read 
 time and again. He was kind, earnest, and faithful, 
 the spokesman for the slaves and a " trusty " on the 
 plantation. 
 
 There is no reliable knowledge of other forebears 
 beyond perhaps the grandparents. The cause of this 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 
 is well known. Many slaveholders kept the ancestral 
 records of certain breeds of live stock but never that 
 of slaves, primarily because the worth of a slave de- 
 pended less upon the blood of his forebears than did 
 the price of stock upon the animal's pedigree. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Fisher delighted to trace his 
 ancestry to a tribe of Zulus in Africa over which one 
 of his kin was chieftain. We may be sure, however, 
 of his parentage while a member of Doctor Ridley's 
 household. Charlotte's father, Markus, married 
 Nancy "Amos" (the master's name), the daughter 
 of Hannah whose father was a Creek Indian with 
 African blood. 
 
 According to the customs of slavery Miles got the 
 consent of Doctor Ridley to marry Charlotte. His 
 acquiescence was equivalent to license and ceremony. 
 True enough, such a union was not a creation of law, 
 but it served its purpose in those days better than wed- 
 ding-bells and statutory enactments do in most cases 
 today. However, Miles believed in ceremony, so he 
 and Charlotte " jumped " several times back and forth 
 over a broom repeating, " I marry you.'* 
 
 Thus they were married. For over a score of years 
 they lived in the hut beside the gully of tears, lighten- 
 ing each other's sorrows. Strivings, hopes, and prayers 
 were their consolation. Children were born. Should 
 they, too, forever be slaves? God forbid! 
 
 At this very time, contention and protestation by 
 such persons as Garrison, Lundy, Lovejoy, and 
 
THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Phillips against a system which was gnawing at the 
 vitals of home and society was at its height. In the 
 halls of Congress, Charles Sumner made the air elec- 
 tric with anti-slavery sentiment. Greatly influenced 
 by the preaching of Henry Ward Beecher, religious 
 organizations throughout the world were never more 
 zealous than in the crusade against the pernicious bar- 
 gaining for human flesh. Long before his presidency, 
 this evil had come to the attention of the great Lincoln. 
 The exigencies of civil strife, brought to a climax by 
 the defeat of General Lee at Antietam, broke the spell 
 of the devil-nurtured system of slavery. Abraham 
 Lincoln spoke, and the subject of this sketch was one 
 among the four millions of a race which was forever 
 thereafter to be recognized as human. 
 
 The story of freedom became a sweet memory in 
 the life of Elijah. The Northern soldiers came 
 through the South, plundering and pillaging the plan- 
 tations of the slaveholders and announcing to the slaves 
 their freedom. To ward off plundering, the owner of 
 the plantation would hang up a white sign (usually a 
 sheet), signifying that his intention toward the slave 
 was good and that the announcement of freedom could 
 be made at any time. 
 
 It was the summer of 1863 when the Yankees 
 reached the plantation of Doctor Ridley. The day 
 was still and hot. There was not a cloud to obstruct 
 the vision of the azure heavens. The leaves on the 
 trees stood motionless. Zephyrus was asleep. The 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 
 slaves were in the fields chopping the cotton and chant- 
 ing the rhythm of the day as a testimony to the drowsy 
 overseer that they were doing his bidding. " Massah " 
 Ridley was on the porch of the " big house " fast 
 asleep. The Yankees had ridden up to the mansion, 
 and the horses put their hoofs on the low and unrailed 
 porch as if at home. Doctor Ridley awakened 
 quickly, surprised, startled, bewildered, perplexed, a 
 riot of color. Some words passed between the parties, 
 and then one of the soldiers took something from his 
 pocket and read it. By this time " Missus " Ridley 
 had come from the house. She too heard the story 
 and saw her husband's eyes suffused with tears, but 
 said not a v/ord. Doctor Ridley was trying hard to 
 keep the tears back. He summoned Miles and spoke 
 slowly with a tear in his voice : 
 
 ** Miles, call all the niggers together." 
 
 The slaves did not know the meaning of Miles' news 
 to them, although they had heard rumors that they 
 should sometime be free. Few could read, and none 
 had access to newspapers. As they left the field they 
 wondered who was to be whipped or who was to be 
 sold or what orders were to be given. Half-startled, 
 half-afraid, they wended their way through the fields 
 in one silent mass of praying creatures. On seeing the 
 Yankees they started back, but " Massah " Ridley 
 beckoned. 
 
 The master was weeping bitterly. Finally he 
 sobbed, " I called you together, Miles " then he 
 
8 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 stopped. His words were stifled with sobs. The 
 slaves were awe-stricken; they had never seen a white 
 man cry. Only slaves had tears, they thought. All 
 eyes were fastened on Doctor Ridley. He was say- 
 ing something. " All you niggers — all you niggers are 
 free as I am." The surprise was shocking, but in an 
 instant in his usual harsh voice he added : 
 
 " But there ain't going to be any rejoicing here. 
 Stay here until the crop is made, and I'll give you 
 provisions. Go back to work." 
 
 But the slaves did rejoice and loudly, too. Some 
 cried ; some jumped up and cracked their heels. Char- 
 lotte took her younger children in her asms and shouted 
 all over the plantation : 
 
 " Chillun, didn't I tell you God 'ould answer 
 prayer? " 
 
 There is hardly any way to make real the almost 
 unbelievable announcement of freedom. Many of 
 the freedmen immediately left the plantation; others 
 stayed and worked until they were materially able 
 to earn a livelihood. Miles and Charlotte were among 
 this last group. 
 
 They did make one change, however. All of their 
 relatives took for their surname, Amos ; and Miles and 
 Charlotte would have taken Ridley, but their former 
 master was so heartless that they assumed the surname 
 Fisher, after Miles' Virginia master. 
 
 Miles and Charlotte worked for Doctor Ridley until 
 the summer of 1864 when they began life anew on a 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 
 farm of forty-eight acres, upon which they had made 
 an initial payment to their former master. They con- 
 tinued devout Christians, bringing up their children 
 in the fear of the Lord. Religion was as much intui- 
 tive to the slave as Christianity was to Miles. He 
 often supplied the First Baptist Church of La Grange 
 as minister. He was not an eloquent or learned man, 
 and when he preached the attendance was usually 
 small. Probably he never preached from the rostrum, 
 but as a " floor preacher " he presented the story of 
 the Cross as best he could. 
 
 The colored congregation at La Grange was pecu- 
 liar for one thing — no licentiate was allowed on the 
 rostrum, and this attitude accounted for " floor preach- 
 ers." They had no church house of their own, but 
 met in the white church after morning worship; there 
 were no night services. In the summertime, the Negro 
 members of the First Baptist Church met in the sol- 
 diers' graveyard under a " brush arbor " made by 
 suspending beams across the aisle of trees and strew- 
 ing the tops with pine boughs. 
 
 " Floor preaching " was embarrassing, but it did not 
 check the zeal of Miles for souls. He continued his 
 life of farming through the week, preaching when he 
 could. 
 
 His life had a direct Christian bearing upon his 
 family, for he began at home the lessons which he 
 preached abroad. As a result, all of his children ac- 
 cepted Christ at an early age. 
 
10 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 During slavery, Elijah John was hired by his master 
 to the Reverend Abner R. Callaway, as a companion 
 to his crippled son, Sumner, who was three years the 
 senior of Elijah. They, unaware of the distinctions 
 of caste and color taught by parents, played together 
 and strove just as all children do in the feverish pranks 
 of boys. Sumner knew many Bible stories and took 
 great delight in telling them to his little mate. These 
 messages of light had a beneficent effect upon Elijah 
 for, after Sumner passed into the kingdom of childlike 
 innocence, and after Elijah subsequently returned to 
 Master Ridley, Elijah John said that he loved Sum- 
 ner's Master and voluntarily accepted his brand. He 
 gave evidence of being converted. 
 
 Undoubtedly, there was a value in the early re- 
 ligious instruction of Elijah. Nevertheless, many older 
 Christians could not quite realize that a person so 
 young could endure the brand of an exacting Master, 
 and it was a much discussed question as to whether 
 Elijah John should become one of the flock or remain 
 a maverick. If the brand of divine truth was not yet 
 impressed on Elijah's heart, certainly it was laid on the 
 surface so that the Spirit had only to press it down to 
 make it at once the emblem of new life. Accordingly, 
 he was baptized, October 19, 1863, by the Reverend 
 Abner R. Callaway, into the fellowship of the La 
 Grange church, of which Dr. David Benedict, the 
 Baptist historian, said, " This is one of the most effi- 
 cient churches in western Georgia." 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 11 
 
 Elijah John Fisher demonstrated his profession by 
 the life he lived from childhood. He is said to have 
 shown propensities for the calling both of minister and 
 undertaker in these early days. Whenever any animal 
 would die on the farm, Elijah would lead the boys 
 out to a little service and then inter the carcass. 
 Deacon Marchman of the First Colored Baptist 
 Church of La Grange, who grew up with Elijah from 
 earliest boyhood, says : 
 
 " Fisher served his parents well. He was a consis- 
 tent Christian boy. I never knew him to do anything 
 wrong. When we fellows would go to a dance, Fisher 
 wouldn't dance. He never used tobacco and was 
 bitterly opposed to whisky." 
 
 By 1874, Miles paid the last dollar on his farm, 
 which had furnished a home for his wife, Charlotte, 
 his seventeen children, and his sisters-in-law, Jane and 
 Sissey. Just when he was able to rest from his labors, 
 he was taken ill, and in the spring of 1875 he died. 
 
 There was one request that Miles made on his 
 death-bed, after he had called his family around him, 
 and that was for Elijah to take care of Charlotte and 
 the farm. Although Elijah was only seventeen years 
 old, he had shown ability in dealing with the business 
 of the farm. Each child had an equal portion of the 
 farm for his inheritance, and all were to contribute to 
 the support of their mother and her sisters. 
 
 However, farm life appealed less and less to all 
 except Elijah. He contracted to buy the inheritances 
 c 
 
\2 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 of the other children and assumed the care of his 
 mother. He was able the first year to raise four or five 
 bales of cotton and several hundred bushels of corn 
 and potatoes. During the winter months and after the 
 planting season, he had an opportunity to attend a 
 school conducted by Mr. Danny McGee, one of the 
 many slave Negroes who had learned to read and to 
 write because of intimate association in the house of 
 the slave owner. 
 
 The schoolhouse was a dilapidated log hut, past 
 usefulness as a cabin, with one door and no windows. 
 The logs stretched in front of the hearth served as 
 both seats and desks. Here Professor McGee — yes, 
 " Fessor," because any one who knew anything was 
 termed professor and the misnomer has become tra- 
 ditional in all Negro schools — was master. Mr. Mc- 
 Gee charged each student a dollar a month for tuition 
 and in turn dispensed " mathematics, science, and phi- 
 losophy " found in the famous old " Blue-back Spel- 
 ler." Elijah stayed one month at this school, but 
 urgent work needed on the farm brought his educa- 
 tional career speedily to a close. 
 
 After planting season, he went back to school for 
 another month. Mr. Tolston, a Christian white man, 
 who along with others enlisted in a missionary enter- 
 prise which meant only hard work, prejudice, and 
 ostracism to themselves, but which inspired the Negro 
 to noble attainments in art, science, invention, litera- 
 ture, and religion, was teacher. At this school Elijah 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 13 
 
 made marked progress and could spell readily the dis- 
 syllable 1-a (lay), d-y (dee), lady. 
 
 Unwittingly, the Reverend Anthony Williams, the 
 Negro pastor of the First Colored Baptist Church, 
 made a slighting remark concerning Miles as a " floor 
 preacher." This greatly fired the passion of Miles' 
 son, Henry, who was leader of the choir, and on 
 Monday he and Miles II met Pastor Williams and 
 thrashed him sorely. They were apprehended and 
 to save them from prison, Elijah had to forfeit all of 
 his cotton, corn, and potatoes as a penalty for their 
 misdemeanor. 
 
 This incident was discouraging to Elijah. He had 
 nothing to go upon for that year. Immediately, he 
 bargained to sell the farm and in 1 876 made the sale 
 to Mr. B. Edmondson. Mr. Fisher thereupon sought 
 employment in Anniston, Alabama, a mining-town 
 about forty-five miles distant. 
 
 Setting out on foot one Sunday morning, he arrived 
 in Anniston on Tuesday and much to his delight found 
 employment in the coal-mines at fifty cents a day. 
 Elijah was just nineteen years old, but was large for 
 his age. He was tall and robust, and as he walked 
 the streets he carried himself as erect as a soldier and 
 as proudly as a peacock. It was often remarked that 
 Elijah was the proudest Negro that walked the streets 
 of La Grange, Georgia, or Anniston, Alabama. 
 
 Previous to his employment in Anniston, Elijah, 
 in 1 875, met a maid of sixteen summers who charmed 
 
]4 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 him as did no one else. Florida Neely was a copper- 
 colored girl with jet-black hair and pronounced fea- 
 tures, embracing characteristics which were decidedly 
 Indian, Caucasian, and Negro. 
 
 The Neely family had come to La Grange from 
 Randolph County, Alabama, when Florida was eight 
 years old. Until she reached her twelfth birthday she 
 had worked in the field for Mr. Thompson, first carry- 
 ing water and then hoeing. Afterward, she worked 
 in the home of Colonel Charles Maibrie as servant and, 
 being quick to learn, began knitting for five dollars a 
 month. Florida did this for three years, after which 
 time she received an increase of a dollar a month. It 
 was while working there as a knitter that she met 
 Elijah Fisher. 
 
 Florida Neely was an inspiration from the start to 
 Mr. Fisher. He would walk to Anniston each month 
 and walk back to see his fiancee. She described his 
 jaunts in later life, remarking that on every trip his 
 feet would be blistered and that often she assisted him 
 in washing them and greasing them with mutton-suet. 
 
 While in Anniston, Mr. Fisher' and Miss Neely cor- 
 responded freely, although both had not had three 
 month's schooling combined. Mr. Fisher's foreman 
 and Miss Neely 's mistress wrote the love-letters of 
 their employees, and though it took each party a long 
 time to decipher the messages, the missives had their 
 effect. On September 25, 1877, Elijah John Fisher 
 and Florida Neely were married at the First Baptist 
 
&Jl(AMLt)u ^^Sl^v^^o--- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 15 
 
 Church of La Grange, Georgia, by the Reverend 
 Martin E. Hardin. 
 
 The night of the marriage ceremony was full of 
 uncommon happenings that might interest the reader. 
 Pink, Elijah's sister, was engaged to Mr. Edward Mc- 
 Farland and had planned to have her wedding one 
 hour earlier than the Neely-Fisher ceremony. At the 
 church Miss Neely learned that Miss Pink Fisher had 
 not married and that she was waiting to have a double 
 wedding. All was ready and the church was there in 
 full to witness the ceremony. Miss Fisher had no 
 bridesmaids and so the wonderful advantage of 
 ' Two-in-One " was discovered. Florida's brides- 
 maids went in first, then Pink and Mr. McFarland and 
 Florida and Mr. Fisher. The people were surprised 
 that Florida Neely had no bridesmaids. Truly 
 " things are not always what they seem," and to add 
 to the embarrassment all the bridal party went to 
 Florida Fisher's house for dinner. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fisher continued their home in La 
 Grange although he worked in the mines six months 
 longer. 
 
 Anniston was becoming more and more civilized. 
 During the first days of Mr. Fisher's employment, An- 
 niston was a typical mining-town. Lewd women and 
 liquor were the rule. It was rumored that few re- 
 spectable women lived in the town. Mr. Fisher car- 
 ried himself in such a way as to gain the respect of all 
 with whom he came in contact. 
 
J6 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 As Anniston emerged into the light of culture, many 
 prominent families moved there, and Mr. Fisher's 
 character and manliness attracted the attention of the 
 leading white citizens. Colonel A. T. Tyler gave him 
 employment in his residence as butler. This position 
 in a home where men of clean estate walked on downy 
 carpets, was quite a contrast to the darkness of the 
 mines where dust and dirt and floors of hardened earth 
 were the surroundings of a grim mass of humanity. 
 Mr. Fisher toiled for Colonel Tyler nearly a year. 
 
 During the dull season he studied grammar and 
 arithmetic under Dr. J. T. Roberts and Dr. D. Shaver 
 at the Atlanta Baptist Seminary. While at this school, 
 where the atmosphere had the savor of religious fervor, 
 his call to preach was made clear. However, he re- 
 turned to Anniston to resume his former work. He 
 had been licensed to preach, in 1 879, by his church in 
 La Grange, but he did not want to do the job. He 
 tried to suppress the Spirit's call by teaching a coun- 
 try school. 
 
 Finding out that his school was growing, he finally 
 gave himself solely to teaching. From each child he 
 received ten cents a month, and this sum with his salary 
 and with what his thrifty wife received was enough for 
 their upkeep. 
 
II 
 
 LOOSED ON THE SWAN ROAD 
 1879-1889 
 
LOOSED ON THE SWAN ROAD 
 1879-1889 
 
 Mr. Fisher resolved to become an educated man ; his 
 wife had no objection. She was working at what then 
 seemed a splendid position, making six dollars a 
 month, and out of that sum had saved over a hundred 
 dollars. Mr. Fisher had saved more. Before leaving 
 for school, Mrs. Fisher requested him to put their 
 money in the bank. This he did but in his own name. 
 When his wife went to draw seventy-five dollars to 
 purchase three-fourths of an acre for her mother, she 
 found that no money could be drawn without her hus- 
 band's signature. Thereupon, she wrote him in At- 
 lanta for his permission to make the withdrawal. 
 
 In the meantime, he had been solicited for a school 
 at Long Cane, Georgia, and this was a good opportu- 
 nity to go and make arrangements. The agent for 
 the property suggested that since Mr. Fisher was home, 
 it would be better for him to complete the transaction 
 with Colonel Blum. Mr. Fisher desired to pay only 
 half down for the lot and planned to make a payment 
 toward the building of a house with the other half. 
 All the framework of the building was constructed by 
 the first of April, and Mr. Fisher went on top to put 
 on the roof. 
 
 19 
 
20 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 His wife saw him thus working and exclaimed in 
 her consternation, " Don't you know that it is bad 
 luck to work on your own house? " 
 
 Superstition still had sway. Luck, its protege, was 
 swaying the destinies of ex-slaves and freemen and, as 
 Cardinal Mazarin and Rothschild seem to think, is the 
 guiding star of worldly success and sways the desti- 
 nies of men of all rank. 
 
 Mrs. Fisher was no exception to the use of this 
 euphemism for every act of divine Providence. 
 
 On April 3, 1880, Mr. Fisher boarded the At- 
 lanta and West Point train for Long Cane to make 
 final arrangements for his school and to preach in West 
 Point on Sunday. He reached Long Cane and made 
 all arrangements to teach the school and intended to 
 catch the train in the afternoon. At such a town as 
 Long Cane, trains " stop on signal only " and then 
 stop still only for women. He was staying in the 
 Negro settlement near the swirl and smoke of the noisy 
 railroad. When he heard the blowing whistle of the 
 train, with valise in one hand and light coat over the 
 other that held an umbrella, he set out in a hurry for 
 the depot. The engineer saw him, but since he was a 
 man, and a black one at that, the train simply slowed 
 up enough to let the only passenger aboard. 
 
 As Mr. Fisher got on to the step, his overcoat 
 caught, and the moving monster threw him on the track. 
 He thought to raise his right leg thereby saving it from 
 being severed. But it is strange how the train acted as 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 2[ 
 
 a skilled surgeon, amputating his left leg about a foot 
 above the knee, also his second toe on his right foot and 
 his third finger on his right hand ; and it is stranger still 
 how Mr. Fisher lived through the suffering and agony 
 of such a misfortune, from Long Cane to West Point, 
 a distance of ten miles. There he received medical at- 
 tention and, without anesthetics, allowed his leg to be 
 cut farther up and his other wounds to be dressed. 
 
 The crisis had come. What was he to do? The 
 Negro was not a man in the South, therefore a suit 
 against the company would have been futile. No 
 Negro lawyer dared take such a case, and all white 
 lawyers wouldn't. Should he get well, was there any- 
 thing a one-legged Negro could do? What of his 
 wife? 
 
 Such an accident would have dampened the ardor 
 of most men, especially young ones, but not so with 
 men who do the things immortal. Marvelous have 
 been the endeavors of near-sighted Paul ; of the blind 
 Milton and "Blind Tom"; of frail Channing; of 
 club-foot Byron; of the frail youth Roosevelt; of the 
 consumptive Keats and Paul Laurence Dunbar; of 
 lame Talleyrand; of hunchback Pope; of diseased 
 Johnson, and epileptic Julius Caesar. Many a being 
 has found in his misfortune, as Bacon long ago said, 
 " a perpetual spur to rescue and deliver him from 
 scorn." It is not to be denied with Shakespeare that 
 
 It is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
 
22 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The news of the accident was wired to his mother 
 and mother-in-law, but not to his wife, for she was soon 
 to be a mother. Groups could be seen over La Grange 
 talking about the terrible happening at Long Cane. 
 Mrs. Fisher felt that something was wrong. 
 
 " I could not sleep Saturday night," she said. " In 
 the wee hours of the night I was disturbed in a dream. 
 I saw Mr. Fisher lying on a gray dray, and blood was 
 dripping on the ground. I immediately awakened and 
 went to Aunt Sally (no relation, but a usual form of 
 salutation) the next morning." 
 
 On seeing Florida, Aunt Sally began : " Child, I 
 had a dream about you last night. Somethin's going 
 to happen." 
 
 Trying to forestall the interpreter, Mrs. Fisher re- 
 plied, " Oh, no, Aunt Sally ! " 
 
 The thought haunted both, and as Florida went to 
 prepare breakfast she was perturbed with the fear 
 that Mr. Fisher was harmed but hoped for the best. 
 She tried as best she could to efface the last vestiges of 
 superstition, but, as with people of our day, there was 
 a dread of having the ante-bellum Negro prophesy 
 ill-fortune, for invariably bad results seem to follow. 
 
 The day passed as usual. At supper the news had 
 reached Mrs. Maibrie — still Mrs. Fisher did not 
 know. Mrs. Maibrie had intimated that on tomorrow 
 Florida had better take down her curtains and give 
 her room a thorough cleaning, the mistress thinking that 
 Mr. Fisher would be brought home. Then, too, there 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 23 
 
 was a peculiar look on the faces of all the servants at 
 supper. All of this added to Florida's suspicion. 
 
 Monday after breakfast as she was taking down the 
 curtains she looked around and saw her mother in the 
 doorway crying. The message was broken gently, but 
 poor Florida fainted. She was several days gaining 
 her strength, but as soon as possible was on her way to 
 West Point to see her husband. 
 
 At this juncture friends were needed. Mr. Fisher 
 had so lived that both white and colored saw to it 
 that he and his wife should not need. Gertrude Lil- 
 lian was born six weeks later, May 1 6, 1 880, and at 
 that time Mr. Fisher was able to get around. The 
 future left little hope for his mate and himself. 
 
 " Suppose, Florida, you go to your folks and I to 
 mine," he said. 
 
 " Mr. Fisher [for that is what she always called 
 him], if I have a crust of bread, one-half shall be 
 yours." 
 
 There is a bit of philosophy in this simplicity of love. 
 It was not as lyric as the great love scenes recorded by 
 sacred and profane writers, but it was as genuine and 
 as warm as any heart-throbs that pulsated between 
 Damon and Pythias, Jonathan and David, and Ruth 
 and Naomi. Elijah John Fisher was a brave man 
 struggling in the storm of that inexorable Spirit which 
 sways the destinies of both gods and men. 
 
 Life had to be started over again. Florida se- 
 cured a position as a washerwoman, and Elijah was 
 
24 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 allowed to teach in one of the county schools of La 
 Grange. 
 
 Every Monday friends would come after him in a 
 buggy and take him across La Grange to the West 
 Side where he taught. He stayed at the residence of 
 Mrs. Gordon, formerly a slave of the well-known 
 General Gordon, on Hamilton Road, and had the 
 pleasure of teaching all of her children. During these 
 days (on April 11, 1881), Miss Sophia B. Packard 
 and Miss Harriet E. Giles had come from Boston, 
 Massachusetts, under a commission from the Woman's 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society, and had 
 established a school, known today as Spelman Semi- 
 nary, for the elevation of Negro girls and women, in 
 the basement of the Friendship Baptist Church, At- 
 lanta, Georgia. They were offering free education to 
 deserving girls that could be recommended. Mr. 
 Fisher recommended Nora Gordon from his school 
 who, when she completed her course at Spelman Semi- 
 nary, sailed in 1889, with Miss Clara Howard, as a 
 missionary to Africa. 
 
 The school of Mr. Fisher was above the average 
 and paid fifty dollars a month. The session lasted 
 only through the months of June, July, and August 
 when the pupils were less needed on the farms. In 
 addition to the salary paid by the county, each pupil 
 paid ten cents a month. A good livelihood could 
 thereby be gotten, since his pupils numbered at least 
 seventy-five. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 25 
 
 The colored people of La Grange thought the term 
 of the school too short, so they extended it and sup- 
 ported the principal five months longer. This Inde- 
 pendent School, as it was called, met for its extra ses- 
 sion in the colored Baptist church. As in the county 
 school, each pupil was supposed to bring ten cents a 
 month; many increased their tuition to twenty-five 
 cents. The school grew to such large proportions that 
 an assistant teacher, Miss Salena Sloan (now Mrs. 
 H. R. Butler), had to be employed, and the name 
 was subsequently changed to the La Grange Baptist 
 Seminary. Mr. Fisher remained principal during most 
 of his residence in La Grange, until, at least, other 
 duties drew too heavily upon his time. The Seminary 
 is today one of the two colored city schools of La 
 Grange and has ever been guided by an alumnus of the 
 Atlanta Baptist Seminary (now Morehouse College). 
 
 Through it all, Mr. Fisher began to reflect seriously 
 upon the accident. People were saying by the life 
 he was living that he was certainly a good Christian. 
 But why should he be so afflicted? This query is the 
 riddle of the ages, only partially answered by the tale 
 of the nations. God has a work for men and nations 
 to perform, and when they refuse he breaks them on 
 the wheel, but his work must go on. Elijah John 
 Fisher resigned his will to God. He desired to do 
 his biddings ; it was his duty to do his work. He con- 
 ducted prayer services in the neighboring villages. His 
 voice in song was indicative of other gifts within. Men 
 
26 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 and women were called to the ranks of service by the 
 gospel of his singing. He knew full well that it was 
 not in his power to convert, but that he was used of 
 Jehovah. More and more did he desire to devote his 
 entire time to such endeavors. 
 
 Mr. Fisher's first church was in the country at 
 Threats Grove, Troup County, Troup Factory, Geor- 
 gia. The members would come after him in a buggy 
 every Saturday, and he with them would journey to 
 the settlement some seven miles distant. This congre- 
 gation was unable to pay very much money, but the 
 abundance of corn, potatoes, chickens, butter, and 
 syrup insured him a good living. 
 
 With very little preparation and physically handi- 
 capped, Mr. Fisher stepped from the butlery to the 
 schoolroom, from the schoolroom to the pulpit, from 
 the humblest to the highest pursuits, and was ordained, 
 May 10, 1882, by Rev. E. R. Carter, Rev. C. T. 
 Walker, Rev. D. J. Wimbish, Rev. J. A. Walker, 
 and Rev. P. M. Mobley. 
 
 According to the times, a good shepherd was always 
 the overseer of from two to six churches which he 
 visited in their turn. It is interesting to note the con- 
 tempory churches which Pastor Fisher served. 
 
 Macedonia Baptist Church was located about four 
 miles from La Grange on land that had belonged to 
 Doctor Ridley. He remained there two years, adding 
 ninety-five souls to the membership and building them 
 a substantial house of worship. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 27 
 
 At the same time, he was pastor of the Mount Zion 
 Baptist Church, Whitefield Crossing, now Louise, 
 Georgia. Mount Zion was considered a good 
 church with about a hundred members who were able 
 to pay their pastor the fabulous sum of three hundred 
 dollars a year. 
 
 His family had increased during these days to four : 
 Gertrude Lillian, Shepherd Mattie, Elijah John, Jr., 
 and James Edward. His wife thought it a pity that 
 he should play the role of a mere exhorter. Her con- 
 ception of a minister was based largely on the preach- 
 ing she had heard at the First Colored Baptist Church 
 in La Grange. There the minister would momentarily 
 disappear behind the pulpit and spring up spasmodi- 
 cally, shouting some sort of unintelligible whoop which 
 would throw his mourners into pandemonium. Such 
 tactics had contributed largely to the formation of a 
 colored Baptist church in the town as a necessary move 
 by the white people to get rid of that frenzied worship. 
 Accordingly, in the early years of her husband's min- 
 istry, Mrs. Fisher did not go to hear him preach, but 
 stayed at home and admonished him against being a 
 " jack-legged " preacher. 
 
 Such admonition had its effect. Pastor Fisher also 
 believed that representatives of the highest moral and 
 spiritual affairs should personify the noblest character 
 and the highest intellectuality. He believed, further, 
 that the more unprepared the people the more prepared 
 ought to be their leaders. But he also believed that a 
 D 
 
28 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 religion that could not be felt was no religion and a 
 discourse that appealed only to the intellect and did 
 not pull on the heart-strings was not a sermon. 
 
 He was signally honored by being chosen Assistant 
 Secretary of the Missionary Baptist Convention of 
 Georgia, and Moderator of the Western Union Asso- 
 ciation in its twelfth annual session at Grantville, 
 Georgia, in 1885. During his administration, a Sun- 
 day School Convention was organized and made auxil- 
 iary to the parent body ; the La Grange Baptist Semi- 
 nary was supported. His work for his term of office, 
 which was two years, contributed largely to his future 
 success. 
 
 Soon, it became a matter of observation that the 
 churches that secured the services of Mr. Fisher were 
 beginning to enjoy a degree of prosperity unprece- 
 dented. His ministry was the theme of general com- 
 ment all through North Georgia. God was with him 
 and through him was doing a good work. 
 
 In the autumn of 1883 he was also called to the 
 pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Anniston, 
 Alabama. He resigned the churches at Threats 
 Grove and Macedonia, but the Mount Zion Church 
 at Whitefield Crossing would not accept his resigna- 
 tion. The members there clung to him as pastor, al- 
 though he preached for them only one Sunday in each 
 month. He also built a church house for them. 
 
 He found the people of Anniston laboring under a 
 heavy debt which he completely liquidated. Accord- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 29 
 
 ing to Dr. E. R. Carter, in " Our Pulpit Illustrated," 
 he solicited in two years' time over forty thousand dol- 
 lars for a new church home. He was elected Presi- 
 dent of the Sunday School Convention of Northeast 
 Alabama and Moderator of the Rushing Spring Asso- 
 ciation of the same State. During all of these early 
 pastorates he lived in La Grange, Georgia. 
 
 An incident out of the ordinary happened in that 
 city. He was called to the pastorate of the First 
 Colored Baptist Church, of which he had been a mem- 
 ber twenty-four years. This congregation demanded 
 all of his time, for it had grown to three hundred mem- 
 bers and was noted for its list of famous preachers, in- 
 cluding Elders Anthony Williams, Charles T. 
 Walker, Charles H. Brightharp, and Collins H. 
 Lyons. Mr. Fisher had won the hearts of the people 
 of La Grange by his consistent Christian bearing; his 
 integrity had never been questioned. 
 
 His five children were taught a strict obedience to 
 parents. At church, they took an accustomed seat 
 on the second row, and when they were restless or 
 discontented a glance from the rostrum was enough to 
 straighten out the most troubled countenance, for all 
 knew that at home he did not spare the rod. 
 
 A look into the parsonage will show how his wife 
 made his starvation hire meet all needs quite well. It 
 is no wonder that in patchwork she was most adept 
 and with dexterity could " make aid clathes look al- 
 most as weel's the new." 
 
Ill 
 
 SAILING DUE NORTH 
 
 1889-1901 
 
SAILING DUE NORTH 
 1889-1901 
 
 Larger opportunities for service and the chance to 
 go to school were offered in Atlanta, Georgia. At 
 first he hesitated, with his limited preparation, to un- 
 dertake the work of a city pastorate. His only im- 
 petus for such an undertaking, however, was the legacy 
 that had come to him from his father, a copy of the 
 Scriptures, a Baptist Hymnal, and pictures of Andrew 
 Bryan and Andrew Marshall, the first two pastors of 
 the First African Baptist Church, Savannah, Georgia, 
 conceded by some to be the first Negro Baptist church 
 in America. To this he had added a " blue-back 
 speller " and arithmetic, Rollin's Histories, James R. 
 Boyd's " Eclectic Moral Philosophy," the Works of 
 Josephus, Clarke's Commentaries, and Dr. G. S. 
 Weaver's " Heart of the World." 
 
 He preached his " acceptance sermon " from Acts 
 10 : 29, " Therefore came I unto you without gain- 
 saying, as soon as I was sent for; I ask therefore for 
 what intent ye have sent for me? " 
 
 One of his first moves after entering upon the work 
 at Mount Olive Baptist Church, October 1 , 1 889, was 
 to matriculate in the divinity department of the Atlanta 
 Baptist Seminary (now Morehouse College). Mr. 
 
 33 
 
34 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Fisher desired to enter the senior class; President 
 Graves was willing if Mr. Fisher could make the 
 grade. 
 
 " Give me three days," Pastor Fisher said, and at 
 the end of that time he entered the Greek class, took 
 Doctor Graves' " Outline Studies in Theology " and 
 other courses, and graduated from the Theological 
 Department with the class of 1 890. 
 
 In three years' time by his labors and financial man- 
 agement, Pastor Fisher liquidated the heavy debt, 
 added a belfry and vestibule to the church, installed 
 the first pipe-organ, and bought and paid for new pews 
 and the parsonage. He completely reorganized the 
 church, organizing the first Baptist Young People's 
 Union it ever had. He baptized one hundred and 
 nineteen the first year, one hundred and fifty-five the 
 second year, and closed a protracted meeting in 1 893 
 in which there were ninety-eight additions, making the 
 membership over six hundred. In this number of con- 
 verts there was Henry Lincoln Johnson, now the only 
 Negro Republican National Committeeman. This is 
 a remarkable record when you consider the problems 
 facing the church. 
 
 Mount Olive Baptist Church was in the most im- 
 moral and unhealthy part of the city, " Dark Town." 
 The name suited it, for this section of the city was 
 dark both physically and spiritually. Men were liter- 
 ally in caves, possessed with demons, tearing them- 
 selves with the chains of ignorance and sin, but when 
 
MT. OLIVE BAPTIST CHURCH 
 Atlanta, Georgia 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 35 
 
 this messenger of the Cross came, the demons came out 
 of the men, and there in their right minds they fell at 
 his feet, willing to tell the story of Jesus to others. 
 Even the many policemen stationed in this section of 
 the city in the day, left it at night to the wiles of evil 
 machinations. 
 
 It was not long, though, before the city paved this 
 section and put in electric lights. The policemen were 
 withdrawn in the day. The pastor of Mount Olive 
 Church was such a moral force in this district that the 
 most disturbing elements would subside and sneak 
 away if only he was seen to pass. He was a living 
 testimony of the transforming power of the gospel. 
 
 In 1893, Mr. Fisher was again elected Moderator 
 of the Western Union Association, serving three years. 
 The Association was connected with the State Con- 
 vention, and much mission work was done. The As- 
 sociation was particularly strong in its maintenance of 
 Baptist doctrines. Its programs were never complete 
 unless some one delivered a sermon or paper touching 
 New Testament fundamentals. The moderator was 
 responsible for much of this. 
 
 Churches knew that in all Scriptural teachings the 
 Moderator of the Western Union Association was 
 firm. On one occasion he publicly debated with a 
 Methodist brother on the doctrine of baptism and 
 demonstrated his superior position and ability. The 
 Cotton States had their International Exposition at 
 Atlanta in November of 1895. The committee set 
 
36_ THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 aside the fourteenth day as Baptist Day, and chose 
 Pastor Fisher as master of ceremonies. 
 
 In this same year, all Negro Baptist churches and 
 Associations were looking forward to the many re- 
 ligious gatherings in the City of Atlanta. Indeed, this 
 was an unforgetable year for Mr. Fisher, Mount Olive 
 Baptist Church, and the entire Baptist family. 
 
 The Negro Baptists of the nation met in their fif- 
 teenth annual session, September 28. Heretofore, the 
 Baptist forces were divided between the Baptist For- 
 eign Mission Convention of the United States of Amer- 
 ica, which turned its attention primarily to missions on 
 the West Coast of Africa ; the National Baptist Con- 
 vention, which took care of home missions; and the 
 National Baptist Educational Convention, which gave 
 its attention to an educational program. At this session, 
 a Foreign Mission Board, a Home Mission Board, 
 and an Educational Board supplanted each of these 
 conventions and became offspring of a united body 
 thereafter known as the National Baptist Convention 
 of the United States of America. 
 
 It was at this meeting that Pastor Fisher began to 
 attract nation-wide notice. This meeting of the con- 
 vention marked his seventh consecutive attendance, but 
 only at this last session did he attain to an abiding 
 recognition. He humorously related in after life how 
 he with many others went to the meetings of the Na- 
 tional Convention and never got so much as the atten- 
 tion of the chair. Such a course was not strange, for 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 37 
 
 at best only a few men got on the program and shaped 
 the policies of the body. Many thought that the con- 
 vention as a whole was not representative of the de- 
 nomination in general, for many reserved, cool, and 
 scholarly ministers would not resort to the boisterous, 
 political, and " leather-lunged " methods that some 
 thought had to be employed to attract attention in this 
 open forum. 
 
 Pastor Fisher was coming into the light in Georgia. 
 Doctors E. R. Carter, Charles T. Walker, Collins H. 
 Lyons, and Emanuel K. Love were some of the older 
 men leading the ranks. Doctor Love was the gigantic, 
 leading, reactionary figure — pastor of the First Afri- 
 can Baptist Church at Savannah, President of the 
 Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia, and four 
 times the President of the National Baptist Conven- 
 tion. Pastor Fisher represented the progressive ele- 
 ment. Naturally, it would be to the interest of 
 the reactionary forces to oppose the efforts of the 
 progressives. Hence it was not strange for Doctor 
 Love to make this utterance when he met Pastor 
 Fisher at the State Convention in November: 
 
 " Fisher, when I leave this town your church won't 
 have you as its pastor." 
 
 But Mr. Fisher was just as positive. " When you 
 leave this town you won't be our president," he re- 
 torted. 
 
 Certain enough, the decree was fixed. The Rev. 
 Collins H. Lyons, Secretary of the Missionary Bap- 
 
38 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 tist Convention, attacked the president of that body. 
 Sentiment was entirely in favor of Secretary Lyon's 
 assertions since he was a first cousin of the president 
 and was in a position to know the facts in the case. 
 Thereupon Rev. Mr. Fisher led most of the delegates 
 to his church and formed the temporary organization 
 of the General Missionary Baptist and Educational 
 Convention of Georgia with Dr. George W. Dwelle 
 as first president. 
 
 Both of these factions lived for two years, neither 
 doing the service for which they were started. Dr. 
 T. J. Morgan of The American Baptist Home Mis- 
 sion Society wanted to harness this latent energy for 
 service along the lines of education. 
 
 At his suggestion both conventions met in Macon. 
 His plan was to enlist the cooperation of the Negro 
 Baptists in support of the Home Mission schools, Spel- 
 man Seminary and Atlanta Baptist College (whose 
 charter granted full college privileges in 1897). The 
 Society felt that some support of the schools ought to 
 be forthcoming since it had befriended the Negro in 
 early times. The appeal was made to representatives 
 of the churches because more was expected of this 
 Christian leadership than of any other group, since for 
 them so much more had been sacrificed. 
 
 Less contention centered around Spelman Seminary 
 than around Atlanta Baptist College. President 
 George Sale of the College might have averted some 
 inimical developments if he had had a better knowl- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 39 
 
 edge of the Negro. He was a Canadian and had 
 brought to his well-filled office neither the prejudices 
 of some Northerners for the Negro nor the prejudices 
 of most Southerners against the Negro. He treated 
 all parties concerned as men. 
 
 On the one hand, the reactionary element repre- 
 senting the Missionary Baptist Convention felt that it 
 was time that Negroes were putting their money in 
 some institution that they could own and control. This 
 attitude grew out of a dilemna which white powers 
 that rule over undeveloped peoples cannot escape; 
 either people so ruled flourish under outside influence 
 or they do not. If they do not flourish, there is no 
 reason to continue there. If they do flourish, there is 
 no power on earth that can eternally subdue the pas- 
 sion for self-government. 
 
 As it was, Doctor Morgan made clear the fact that 
 all money thus far contributed had been donated. 
 
 On the other hand, the progressive element repre- 
 senting the General Missionary Baptist and Educa- 
 tional Convention held that all any one could ever 
 hope to gain from an institution would be an educa- 
 tion, and since the Atlanta Baptist College would al- 
 ways give that to Negro Baptists, they believed that it 
 should be supported. 
 
 A logomachy followed, in which Doctor Morgan 
 explained that those who failed to support the Society 
 which had made an unparalleled contribution to Negro 
 advancement were not in the least grateful. The re- 
 
40 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 ply of that giant of Georgia, Emanuel K. Love, rang 
 true to the hearts even of those who did not agree with 
 many of his views, but his bluntness remained a bitter 
 memory. 
 
 " Whenever we assert our manhood," he began with 
 deep sarcasm, "you always say, Ingratitude! ingrati- 
 tude! ingratitude! When will we ever get through 
 paying our debt of gratitude? " he queried. 
 
 It may be that he never realized the results of his 
 speech. It is seen today, for the college at Atlanta has 
 a Negro president and is manned almost entirely by 
 Negro educators. Nevertheless, for that occasion, 
 opinions were divided. Even members of the Mission- 
 ary Baptist Convention favored cooperation with the 
 white Baptists. Much time was taken in order to 
 avoid voting upon the matter, but speeches by Rev. 
 Mr. Walker and Pastor Fisher clinched the proposi- 
 tion eternally. The plea of Doctor Morgan was sus- 
 tained. 
 
 It was at this meeting that Mr. Fisher made the 
 decision that determined his destiny. In truth, all of 
 his subsequent work was an outcome of his conclusions 
 at this meeting and, by way of anticipation, it is worthy 
 to add that if he had not been in Atlanta, Georgia, he 
 might never have gotten to Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 The Missionary Baptist Convention established 
 Central City College at Macon. The Reverends E. 
 R. Carter, C. S. Wilkins, and W. G. Johnson organ- 
 ized an Educational Society which lasted two years; 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 41 
 
 finding that their views were in harmony with those of 
 the General Missionary and Educational Convention, 
 they united. Hence there remained the two factions 
 for over twenty years; recently these conventions have 
 united. 
 
 Mr. Fisher served the General Missionary and 
 Educational Convention as President of the Executive 
 Board and was the Managing Editor of their official 
 organ, the " Rome Journal." 
 
 Such a stand in favor of The American Baptist 
 Home Mission Society called for action as well as 
 words. Pastor Fisher had no hesitancy in sending his 
 daughters, Gertrude and Mattie, to Spelman Semi- 
 nary, and his sons, Elijah and James, to Atlanta Bap- 
 tist College. He even furnished the means for several 
 poor students to get the advantages of these Christian 
 schools. Through poverty, misery, and woe he had 
 at least achieved the notice of the people, and he felt 
 it a duty to encourage the young element. One of the 
 last of his acts while in Atlanta was a pleasant eve- 
 ning tendered the graduating classes of his alma mater. 
 
 Rev. and Mrs. E. J. Fisher: 
 
 The graduating classes of Atlanta Baptist College will be 
 pleased to accept your kind invitation to a reception Wednes- 
 day evening from 6 to 9 o'clock. 
 
 B. G. BRAWLEY, Sec. Coll. Class. 
 
 Even while a resident of Chicago he continued to 
 send many students to Atlanta at a time when North- 
 
42 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 em institutions were less expensive and more fittingly 
 equipped. But he knew that no white school could 
 give the Negro youth poise, confidence, and a knowl- 
 edge of his race like the Negro school. Today, the 
 going of Northern students to Atlanta has become a 
 movement. 
 
 Pastor Fisher served as trustee of Spelman Semi- 
 nary and is reported to have done the unusual thing: 
 He secured for a colored physician the privilege of 
 practising in the Negro hospital of the Seminary which 
 to this day is open only to white physicians. Selah ! 
 
 All of his subsequent pastorates were simply en- 
 largements of this one. He laid here the foundation 
 of his future work. He taught the people to buy homes 
 and open businesses. He himself was a silent partner 
 with Doctor McDougal in a drug-store opposite the 
 church. 
 
 At the commencement in 1 896 of one of the Negro 
 colleges, Mr. Fisher was honored with the degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity and at the commencement of the 
 same college the following year, he was again given 
 the same distinction. It could not have been that 
 Mr. Fisher was to give one of the degrees to another 
 minister, for Negro preachers, from the youngest to the 
 oldest, are traditionally doctors of divinity. 
 
 Mr. Fisher demonstrated at Atlanta that he was a 
 race man, supporting each issue for the betterment of 
 his people. A Negro restaurant was needed in the 
 city, and he was one of the promoters, lending his 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 43 
 
 moral and financial support. With many of the lead- 
 ing Negroes of the State, a weekly religious news- 
 paper, the " Atlanta Tribune," was launched and he 
 assumed the editorship. 
 
 That form of newspaper was fairly typical of Negro 
 religious periodicals with local circulations, and has 
 become more successful than a national issue, probably 
 because each individual church, constituting a whole, 
 is interested first in itself. The busy Negro pastor 
 being not only the spiritual adviser of the church, but 
 also the business genius, philosopher, and guide, after 
 making contributions to these journals and caring for 
 his congregation, has little time for other literary work. 
 
 However, there have been valiant attempts at writ- 
 ing. Many of these have remained unpublished be- 
 cause the generous public has been less interested in 
 the religious life of the Negro ; because many of them 
 have not been up to the standard, and because the 
 whole matter has often been referred to the Negro 
 Baptist press. 
 
 Still noble works, prominent treatises on religion, 
 education, and history, and in fiction and poetry have 
 been given the world by the Negro Baptist clergy. 
 Pastor Fisher added two works to the number : " The 
 Influence of Baptist Principles on Other Denomina- 
 tions " and " A Regenerated Church-membership and 
 Why." 
 
 In the issue of the " Atlanta Tribune " for July 15, 
 1 899, mention is made of an address of Editor Fisher, 
 E 
 
44 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 July 8, to the white and colored citizens of Grantville 
 and Coweta Counties on the relation of the races : 
 
 As no book of art, science, or philosophy can be so safely 
 relied upon as the book of Holy Writ because of its author 
 (he says) we shall call your attention to it in order that our 
 relationship may be rightly set forth. In Genesis 1 : 26, God 
 said, " Let us make man in our image ; after our own like- 
 ness," and to this time no other creation has taken place which 
 caused all the human family to begin with Adam. Then we 
 are taught further that all were destroyed in the flood save 
 Noah and the others of his family. . . Then one of the most 
 scholarly and devout men, after leaving off his sins, tells us 
 that " God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth . . ." 
 
 The Constitution of the United States recognizes these say- 
 ings and knows no racial lines or colors of skins, but regards 
 all as citizens of this commonwealth. Hence all the rights 
 and immunities that have been accorded any other citizen have 
 been promised to the Negro, and it is the duty of those in au- 
 thority to see to it that these rights be accorded the Negro as 
 they are accorded other citizens. 
 
 We are here as American citizens and here to stay. Pre- 
 vious circumstances brought us here, and the right of choice 
 which belongs to every citizen keeps us here. . . We are here 
 to inform you and we raise our voices unreservedly with no 
 uncertain sound to let you know that we are absolutely opposed 
 to rape and crime in any form and in anybody, and we stand 
 ready to join the white citizens of these counties in bringing 
 to justice every rapist and every law violator. We cannot 
 join any mob for the reason we propose to be law-abiding. 
 
 Probably Editor Fisher was not burned at the stake 
 because he had only one leg. At any price, he de- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 45 
 
 clared the whole truth and spared not. It was neces- 
 sary to employ all of his rhetorical powers to hammer 
 people to a sense of their possibilities. Time and time 
 again he cried aloud from his rostrum that if people 
 did not like his doctrines he would wend his way to the 
 highways and by-ways, place his pulpit there, cry, 
 " Holy, holy, holy," and some one would come out to 
 hear him. 
 
 In " The City of Atlanta, a Descriptive, Histori- 
 cal and Industrial Review of the Gateway City of the 
 South, Being the World's Fair Series on Great Ameri- 
 can Cities, 1892-1893," the editor, mentioning only 
 three Negro churches, had this to say of Mount Olive 
 and her pastor : 
 
 Since his first attempt to educate himself ten years ago his 
 success in public life has been marked. He was moderator of 
 one of the colored Associations in the State. He is now and 
 has been the Assistant Secretary of the Baptist Convention 
 and President of the Executive Board of the State Conven- 
 tion. He is also a member of the National Baptist Conven- 
 tion of the United States of America and has not failed to 
 attend a session for five years. He has baptized over twelve 
 hundred people and has traveled and labored in evangelical 
 work in this and other States. 
 
 Reverend Fisher is a man of more than ordinary culture and 
 the best elements of success. 
 
IV 
 AT THE COALING-STATION 
 
 1901-1903 
 
AT THE COALING-STATION 
 1901-1903 
 
 It was not easy to resign a pastorate in which so 
 many useful days had been spent. But Atlanta was 
 no place for a man, who in frankness often became 
 blunt, and who, declaring the whole truth, spared not 
 the exploiters of the weak. Men with vision were 
 needed farther on. 
 
 Mr. Fisher decided to go. He had no contempt 
 for the South ; for with a changed humanity, believing 
 in law and righteousness, giving the opportunity to 
 every man to win or lose the values of life, its days 
 kissed by the crimson of the evening sun, its air sweet 
 with the rose and magnolia, its fields rich with the 
 snowy bolls of cotton, and its cattle fat on fertile slopes, 
 the South would be the treasure land of the States. In 
 the transition period he must do good elsewhere; there 
 were seas into which his ship had not sailed. 
 
 The first stop was Nashville in the State of Tennes- 
 see, where future Ethiopia gathered from every State, 
 from Africa, and from the West Indies. He tarried 
 there to recruit strength ; Spruce Street Baptist Church 
 had extended him a call. 
 
 The city itself was attractive. The lights of the 
 boulevards, the sloping hills and cool valleys, the pa- 
 
 49 
 
50 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 latial residences of landed gentry fat from the life- 
 blood of unrequited toilers, and the massive capitol 
 with its terraced lawn offset with memories of civil 
 strife, made up Nashville. On yonder hill below 
 " Rock Town " was the reservoir from which pipes 
 conveyed water to the city. The physical principle 
 underlying this water system was that the pressure on 
 such a volume was able to force the water through 
 pipes, thereby furnishing cleanliness and refreshing 
 drafts to every inhabitant. This huge reservoir, al- 
 though a place of interest to the traveler, was, never- 
 theless symbolic of the condition of the Negro who 
 lived apart and moved in a sphere all his own. The 
 pressure of " Jim-Crowism," segregation, disfranchise- 
 ment, and poor housing conditions had forced thirty 
 thousand Negroes into a restricted space. As a result, 
 the Negro area was replete with little businesses, 
 schoolhouses, the offices of professional men, four insti- 
 tutions of higher learning, including one medical 
 school, and a score of Baptist churches. Nashville 
 was the center of operation of the National Baptist 
 Convention. Its publishing-house was there printing 
 the literature for thousands of churches of the enfran- 
 chised race. 
 
 But the future of Spruce Street Church was not as- 
 sured ; 1 900 had been the year of calamity. The fire 
 insurance upon the building had been reduced one- 
 half, and mysteriously, in less than a month after the 
 reduction, the building burned to the ground. The 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 5[ 
 
 insurance was not sufficient to erect a new building, 
 and even if it had been, the money was not so used 
 for, in the meantime, a division had taken place and 
 the money was divided between the two factions. 
 About three hundred members purchased property 
 three lots from the church and there built a small edi- 
 fice which they called the First Baptist Church. The 
 remaining number under the Rev. J. E. Purdy had just 
 sufficient funds to rebuild the basement of the large 
 Spruce Street Church. They were worshiping there 
 in 1901 when Rev. Mr. Fisher was called, after the 
 death of their previous pastor. 
 
 Truly, there was nothing encouraging about the 
 Spruce Street Church but the field. Much work 
 needed to be done and done immediately. Mr. Fisher 
 served the Spruce Street Church day and night, and in 
 less than a year the graduating exercises of Roger Wil- 
 liams University were held in its new, commodious, 
 and well-furnished auditorium. This gigantic accom- 
 plishment was characteristic of Negro pastoral 
 methods. White congregations have the necessary 
 funds subscribed and every detail planned before they 
 lift a spade of dirt, while Negroes with practically no 
 accumulated wealth and with less businesslike methods 
 get the same, or even better results by relying on divine 
 aid to supply all deficiencies. Many persons remarked 
 that they had never seen building material go so fast 
 to a place. 
 
 If reputation or honor was the aspiration of Pastor 
 
52 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Fisher he had indeed achieved that. However, the 
 Spruce Street Church was not a monument to himself 
 but a dedication to Jehovah. This last thought had 
 been the inspiration that was peculiar to the members 
 who had worked so earnestly and so well. God had 
 been magnified at all times and in every meeting. 
 Spruce Street Church was in the midst of evangelistic 
 services continuously; the pastor was his own evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 Almost before the church was under roof, the pas- 
 tor was in demand for evangelistic services in and 
 out of the city. Probably this was true for two rea- 
 sons: First, he was an all-round evangelist, giving his 
 message both in song and in sermon ; and secondly, he 
 was one of the outstanding men of the denomination. 
 During the few days of his presence in any one of the 
 principal cities of the country, the place was deeply 
 stirred. Crowds thronged out of curiosity to hear this 
 one-legged preacher, and his plain, outspoken, burning 
 messages led impenitent men and women from all 
 classes of society to leave their sins and turn to God. 
 The first of his engagements was spent in the adjoin- 
 ing States of Kentucky, Carolina, and Virginia. 
 
 The winter of 1 902 was not unlike many previously 
 experienced by Mr. Fisher, but was very severe upon 
 his family who were accustomed only to the warm sun- 
 shine and chilling rains of Georgia. Blinding snow- 
 storms, hail, and sleet were the rule. It was hard 
 traveling for pedestrians over the unpaved streets of 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 53 
 
 " Rock Town." Pastor Fisher walked from his home 
 all the winter to attend revival services in his church, 
 but his family attended very little. One evening in 
 February, just about dusk, his mother, Charlotte, then 
 past eighty-two years of age, set out for Spruce Street 
 Church, a few squares distant. The snow was falling 
 fast and a wintry blast was sweeping from the North. 
 Without the knowledge of any one, Charlotte had 
 emerged from the bungalow out upon the porch and 
 thence down a short board walk covered with ice to the 
 beaten pathways of the street toward the church. On 
 and on she walked, but had not reached the church 
 when her son returned that evening. Meanwhile, Mrs. 
 Fisher, anxious over the mysterious disappearance of 
 Charlotte, sent the two older boys in quest of her 
 mother-in-law. The pastor called members of his 
 flock, but they too had seen no trace of her. The 
 police were notified. For days they hunted. The 
 suspense was almost unendurable, but alas ! about two 
 weeks later they came upon her form about three miles 
 from home with bonnet and shawl tied over her ears, 
 frozen in the drifting snow. 
 
 The tragic death of his mother was a great shock 
 to the minister already burdened with cares. He had 
 striven hard to remember " the only commandment 
 with promise," and had honored with loving and con- 
 stant solicitude his dear mother. There remained of 
 his immediate family only a sister, Mrs. Sarah Brown, 
 and three brothers, Miles, Henry, and Abraham. 
 
54 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Solicitous as he was of the welfare of his mother, he 
 was none the less zealous to remember his wife's 
 mother and her family. He visited them frequently 
 and never left them without providing a store of pro- 
 visions and clothes. Naturally, they thought of him 
 as their rich relative in Nashville, but Mr. Fisher was 
 only demonstrating that charity did not begin at home 
 but went skipping over hill and dale to minister to those 
 in need. 
 
 With barely a living wage he sustained all of his 
 children in institutions of higher learning as far as they 
 would go. His three daughters, Gertrude Lillian, 
 Shepherd Mattie, and Charlotte Emily, finished 
 courses at Spelman Seminary. Gertrude also finished 
 pharmacy in the Meharry Medical College; Mattie 
 was a student in the college department of Roger Wil- 
 liams University until her health failed, and Charlotte 
 graduated from the Teachers' Professional Course at 
 Spelman. His sons, Elijah John, Jr., and James Ed- 
 ward, graduated from State University, Louisville, 
 Kentucky, and Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, 
 respectively. 
 
 Mr. Fisher also saw the need of more training for 
 himself. In leisure hours you could find him among 
 the hundreds of volumes in his library in earnest prepa- 
 ration for each occasion. In a city with four institu- 
 tions of higher learning, the pulpit needed to be no less 
 qualified than the pew. A church governed by the 
 people, to attain the highest development, must be 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 55 
 
 directed by a cultured and progressive ministry. In 
 the summer of 1902, Mr. Fisher spent his vacation at 
 the University of Chicago, in order to attain his cher- 
 ished ambition of studying Greek and Hebrew. For 
 the first time, too, he had an extended opportunity of 
 surveying the great progressive center of the North- 
 west, Chicago. 
 
 These were preeminently the days of busy, bustling, 
 history-making Chicago. He saw the Negro workers 
 busy in their toil, side by side with the Caucasian, but 
 he saw industries that Negroes could not enter. He 
 saw Negroes voluntarily confined within an area called 
 the " Black Belt," and serious dangers avoided only 
 because of the relative scarcity of the colored people. 
 He saw commercialized vice and the licensed saloon 
 cursing the weaker element of his race and marring 
 the splendid record of Negro achievement. He missed 
 the number of businesses, institutions of learning, and 
 well-to-do Negroes of Nashville, but found comfort 
 in a few prominent physicians, lawyers, and institutions 
 such as Provident Hospital and Amanda Smith's 
 Home. He knew that he was a Negro by law in 
 Nashville and felt that he was one by custom in Chi- 
 cago. Chicago! Yes, Chicago smacked of freedom. 
 
 Denominationally, Nashville was better organized, 
 being the center of many strong churches with out- 
 standing men as pastors, while Chicago, having about 
 the same Negro population, had only a few " store- 
 front " churches, Berean and Bethesda being the most 
 
56 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 prominent, and three congregations, Olivet, Shiloh, and 
 Hermon, which would correspond with any of the 
 thriving ones in Nashville. 
 
 Dr. S. J. Williams, an ex-president of the General 
 Baptist State Convention of Illinois, said, " Before 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher came to the State, we never knew 
 officially that there was a National Baptist Conven- 
 tion.'* 
 
 This lack of acquaintance with national affairs and 
 of cooperation in the Baptist ranks showed itself in the 
 ineffectiveness of the churches which were to minister 
 to the more than sixty thousand Negroes throughout 
 the State. In settlements near Chicago, such as Glen- 
 coe, Lake Forest, Waukegan, Morgan Park, Evans- 
 ton, and Joliet, there were in many cases either no 
 churches or poorly organized and struggling begin- 
 nings. 
 
 Mr. Fisher was invited to preach in a goodly num- 
 ber of churches, including Olivet, the mother of Negro 
 Baptist congregations in the city. He accepted the 
 invitations, but returned to Nashville after the session 
 of the University closed, to complete the work of the 
 historic Spruce Street Church which had been firmly 
 reestablished. 
 
 Shortly after his departure, trouble arose in the 
 Olivet Church. Thirty-five thousand dollars from the 
 sale of the church property on Harmon Court had been 
 lost, and the church house at Twenty-seventh and 
 Dearborn Streets was sold on account of a debt of 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 57 
 
 twenty-eight thousand five hundred dollars, which the 
 church had not a penny to pay. The congregation 
 was out of doors worshiping in Arlington Hall at 
 Thirty-first Street and Indiana Avenue, and the pas- 
 tor's relation was terminated. 
 
 Mr. Fisher became aware that the Olivet Church 
 was without an undershepherd through several tele- 
 grams that passed between the official board and him- 
 self, as is shown by the following statement printed in 
 the " Conservator ": 
 
 After several telegrams passed between the official board 
 and Doctor Fisher, he consented to pay us a visit which he 
 did. The church was so well pleased with him that they 
 extended to him a call October 20, 1902. 
 
 Nevertheless, the condition of the church was such 
 that many of his acquaintances wrote, " Don't come, 
 you can't make it here." He was confronted by the 
 thought that, on the one hand, it would seem the part 
 of human wisdom to stay at the helm of the church 
 which was now prepared to do large service, and, on 
 the other hand, that it would be unbaptistic and un- 
 manly to refuse a task involving difficulty. His com- 
 mission read, " Go . . . preach," and was so simple in 
 its interpretation that no difficulty could hinder him nor 
 hierarchy determine for him when or where to go. 
 
 After due consideration the following message was 
 placed in the hands of the Spruce Street Baptist 
 Church, December 7, 1902, for a hearing: 
 
58 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
 To the Officers and Members of the Spruce Street Baptist 
 Church. 
 
 My very dear Sisters and Brethren: 
 
 Two years ago you called me as your pastor to take charge 
 of your church as its spiritual leader under God; therefore I 
 came, without gainsaying, determined not to know anything 
 among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I thank God 
 through Jesus Christ for you all, and thank you for the confi- 
 dence which you have had in me and for the assistance you 
 have rendered during my stay with you. 
 
 Many have been the pleasant moments which we have 
 spent together doing the work of the Lord, and much has been 
 accomplished. Although we have not done what we desired 
 to do, under the circumstances we have done what we could. 
 
 We have about completed your house of worship valued 
 at over thirty thousand dollars, all of which has been paid 
 except a few hundred dollars. Unlike the people in the days 
 of Nehemiah, you did not all have a mind to work, but let 
 us thank God for what has been accomplished. We have 
 had more than two hundred accessions to the church during 
 our pastorate, many of whom are upright, faithful, Christian 
 men and women. 
 
 I have taken great delight in the work of the Lord here 
 among you, and have done my best since the first day I reached 
 your city to advance the cause of our Redeemer both by 
 precept and example. 
 
 I have learned to love many of you for your nobility of 
 faith and Christian character. I feel at a loss to know of the 
 day of our separation, but I find that there is another field 
 which does not perhaps need me worse than you as for the 
 preaching of the gospel, but because of the condition of the 
 house of worship, of the scattered condition of the members 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 59 
 
 of that church, and of the condition of the Baptist denomina- 
 tion in general which lies nearest and dearest my heart. There- 
 fore, having been unanimously called by the members of the 
 Olivet Baptist Church of Chicago, Illinois, and assured by 
 many citizens both white and colored of their unanimity to 
 have me come to that field, and it does seem in this case that 
 the " voice of the people is the voice of God," believing that 
 I can do more there under the existing circumstances to ad- 
 vance the cause of my Redeemer, I do most respectfully, and 
 yet lovingly — because I want always to be remembered and 
 loved by you, as you are and will be by me, because you are 
 deserving — tender you my resignation as Pastor of the Spruce 
 Street Baptist Church to go into effect January 25, 1903. 
 
 Praying the blessings of Almighty God upon you and the 
 church, that he will keep you in perfect peace and love, and 
 that he may give you another shepherd who will be more in- 
 fluential in bringing your husbands, your wives, your children, 
 and your neighbors to Jesus Christ than I have been, and ask- 
 ing an interest in your prayers ever in my behalf, I remain 
 
 Your brother in Jesus Christ, 
 
 Elijah J. Fisher. 
 
V 
 
 THE STORM 
 
 1903-1904 
 
THE STORM 
 1903-1904 
 
 The Olivet Baptist Church logically carried with 
 it the leadership of the Negro Baptist family in 
 Chicago and in Illinois. The former pastor on ac- 
 count of past connections desired with other ministers 
 to hold that leadership, although the right to it was 
 not his. Whereupon, opposition was manifested. 
 With some of this opposition Mr. Fisher was ac- 
 quainted, but with other phases of it he was not. A 
 letter from the official board speaks for itself the senti- 
 ment of the church regarding the former pastor and the 
 property, also giving light on the case of two hundred 
 members who had been enjoined from coming back to 
 Olivet : 
 
 Chicago, January 20, 1903. 
 Mr. Chauncey M. Miller: 
 
 You are hereby authorized to take charge of the interests 
 of the Olivet Baptist Church in the matter now and heretofore 
 pending between the church and its creditors represented by 
 Israel Cowen, Mr. Dunne, and J. H. Hooper, and also the 
 claim of Jasper Higginbotham ; and obtain the best possible 
 terms for settlement of the church debts and repurchase of the 
 church property; and for your services in endeavoring to effect 
 such settlements and repurchase, we agree to pay you the sum 
 
 63 
 
64 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 of three hundred dollars, in addition to your services in the 
 injunction suit. 
 
 The first expression of this growing antagonism 
 toward Rev. Mr. Fisher was mild, but upon his instal- 
 lation Beelzebub and his demons seemed let loose. 
 The services were held Monday evening, January 26, 
 1903. The program was made up of city celebrities, 
 including Dr. George C. Hall, the Rev. A. J. Carey, 
 Hon. B. F. Moseley, Mr. Monroe N. Work, Dr. 
 Johnston Myers, pastor the Immanuel Baptist Church 
 (white), Mrs. G. M. DeBaptiste Faulkner, Mrs. I. 
 A. Davis, National Organizer Colored Women's 
 Clubs, and Messrs. O. L. Ballinger, Henry T. Elby, 
 Stephen A. Griffin, and William Jefferson represent- 
 ing the church proper. In addition, the colored Bap- 
 tist ministers were invited and were expected to take 
 an active part, but none of them appeared. Pastor 
 Fisher anticipated this occurrence and asked his school- 
 mate, a man of national repute, the Rev. P. James 
 Bryant, of Atlanta, Georgia, to officiate. Dr. Johns- 
 ton Myers and Rev. Mr. Bryant made the principal 
 addresses on this occasion, whose import has not been 
 forgotten by those in sympathy with the aspirations of 
 the Olivet people. 
 
 A spirit prevailed in Mr. Fisher not ordinarily seen. 
 He said: 
 
 Under my pastorate I have succeeded in leading the mem- 
 bers of Olivet to the belief that it was right to have the injunc- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 65 
 
 tion dissolved and to declare ourselves at peace with the world 
 in general and Ebenezer (the church formed by the former 
 pastor) in particular, without discussing the whys and where- 
 fores of the matter. 
 
 To confirm this report the Olivet Church, through 
 its clerk, Brother Richard Williams, in reply to an 
 " Unknown Baptist Preacher on the History of the 
 Ebenezer Baptist Church," whose words appeared in 
 the " Conservator," March 7, 1903, said that, in ad- 
 dition to the fact that Mr. Fisher was not a party to 
 the fight in the church last year, " our pastor has ad- 
 vised us to let Ebenezer and Rev. Thomas alone." 
 
 The reason for this is clear. Mr. Fisher did not 
 have the time nor the energy to waste in fighting. All 
 of his powers at this critical time were required for the 
 constructive work which was so needful. There was 
 not a song-book, Bible, chair, or anything in the 
 church. The congregation was out-of-doors with no 
 visible way to enter the building. However, the pas- 
 tor-elect loaned his last dollar to the church, and they 
 were able to rent the partially completed edifice for 
 sixty-five dollars a month. A registration of all the 
 members was taken, and an enrolment of nearly six 
 hundred was the result. Here was a nucleus large 
 enough around which to build a temple of untold pos- 
 sibilities. The work was going on but not without a 
 contest of words. 
 
 Glaring headlines characterized the issue of the 
 " Broadax " for May 30, 1903, reading, " THEO- 
 
66 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 DORE W. JONES SAYS THAT REV. E. J. 
 FISHER MISMANAGES THE AFFAIRS OF 
 OLIVET": 
 
 Perhaps no other community and not another church large 
 or small would copy the generous method of the Olivet 
 Church of this city in dealing with a jack-leg preacher. In 
 many other places he would be made to pay the penalty for 
 ignorance, error, and wrong-doing by being driven out of town. 
 But in Chicago, and at Olivet, he may go practically un- 
 whipped of justice. . . 
 
 The Rev. E. J. Fisher, through whose gross mismanagement 
 the Olivet Church has just lost $2 1 ,000, and who conscious 
 of having such a bad case on his hands has actually opened a 
 revival meeting, not out of love for the Master, not for the 
 salvation of a single soul, but merely to detract attention from 
 himself. If this show with all its acts is not sacrilegious, I do 
 not know what it can be. But it signally illustrates a jack- 
 legged preacher's alertness and resourcefulness in a case of 
 emergency. 
 
 To call a man like Fisher honest is like calling black white 
 or eulogizing the devil as a noble character. By honesty, I do 
 not mean simply scrupulous exactness in accounting for moneys 
 collected. In this article I wish, especially, to apply the word 
 to Fisher's attitude in opening a revival at this time. 
 
 The whole article from beginning to end shows an 
 unfamiliarity with the facts in the case. That the 
 church was to receive fifteen thousand dollars as a gift 
 from an unknown donor if they could raise six thou- 
 sand dollars was known to the treasurer, Deacon 
 Henry Elby, long before Rev. Mr. Fisher came to 
 Chicago. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER _67 
 
 Chicago, III., June 21, 1 90 1 . 
 Mr. H. T. Elby, 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Had an interview with the party we were speaking of, and 
 he said that he had heard of that congregation before, and that 
 they were not deserving but that he felt kindly toward them. 
 
 We will wait for him, Henry, to consider the matter, and 
 I will make this proposition to you, but my name must not be 
 mentioned to any one for reasons that I have stated to you 
 before. 
 
 If the congregation, Henry, that you are with will com- 
 mence and raise from the first of July, 1 90 1 , to January 1 , 
 1902, the sum of six thousand dollars ($6,000) honestly 
 
 I will donate to you for the Olivet congregation, the sum of 
 fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000), to be used in finishing 
 their edifice or canceling their indebtedness. 
 
 If this proposition is agreeable to your Pastor, executive 
 officers, and congregation, notify me at once so that I can then 
 place the amount above mentioned at the disposal of the execu- 
 tive officer of Olivet Baptist Church, if they can meet the re- 
 quirement as to the raising of the amount above mentioned. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 C. L. xxxx. 
 
 There is something mysterious about the signature, 
 familiarity, and contents in this letter. Only Mr. 
 Elby could decipher it. The donor had not been 
 known prior to the installation services of Rev. Mr. 
 Fisher. On that night he arose and said : " Out of 
 
68 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 regard to Mr. Elby and my respect to this present 
 pastor, I come. I believe your pastor is a worthy gen- 
 tleman, and we are going to do everything to help the 
 church under him to prosper." 
 
 For three months Mr. Elby negotiated with this 
 party so that the six thousand dollars raised was gone 
 and Elby himself arrested. The " Chicago Daily 
 News " reported a half-column item under the head- 
 ing " ELBY, CONVICTED TREASURER OF 
 OLIVET (COLORED) BAPTIST CHURCH, 
 CONFESSES": 
 
 Henry T. Elby [it said] , convicted of embezzling $6,000 
 of the funds of Olivet Baptist Church, colored, told today how 
 he had been duped by two white men who worked on his 
 credulity and made his eyes glisten by the use of the name of 
 John D. Rockefeller. They persuaded him, he said, to tell 
 the church Mr. Rockefeller would give the congregation 
 $15,000 toward a debt of $28,000 if the members would 
 raise $6,000. They called the Standard Oil Magnate 
 " John." They shone at church " sociables " and posed as 
 capitalists. One of them, said Elby, got him to pay an instal- 
 ment on a suit of clothes so as to impress the colored church 
 folk. 
 
 Now Elby faces the penitentiary. He says he does not 
 want a new trial. But Judge Chytraus has ordered Assistant 
 State's Attorney John R. Newcomer to lay before the present 
 grand jury the names of the two white men. The judge said 
 the men should be indicted. 
 
 Elby made a complete confession today to a reporter for the 
 " Daily News," in the presence of Deputy Sheriff Wesley 
 Blummer, and laid bare the story of intrigue and manipulations 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 69 
 
 of the funds the church raised. One of the white men involved 
 is said by Elby to be an oil-stock promoter named Kinney. 
 Elby introduced Kinney to the congregation and trustees as 
 " Mr. Belcalf, a friend of John D. Rockefeller." The other 
 man is known to Elby and the church-members as "J. Der- 
 riger." 
 
 " I first met this man, Derriger, in a lawyer's office," said 
 Elby. " I was trying then to stave off a lawsuit against the 
 church of which I was treasurer. Derriger was there and 
 learned from me our trouble with the church debt. He said 
 he was in sympathy with the colored people, informed me he 
 was a wealthy man and would help us by donating a large 
 amount to the church. Derriger put up the scheme of writing 
 the letter which purported to come from Rockefeller. Then 
 we went to fix up a certified check to show that Rockefeller 
 was in earnest about the donation and that it was ours if the 
 church raised the required $6,000. I went to Kinney and he 
 made out the check at my request, and right here is where I 
 got into trouble." 
 
 From this testimony it is easy to understand the con- 
 tents of the following letter : 
 
 Chicago, III., April 18, 1903. 
 Mr. Henry T. Elby, 
 66 State Street, Chicago. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 After having a pleasant interview with the Doctor (Fisher) 
 and yourself, I suggested what was said to Father (Mr. Rocke- 
 feller). Knowing that he (Rev. Fisher) is firm in all matters 
 of that kind, and would act just as I did. Finally he con- 
 sented to have our attorney to meet the attorney for the church, 
 if so desired, and have him to explain his plans so that the 
 
70 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 same could be handed to Father. This will be attended to 
 in a few days. We wish earnestly to impress that we have 
 no desire to keep what is coming to the congregation in trust, 
 if you wish the same, but we would like for you people to take 
 good business advice. Please wait patiently for a reply from 
 Father and myself. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 O. W. Belcalf. 
 
 It is hardly possible to imagine the amount of good 
 that this controversy did in cementing the people to 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher. Still, there is exemplified here a 
 tendency which is all too common among a people 
 embarrassed by foes within and without. Somewhere, 
 some time, and somehow, the Negro press should, un- 
 requited, take up the burdens heaped upon leaders 
 unnecessarily by persons who are beside themselves. 
 A better place has not been named than Chicago, " no 
 time is like the present," and no method is more fitting 
 than that which could be employed by the " race's 
 greatest weekly." 
 
 Abuse did not intimidate Mr. Fisher, ingratitude 
 did not embitter him, misrepresentation did not anger 
 him, for he was able to say with Paul, " None of these 
 things move me; neither count I my life dear unto my- 
 self, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the 
 ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus." 
 Each Sunday as he graced his pulpit he showed tre- 
 mendous power, not passing a single Sunday without 
 some accession to the church. Time and again he 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 7J_ 
 
 invited city pastors to preach for him, showing his un- 
 selfishness and brotherliness. Many times they re- 
 sponded, and God would manifest himself in the midst 
 always by several accessions. Through the " Ban- 
 ner," a paper founded and edited by Pastor Fisher, 
 " to diffuse religious truth in love through the flock and 
 whoever else should desire it," we note that on the 
 third Sunday in May, 1903, when the Rev. W. S. 
 Bradden, of Berean, and the Rev. B. P. E. Gayles, 
 of Evanston, filled the pulpit of Olivet, twelve souls 
 were added to the church. 
 
 In spite of, and probably because of, the splendid 
 success coming to the church, frequent disturbances 
 and outside influences were trying to counteract the 
 works of God. Again an open letter to the " Broad- 
 ax," June 27, 1903, furnished the news-stands with 
 this headline: "WILLIAM JEFFERSON TRI- 
 UMPHS OVER REV. E. J. FISHER OF 
 OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH." Recalling that 
 Mr. Jefferson delivered the welcome greetings at the 
 installation of Mr. Fisher, you can appreciate his 
 change of view in respect to the pastor of the Olivet 
 Church : 
 
 Rev. Fisher, Brothers Wimby, Edwards, Elby, Williams, 
 and Griffin were in the pastor's study about 1 1 o'clock at 
 night, when they heard a loud and " improper noise tending 
 to the breach of the peace." Upon investigation it was learned 
 that this loud and improper noise was headed for the church 
 ... in the person of Brother Jefferson. 
 
72 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Doctor Fisher was so frightened that he was not in a fit 
 condition to make an accurate description as he surveyed the 
 enemy, yet he probably drew a mental picture of a monster, 
 half dragon, with " feet like a bear, and a mouth as the mouth 
 of a lion." Fortunately, instead of making an unlawful and 
 wilful attack on the door of the church, the beast merely opened 
 his mouth, not in blasphemy against God, as did the Revela- 
 tor's beast, but in a threat to make Doctor Fisher jump in Lake 
 Michigan. After this tendency to a " breach of peace " that 
 loud and improper noise moved slowly down Twenty-seventh 
 Street, much to the satisfaction and evident relief of Doctor 
 Fisher and his panic-stricken officers. About an hour later 
 these *' tin soldiers " formed themselves into a hollow square 
 and escorted the Rev. Doctor Fisher to Mrs. Knuckles' home, 
 two of the brethren remaining the rest of the night as a body- 
 guard. 
 
 This description is interesting in detail, and surely 
 the writer had a vivid imagination, but he pictures only 
 one of the many incidents of Rev. Mr. Fisher's an- 
 tagonism. He forgot to mention the individual who 
 not only shot words but bullets at the innocent 
 preacher. To this day the bullet-hole in the study of 
 the old church home is a memorial to the trials of 
 Pastor Fisher. For many months he was heavily 
 guarded on his way home. Added to this, the sheriff 
 was at his door serving warrants almost as often as the 
 weeks passed. 
 
 To the casual reader this statement might seem 
 strange, but to those connected with a Negro Baptist 
 church it is a common thing for civil authorities to 
 manifest their power in ecclesiastical affairs. Proba- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 73 
 
 bly a weakness of the democratic form of government 
 with untrained people! But where democracy is per- 
 verted into mobocracy there follow warrants and im- 
 prisonment in religious as well as in civil life. A col- 
 ored brother imprisoned by an impassioned faction in 
 his church remarked that Paul and Silas were put in 
 jail for preaching the gospel and that if ministers 
 preached the right kind of gospel they too would be 
 arrested. Undoubtedly, Mr. Fisher was a gospel 
 messenger. 
 
 Like all pioneers in new thought and endeavor, 
 martyrdom was his lot. Rev. Mr. Fisher realized this 
 and saw the old prophet's " bow that is in the cloud in 
 the day of rain." At the present day few know of 
 the reproaches heaped upon the heads of Livingston, 
 Howard, or Whitefield, but all men recognize them as 
 leaders in the Zion of our God, whose services and 
 names will be held in everlasting remembrance. 
 Hardships the Reverend Fisher endured, but none of 
 these things can be compared with the favor of pos- 
 terity recognizing him as the foundation builder among 
 Negro Baptists in the Northwest. Impressive is the 
 superstructure even now, but far sweeter will be the 
 plaudits of his Saviour, who at judgment-day will 
 make up the crown of his everlasting rejoicing with the 
 jeweled souls redeemed through his instrumentality. 
 The sacrifice was worth while. 
 
 After months of misrepresentations, struggles, trials, 
 and persecutions, the dawn of relief arose. Beelzebub 
 
74 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 was chained for a season. For the first time the pas- 
 tor had an opportunity to reflect that Illinois was a 
 place where men had a constitutional chance to be 
 free. The very atmosphere of the State where Love- 
 joy was murdered and Lincoln lay buried was scintil- 
 lating with liberty. Pastor Fisher's interpretation of 
 this was that it should not be confined to religion but 
 extended to politics as well. Many men in his posi- 
 tion would have thought that for the church to suc- 
 ceed religiously, it must not be a social or political 
 factor, but this idea has been refuted largely by the 
 number of institutional churches that have multiplied. 
 He believed that with religion first, there was no form 
 of activity in which the church should not indulge. 
 This was a good Baptistic view for a pioneer, since the 
 founder of the Baptist denomination in America, 
 Roger Williams, was chosen President (Governor) of 
 Rhode Island. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher as a pioneer in the Northwest fol- 
 lowed in his political wake. This provoked storms of 
 opposition, but as long as the religious part of the 
 church was first, and nothing was taken away from 
 that, he continued to exercise his talents in the field of 
 religion, sociology, and politics. From the time of his 
 first arrival in Chicago, Pastor Fisher began to partici- 
 pate in the politics of the city. 
 
 Hon. Jesse A. Baldwin sent a due appreciation for 
 efforts in his behalf for municipal office in a letter dated 
 June 11, 1903: 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 75 
 
 Dear Dr. Fisher: 
 
 I beg you to accept my sincere thanks for the aid you ren- 
 dered and the cordial support you gave me in my recent cam- 
 paign. . . That I received so large a vote, under all the cir- 
 cumstances, is due to the very active efforts of my friends and, 
 among the number, yourself who so generously and actively 
 advocated my election. My campaign was conducted without 
 dishonorable or disreputable methods. . . I shall ever remember 
 with gratitude your cordial and generous support. 
 
 Mr. Fisher headed the list of Negro voters in the 
 twenty-second precinct of the Second Ward and was 
 sure to advise them along the right lines. He was in- 
 terested solely in the good of the people and meant to 
 advocate " every measure of right and denounce every 
 measure of wrong." He was not office-seeking nor 
 was he willing to run after candidates ; he wished sim- 
 ply to find out the policy of the candidate, and if it 
 was right to advise the people. A letter from the 
 headquarters of Hon. Charles S. Deneen, a candidate 
 for governor of the State of Illinois, follows : 
 
 Chicago, April 8, 1 904. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 If you could find it convenient to call at these headquarters 
 and see Mr. Deneen, Mr. West, or myself, we would very 
 much appreciate it. 
 
 Hoping that this will find you enjoying good health, I am 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James Pease. 
 
 G 
 
76 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 He answered on April 9, 1 904 : 
 
 Hon. James Pease, 
 Grand Pacific Hotel, 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 Yours of the eighth instant to hand and contents carefully 
 noted. In reply I would say that I would gladly converse 
 with either or all of you gentlemen. You did not state whether 
 you have any particular hour, therefore, I am not in a posi- 
 tion to say when I could call. I could spend thirty minutes 
 with either of you Tuesday at 10.30 a. m., in getting certain 
 information that I very much need for myself and my people. 
 
 I have heard much of the Hon. Mr. Deneen and I am 
 pleased with his past record as a citizen and as a bold and 
 fearless statesman. I admire these qualities in a leader of my 
 country. 
 
 Now as the duties of my pastorate are so numerous I shall 
 await your coming and gladly welcome you at the study of 
 the Olivet Church, Twenty-seventh and Dearborn Streets, 
 Tuesday at 10.30. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 E. J. Fisher. 
 
 The conference was held and Pastor Fisher was 
 able with twenty-three other Negroes to sign " A 
 Word to Colored Voters, Endorsing Charles S. De- 
 neen for Governor of the State of Illinois, in the prima- 
 ries of May 6, 1904." 
 
 Of course such a participation on the part of a Bap- 
 tist minister called out severe disapproval from many 
 of his brethren, but he exercised liberty of conscience, 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 7J_ 
 
 believing that he must give an account to God for op- 
 portunities to help his race and country. His belief in 
 righteousness was catholic. He believed in personal 
 righteousness in individual conduct, domestic righteous- 
 ness in business, and civic righteousness in the State. 
 There was and is little use standing aloof from the 
 reforms of the State and deploring the failure of right 
 living in modern life when a man is needed to stand 
 four-square on all matters of the gospel, even if his 
 stand calls for active participation in political move- 
 ments. However much antagonism was brought 
 about, it is an evident fact that those churches which 
 failed to carry out this policy of right living even by 
 example failed to progress in so marked a degree as 
 those which stood for the purification of life in every 
 form. 
 
 Whether this progress was due to interest in politi- 
 cal affairs or in spite of this participation, we note with 
 a great deal of interest that the Rev. E. J. Fisher and 
 the Rev. A. J. Carey, D. D., now a bishop in the 
 African Methodist Episcopal Church, two active par- 
 ticipants in Republican circles, were leaders in their 
 denominations in hastening the kingdom of our Lord. 
 
 The reward of Pastor Fisher was not wholly in 
 the future, for more and more were his Methodist 
 brethren and white friends speaking kindly of his work 
 for God. During the Lexington Conference of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church he delivered an address 
 in behalf of the Negro Baptists. The Annual Report 
 
78 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 of the Baptist City Mission Society for the year end- 
 ing 1 903 speaks of the Olivet Church in these terms : 
 
 We are not rendering assistance on this field at the present 
 time, except in the way of advice. As most of you know, 
 after fifty years of existence as a church, and after purchasing 
 a lot, and partially completing a beautiful and commodious 
 building, the property has been sold under foreclosure of mort- 
 gage, and they are paying rent. Two persons are contending 
 in the Supreme Court for possession. It is expected that the 
 ownership will be settled next month. At that time the pas- 
 tor, Doctor Fisher, hopes to be able to purchase the property, 
 and thereby prevent it from being used as a storage warehouse. 
 It will require $2 1 ,000 to do this. They do not ask for a 
 gift, but for a time loan in order that they may be able to meet 
 the demands made upon them next month. They are accumu- 
 lating funds and placing the same in the care of our Superin- 
 tendent. The lot cost $13,000, and the contract was let to 
 erect the building at a cost of $43,000. It will cost at least 
 $ 1 0,000 to complete it. A conservative estimate of the prop- 
 erty is $28,000. 
 
 The task of Olivet was indeed gigantic. No oppor- 
 tunity could be spared in putting the facts in view of all 
 sympathizers regardless of race. 
 
 Englewood Baptist Church of Chicago, 
 5 1 3 West Sixty-second Street, 
 
 October 16, 1903. 
 Dr. E. J. Fisher. 
 
 My dear Brother: 
 
 Doctor Manning tells me that you have consented to speak 
 at the Englewood Baptist Church in our City Mission Sym- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 79 
 
 posium on Sunday a. m., October 25. My assistant, Rev. 
 A. A. Hobson, who is a good speaker, will preach for the 
 Olivet Baptist Church. Will you kindly drop me a line so 
 I may know this plan is all right? 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 H. Francis Perry, Minister. 
 
 This plan met the hearty approval of Pastor Fisher. 
 Although the minister was held in high esteem, as can 
 be gleaned from a letter from a representative of The 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society, Olivet had 
 to come into contact with those who could help. 
 
 Chicago, III., October 29, 1903. 
 To Whom It May Concern : 
 
 This letter certifies that I am personally acquainted with 
 Dr. E. J. Fisher, the present pastor of the Olivet Baptist 
 Church of this city. He is a graduate of our Home Mission 
 School in Atlanta, Georgia, and for some years was one of 
 our trustees of our Spelman Seminary in Atlanta. Doctor 
 Morehouse, during his recent visit in this city, spoke in high 
 terms of the business ability of Mr. Fisher and expressed him- 
 self as feeling confident that the Olivet Baptist Church here 
 would clear its property of indebtedness and be established in 
 the community should Doctor Fisher's life be spared for this 
 work. 
 
 I have known the struggles of the Olivet Baptist Church 
 here for the past eight years and feel, for the first time during 
 these years, confident that it will become financially and per- 
 manently established if Doctor Fisher is spared and if his ap- 
 peal to the brethren is responded to. I trust that all who can 
 will help in this matter according to their ability. 
 
 Judson B. Thomas, Dist. Sec'y. 
 
80 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Olivet Church had a facsimile of this letter printed 
 and with a statement from the clerk, Brother Thomas 
 W. Stevens, concerning the exact state of affairs, ad- 
 dressed these communications to the people. The 
 statement read : 
 
 You have doubtless seen through the daily papers of the 
 loss of six thousand dollars ($6,000) to the Olivet Baptist 
 Church by embezzlement of our treasurer. The loss is very 
 great. It caused the foreclosure of the mortgage and the sale 
 of our beautiful house of worship on Twenty-seventh and 
 Dearborn Streets. We are twenty-one thousand dollars 
 ($2 1 ,000) in debt. We are struggling to the extent of our 
 ability to raise the money to buy the church back. 
 
 The Supreme Court has confirmed the decision of the lower 
 court in giving the property back to us for the sum of ten 
 thousand eight hundred fifteen dollars ($10,815) provided 
 we settle all of the outstanding claims first. This we are en- 
 deavoring to do and therefore ask that you donate some amount 
 to help pay this debt, as we only have sixty days from date 
 to meet the requirement. 
 
 The effect of this plea and the recommendations of 
 the white brethren can be seen later in the marvelous 
 way in which the occasion was met. All through this 
 endeavor it is not hard to hear the workings of Rev. 
 Mr. Fisher's brain. He had schooled his workers, 
 laid his plans, and successfully executed them. 
 
 Marked attainment had been achieved for Christ 
 in this year of kaleidoscopic turmoil. Of souls there 
 had been won more than a hundred. The financial 
 offerings of the church were triple that of any pre- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER S\_ 
 
 vious year. The people were well pleased with their 
 minister, but Mr. Fisher had commenced to wonder 
 if it was God's will that he should remain in Chicago. 
 Churches in the Southland were asking for his gui- 
 dance. Atlanta was financially outbidding Chicago. 
 He might have played the role of a quitter, but he 
 had an aversion to what Doctor Benedict, in his 
 " Fifty Years Among the Baptists," calls " Mr. Stay- 
 short " preacher. What would it take to be a success 
 in this field? Success could not come because of his 
 descent, for his race had been forced into slavery and 
 cursed ever since for having been slaves. It could not 
 come because of his surroundings, for there was not a 
 more discussed public servant. Success must come of 
 himself. A man thus situated needed to possess in an 
 eminent degree the force of strong convictions, an un- 
 yielding purpose, clear perception, economical habits, 
 imperturbable self-possession, a working knowledge 
 of Negro-ology, a constitution of iron, a humble spirit, 
 and a firm reliance on the sustaining grace of God. 
 
 There were encouraging moments even in the dark- 
 est hours of reflection. He was granted certain cour- 
 tesies by railroads to any points he desired to go, and 
 his endorsement was necessary in order that Negro 
 Baptist preachers get clergy permits. This privilege 
 and honor created dissension rather than unity among 
 some older and more aspiring brethren, but he would 
 not be discouraged. Testimonials of appreciation 
 from the denomination were coming every day. In 
 
82 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 the mail of January 31,1 904, came a letter from the 
 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute dated the 
 twenty-eighth instant : 
 
 My dear Mr. Fisher: 
 
 I have your kind letter of January 2 1 and thank you for it. 
 
 I have read of the commendable progress your church has 
 made since your pastorate, and I congratulate you on the 
 results. 
 
 Although I have already formally accepted an invitation to 
 speak under certain auspices I shall keep in mind your sug- 
 gestion, and shall hope to have a chance to go to your church. 
 If I can do so I shall esteem it a privilege, I assure. 
 
 Thanking you very sincerely for the kindly courtesy evi- 
 denced in your letter, and for the expression of interest in our 
 work, I am 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Booker T. Washington. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher resolved that it was his duty to re- 
 main where he was. How well it was for the church 
 no one acquainted with its history need be informed. 
 
 John the Baptist, and his theme of repentance, were 
 eminently adapted to herald the coming Messiah. 
 Wesley could do a task different from John in awaken- 
 ing Christendom to the necessity of organized forms of 
 religious endeavor. Luther was given strong sinews 
 like bands of steel so that he might strike with his 
 Thor's hammer of free speech on the anvil of the new 
 order scintillating sparks of Protestantism that would 
 kindle the heart of modern Europe. Providence 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 83 
 
 called Mr. Fisher to the Olivet Baptist Church, and a 
 recognition of his characteristics proves his personal fit- 
 ness to arch his sail to a stormy gale, so that like 
 Coleridge's Mariner " he was the first that ever burst 
 into that lonely sea." 
 
 He appreciated the sentiment in the letter from Dr. 
 J. Milton Waldron: " I was delighted to hear from 
 you and am very glad you are not to leave Chicago, 
 for you are needed there." 
 
 Having decided to stay, he saw his bitter antagonists 
 paid with a vengeance divine. The paper that had 
 been so uncharitable had almost become extinct. He 
 lived to see the editor assigned to the asylum for the 
 insane. His arch-enemies failed in business and had to 
 seek to work their chicanery in other cities. Elby was 
 still imprisoned. Still, through it all, Mr. Fisher was 
 not exultant; he sympathized. He immediately set to 
 work to have Elby released. He introduced and 
 signed the petition. In reference to this and other 
 Christian acts a periodical quoted before says of him : 
 
 His faults abound in his virtues; he is too charitable to his 
 foes ; he is too merciful to those who dislike him. and he is too 
 broad to those who antagonize his efforts. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the writer overlooked the fact that 
 Pastor Fisher was striving after that sweet charity 
 which suffereth long and is kind, which thinketh no 
 evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but beareth all things, 
 hopeth all things, and endureth all things. 
 
84 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 At the commencement exercises of Guadalupe Col- 
 lege, Sequin, Texas, in May of 1904, Mr. Fisher re- 
 ceived the degree of Doctor of Laws. None but a 
 very eminent divine could have well refused such a 
 distinction, if he were so inclined, without seeming to 
 encourage the notice which he desired humbly to 
 avoid. 
 
 Tuesday, November 8, was election day, and ar- 
 rangements were made with the Western Union Tele- 
 graph Company to connect wires and place an opera- 
 tor in the church' in order that the congregation and 
 friends might receive the returns. Handbills were dis- 
 tributed throughout the colored section of the city to 
 this effect: "DON'T GO TO BARROOMS 
 NOR TO PUBLIC HALLS, NEITHER 
 STAND ON THE STREETS FOR THE RE- 
 TURNS, BUT COME TO OLIVET WHERE 
 YOU CAN BE SEATED." 
 
VI 
 
 THE CALM 
 1904-1910 
 
THE CALM 
 1904-1910 
 
 The church was moving along smoothly. Besides 
 affording opportunity for the regular services, including 
 preaching and prayer-meetings and Bible classes, the 
 church was the social center of the community, the 
 place of amusement and of gathering information. 
 Even in early years, Mr. Fisher was in accord with the 
 advancement of the times, encouraging athletic con- 
 tests and a literary society where young and old could 
 hear and discuss current events. On New Year's day 
 the annual program under the auspices of the Standard 
 Literary Society was rendered to commemorate the 
 Emancipation Proclamation. 
 
 Some of the most noted singers, musicians, and en- 
 tertainers have appeared in concerts and recitals at the 
 church. But the spiritual function of the church was 
 always first. Before one of the auxiliaries enjoyed it- 
 self in celebrating the birthday of George Washington, 
 in 1905, Rev. Mr. Fisher administered the ordinance 
 of baptism to two young men and a lady. 
 
 Mr. Fisher could interpret well the characteristics 
 of Negro religion. He knew that a large part of it 
 was only emotional. This fact could easily be ac- 
 counted for since the last vestiges of hysterical emo- 
 
 87 
 
88 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 tionalism, characterized by a sing-song chant, plenty of 
 " rousement " or " gravy " interrupted " continually 
 by the heavy groans and occasionally by the weird cry 
 of a happy ' mourner,' " had not had time to die away. 
 He believed in enthusiastic religion but did not counte- 
 nance a church in demoniac pandemonium because 
 what he was saying would be lost. Many a time in 
 his sermons he stopped until some sister finished 
 " shouting," and then continued. If, however, he 
 knew ill about the past life of the " shouter " he would 
 ask her to sit down. She would immediately obey but 
 would get very angry, thus proving that, at best, 
 " shouting " was often very superficial, the " shouter '* 
 all a sham, an empty wagon making much noise. 
 
 Nevertheless, his theology, appealing not primarily 
 to the blood that was in the veins but rather to the 
 brains that were in the head, was not a cold intellectual 
 fact. It was a potent, dynamic factor, ever fervent 
 and spiritual, being enriched by a life of devotion and 
 prayer. His preaching told the people how to live 
 clean, honest, sober lives, and then they would have 
 no trouble in getting ready to die. Too, he empha- 
 sized the great fundamentals upon which the New 
 Testament church stands. The ** Illinois Idea " for 
 February 25, 1905, writes concerning these doctrinal 
 discourses : 
 
 Doctor Fisher is preaching a series of sermons that every 
 one who wishes instruction concerning the Baptist doctrine 
 would do well to go and hear. Each of his sermons on last 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 89 
 
 Sunday showed the deepest research and was delivered in the 
 grandest style to the pleasure of every thoughtful person present. 
 Next Sabbath morning he will give seven reasons for becom- 
 ing a Baptist. Those wishing to know why they are Baptists 
 would do well to hear him. The doctor is proving himself 
 equal to the task undertaken. Many strong men are uniting 
 with Olivet each week. . . 
 
 Speaking as he did upon such fundamentals, it would 
 be clear where he would stand today on any movement 
 having for its ultimate aim church unionism : 
 
 Why have our separate churches, ministers, colleges, etc.? 
 Why not unite and lose our existence into one denomination? 
 Truly, I wish there could be a loving, friendly, intelligent, and 
 candid discussion of this subject by every Protestant denomi- 
 nation in Christendom. The generous public before giving 
 support has a right and should demand to know a Scriptural 
 reason for denominational separate existence. We hold that 
 to separate Christians, except on the ground of pure Scriptural 
 differences, is no just cause for the existence of a church and, 
 as Baptists, we recognize the right of the public to know why 
 we exist as a separate and distinct denomination. 
 
 We are willing gladly to answer for ourselves. Some would 
 answer by saying that this is a land of religious liberty, and if 
 the Baptists wish to maintain a separate existence no one has 
 a right to object. Did we as Baptists exist only upon that, 
 our existence would only be based on a volition. As a Bap- 
 tist, I deny such a right and the assumption upon which it 
 rests. Religious liberty does not consist in the right of one 
 to do as he pleases in religious matters. Two things must be 
 noted here: First, our religious liberty must not run counter 
 to the will of God . . . and, secondly, our religious liberty 
 must not interfere with our duty to our fellow men. . . 
 
90 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 There are characteristics supposed by others to mark the 
 people that are called Baptist. . . Scores of Baptists have been 
 asked what is the difference between your and other denomina- 
 tions. Their answer has simply been that Baptists believe in 
 immersion. The answer, as far as it goes, is correct, but it 
 does not go far enough and is therefore shallow and imperfect. 
 Others have answered the question by saying that Baptists 
 practise close communion. This statement is misleading and 
 superficial. . . Such an intelligent man as Doctor Gotch care- 
 lessly states the fundamentals as he has done in the Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica by saying, " The Baptists as a denomination 
 are distinguished by the views they hold respecting the ordi- 
 nance of Baptism." I declare unto you that there is a far 
 greater difference than this and I shall endeavor to show it. . . 
 
 The fundamental principle is our belief in the supreme au- 
 thority and absolute sufficiency of the Word of God. Our 
 separate existence is a practical and logical fulfilment of the 
 commission from headquarters recorded by Matthew 28 : 19 
 reading, " Go ye, therefore, and disciple all nations, immersing 
 them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
 have commanded you." The whole Bible is the foundation 
 upon which the Baptist church is based and not the decrees of 
 popes, councils, assemblies, conferences, synods, presbyteries, or 
 conventions. We must have for our action a " Thus saith 
 the Lord," or we are not at all bound to act regardless of who 
 gives the orders. . . 
 
 Relying on God's Word we believe in a Scriptural church, 
 hence a regenerated membership; a divinely called ministry, 
 therefore the equality of the ministers; the Scriptural offices of 
 pastor and deacons; Scriptural polity for the church, viz., a 
 government for the church, of the church, and by the church 
 alone according to God's Word ; the Scriptural ordinances, im- 
 mersion and the Lord's Supper, and that only regenerated 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER _91_ 
 
 church-members who are walking according to the teachings 
 of the Word of God should partake thereof, and we believe, 
 according to God's Word, that our religion should be spiritual, 
 direct, and practical instead of formal, mediative, and creedal. 
 
 Upon a platform as comprehensive as God's Word, 
 Pastor Fisher placed his pulpit and preached Jesus to 
 penitent souls. The reason the church progressed so 
 wonderfully was that it had for its foundation, Christ, 
 and for its message, the Word of God. If it would 
 not be too presumptuous, it should be worth while to 
 remark that the Negro Baptist churches and ministers 
 have had abiding success because they have been 
 strong in the faith " delivered once for all to the 
 saints." If there was any preeminent virtue in Rev. 
 Mr. Fisher it was his unflinching proclamation of 
 Scriptural principles wherever he went. He was Bap- 
 tist born and Baptist bred and at his death was recog- 
 nized as a Baptist dead. 
 
 His emphasis on Bible fundamentals was distributed 
 equally over all forms of endeavor. Even in the home 
 these principles were applied rather strictly. He was 
 the type that did not believe in the social dance, card- 
 parties, and theaters. He certainly did a great deal 
 to denounce these evils among his children, so it is easy 
 to understand how he preached so vehemently against 
 ihem at the church. Probably for this reason his chil- 
 dren did not belong to the social set. As a matter of 
 fact, he did not care about his daughters having callers, 
 although he granted the privilege on any night that 
 H 
 
92 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 there was not some service at the church. Now there 
 was something at the church every night in the week, 
 and on Saturday evening all had to study the Sunday 
 school lesson. Quite strict, indeed! but it seemed to 
 work no alarming hardships. 
 
 Once in a while some noble knight did dare to come 
 to the Castle Perilous — but to think of a gentleman of 
 another denomination calling, no matter how chival- 
 rous, was out of the question. His youngest daughter 
 was keeping company with a Methodist gentleman, 
 who came from a family of distinguished churchmen. 
 This was too much for Mr. Fisher. Returning from 
 church one week-night, he found the caller in his par- 
 lor. Mrs. Fisher was uneasy, for she knew something 
 was going to happen. And just as she had supposed, 
 Mr. Fisher taking no chance on the penalty of having 
 " two unequally yoked " in his family, politely asked 
 the caller to absent himself and not to call again. 
 With all of this he loved his children and did his ut- 
 most to make them mentally efficient for survival in 
 the world struggle. 
 
 The application of the Scriptural fundamentals po- 
 litically and religiously has been stated. How he ap- 
 plied them socially, let us see. 
 
 Twenty-seventh and Dearborn Streets was in the 
 center of the most immoral section of Chicago. 
 Painted and noisy prostitutes combed the streets for 
 gold that dropped from the hands of dissipated 
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ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 93 
 
 was " wide open." From the brothels were converted 
 useful members. 
 
 Conditions were so deplorable that some good 
 church-members occasionally took " a little for the 
 stomach's sake," but Rev. Mr. Fisher's gospel of 
 " bone dry " soon found its way home. Affairs had 
 reached such a shape that on communion Sundays the 
 deacons thought nothing of going to a corner saloon 
 and buying the wine and substituting " Uneeda Bis- 
 cuit " for the broken body of Christ. An end came to 
 this speedily, and the officers were taught to make and 
 use unfermented wine and unleavened bread. More- 
 over, instead of many of the members getting their 
 spirits up by pouring spirits down, they let the dynamic 
 of the Holy Spirit have his way with them. Mayor 
 Edward F. Dunne writes : 
 
 June 14, 1905. 
 Reverend and dear Sir: 
 
 Your letter of the tenth instant protesting against the con- 
 duct of certain saloon-keepers at Twenty-seventh and Dearborn 
 Streets, to hand. I have referred the same to the General 
 Superintendent of Police with instructions that orders be given 
 to the proprietors of these saloons that they must conduct them 
 in a quiet and orderly manner or their licenses will be revoked. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. F. Dunne. 
 
 Evidently the licenses were revoked, for in less than 
 a year the three dram-shops on Twenty-seventh and 
 Dearborn Streets were changed into thriving Negro 
 
94 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 businesses. The back door of the saloon on State 
 Street that opened on Twenty-seventh Street was or- 
 dered closed, and only the front entrance was allowed 
 to be used. 
 
 More and more eyes were turned toward Pastor 
 Fisher and the Baptists. His reputation as an evangel- 
 ist followed him from the Southland; many requests 
 came for his services. He tried to fill them all, for the 
 salvation of sinners was his purpose in the world. In 
 addition, twice yearly protracted meetings were held in 
 his own church, not counting the evangelistic sermons 
 which were preached from Sunday to Sunday. The 
 marvel of the work in Chicago was how the church 
 progressed so markedly when the pastor was absent 
 nearly a quarter of the time. Undoubtedly, this pro- 
 gress was due to the machinery of organization and to 
 the able assistance rendered by the Rev. George Dun- 
 can, the assistant pastor, a prince among Christians, 
 Chairman Stephen A. Griffin and his corps of efficient 
 deacons, and the loyal members. 
 
 The National Baptist Convention, with its two mil- 
 lion members, accepted an invitation to hold its twenty- 
 fifth annual session in Chicago, September 13-19, 
 1905, as guest of the Olivet Church. Pastor Fisher 
 knew that this event would do much toward turning 
 the attention of Chicago to Olivet and toward en- 
 lightening the public upon the doings of his denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 In the meantime, a notable event had taken place in 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 95 
 
 March. Olivet had rented the church for two years, 
 but this year they had made plans to buy. The news- 
 papers flashed the incident throughout the city : 
 
 You have heard about taking the rag off the bush [they 
 began] , but that occasion [referring to the burning of the 
 mortgage] took the rag, bush, and all. There were short 
 addresses by Honorables S. B. Turner, E. H. Wright, Beau- 
 regard F. Mosely, Master in Chancery T. J. Holes, the Rev. 
 A. Madison, and the Rev. George Duncan, assistant pastor. . . 
 Dr. E. J. Fisher presented the papers showing that settlements 
 had been made and debts paid and to whom, to the amount of 
 $18,103.30. A tray was then placed, and the mortgage 
 papers were handed to Hon. S. B. Turner, who lighted the 
 match and started the fire. The pastor, Doctor Fisher, led in 
 the singing of the hymn " To the Work, To the Work." 
 
 The mortgage had been held against the church by 
 M. Morava Vanderpoel and Company since July 22, 
 1897. It had caused the church to be sold and the 
 congregation to be put out of doors. The event was 
 notable, but no time could be spared to rejoice with 
 such a full program ahead. 
 
 The meeting of the National Convention was just a 
 few months distant. A contract was let for the com- 
 pletion of the house of worship at a cost approximating 
 twenty thousand dollars. Workmen were busy night 
 and day getting things in readiness for the convention. 
 An emergency appeal was sent to citizens of Chicago 
 to help financially. Many responded, including 
 Messrs. Frank O. Lowclen and George Dixon, the 
 
96 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Borden Milk Company, Judges McEwen and 
 Henesy, and Mesdames F. B. Blackstone, O. Powers, 
 and Clifford Johnson. All receipts and disbursements 
 were carefully audited by public accountants, and a 
 statement was mailed to each donor. Moses E. 
 Greenbaum, treasurer of Greenbaum Sons, Bankers, 
 had charge of the affair. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, all the work done on the 
 structure would not put it in readiness for the Conven- 
 tion. The auditorium had only the floor and interior 
 finishings ready but no pews. The roof had just been 
 put on temporarily. Olivet could only be used as 
 headquarters for the Convention; Ebenezer Baptist 
 Church accommodated the women, and the men held 
 their meetings in the First Regiment Armory. The 
 program was one of interest, being graced by Dr. 
 Johnston Myers, Mayor Edward F. Dunne, Gov- 
 ernor Charles Deneen, the Honorable Judson Lyons, 
 and Booker T. Washington, who needs no title. 
 
 The Olivet Church received a tremendous impetus 
 during this session of the National Baptist Convention. 
 It was not difficult, thereafter, for her to hold an ad- 
 vanced position among the bodies of Christians in Chi- 
 cago. Still, Rev. Mr. Fisher's broad-mindedness and 
 liberality were attracting attention throughout various 
 denominations. One colored brother came to him for 
 aid in starting a separate church in view of founding 
 another denomination. Mr. Fisher, remembering how 
 Providence had broken the chains of slavery and 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER _97 
 
 stopped the lash of the whipping-post, deemed it ex- 
 pedient to be loyal to the Word of God, so he sent the 
 brother away with the pert remark, " Negroes have no 
 right being anything but Baptist." 
 
 The church was fast nearing completion. The pews 
 arrived early in October, and day and night were util- 
 ized in their erection. To the joy of each member and 
 the surprise of the public, the dedicatory services were 
 held the fifteenth of October, 1905. The auditorium 
 seating eighteen hundred was filled to capacity. 
 Everything betokened success. There were two choirs, 
 one in the front of the church, and one in the rear, con- 
 ducted by his daughters. These choirs alternated in 
 their singing, giving rest and supplement to each other. 
 The membership was divided between several circles 
 or clubs of the church: Queen Esther, Andrewites 
 (later Royal), Pastor's Aid, Helping Hand, Willing 
 Workers, and many others, so that each member could 
 have close association with the others and an exact 
 record could be kept. Also a fraternity, the Brother- 
 hood of Andrew and Peter, and its auxiliary, a so- 
 rority, the sisterhood, were well under way. These 
 organizations in time of sickness paid each member four 
 dollars a month and sixty dollars at death, with dues 
 of fifty cents a month. These societies were not secret 
 but were opened to any Christian who would meet bi- 
 monthly to read and meditate over God's Word. 
 There were young men's clubs, girls' clubs, and a 
 mothers' union maintained along with the regular Sun- 
 
98 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 day school and Baptist Young People's Union. The 
 heads of the various auxiliaries constituted a general 
 committee called the Heralds, which met to plan with 
 the pastor the work for each week. 
 
 Olivet was rounding into a machine running seven 
 days a week, providing free employment for hundreds, 
 a comfort station for the weary, and divine worship for 
 thousands. The membership responded excellently to 
 the work. In August of 1905, a modern pipe-organ 
 was installed, and Professor W. Alphonso Johnson, 
 the blind prodigy, served as organist and director of 
 the choir, which, under his training, became noted for 
 its harmony. Truly, the growth of the Olivet Church 
 was marvelous. Pastor Fisher, having found an in- 
 debtedness of twenty-eight thousand five hundred dol- 
 lars, and having completed the church house at an 
 additional cost of seventeen thousand five hundred 
 dollars, succeeded in leading the people in paying off 
 all but fourteen thousand five hundred dollars of the 
 debt in four years. The membership in 1903 was 
 about six hundred ; he had preached the gospel to thou- 
 sands, garnering thirteen hundred more for the king- 
 dom. With all of the number taken in he could 
 remember each by name. 
 
 The debt was arranged for by the trustees on the 
 following articles of agreement : 
 
 ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT made this first day of 
 February, A. D. 1 907, between Baptist City Mission Society, 
 a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 99 
 
 the laws of the State of Illinois, of the City of Chicago, party 
 of the first part, and Olivet Baptist Church, a religious corpora- 
 tion, of the State of Illinois, of the City of Chicago, party of 
 the second part: 
 
 Witnesseth, That the said party of the second 
 
 part hereby covenants and agrees to pay the sum of Eleven 
 Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty-eight Dollars ($1 1,968), 
 in the manner following: $300 on executing this agreement, the 
 receipt of which is hereby acknowledged ; $ 1 ,000 on March 1 , 
 1907; $1,657 on September I, 1907; $1,621 on March 1, 
 1908; $1,210 on September 1, 1908; and $6,180 on 
 March 1, 1909. 
 
 It is worth while here to note that the Olivet Church 
 did not fail to pay back all of the money promptly; 
 she thereby established a confidence in Negro Baptists 
 that has remained unshaken to this day. As a result, 
 the white Baptists of Chicago have expended more 
 money on needy Negro Baptist enterprises of Chicago 
 than those of any other city in the nation. Recently 
 they put sixty-five thousand dollars cash into one 
 Negro Baptist church. 
 
 Just as needy churches now feel that many burdens 
 have been lifted by timely help from the white Bap- 
 tists, so the congregation of Olivet then felt assured of 
 the further advancement of the church. Attention 
 could be turned to surrounding conditions. The win- 
 ters were becoming very severe; people were destitute 
 with scant food and clothing. Unemployment was 
 everywhere. The church missionaries tried to relieve 
 the situation in a large way. The " Chicago Tri- 
 
100 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 bune " for February 8, 1908, has this article under the 
 caption, NEGROES' CHURCH AIDS NEEDY: 
 
 A daily rebuke to those who shirk their share in the burden 
 of charitable work this winter is to be found at the Olivet 
 Baptist Church, Twenty-seventh and Dearborn Streets, where 
 a debt-burdened congregation of colored people is feeding 
 daily fifty to seventy-five destitute men, women, and children, 
 about half of whom are white. 
 
 The work was begun last Sunday when the Rev. E. J. 
 Fisher, pastor of the church, . . told his congregation they 
 ought to do something to help the unemployed. 
 
 Tuesday morning a sign was hung out welcoming all pen- 
 niless men, and, though the church is in the center of the black 
 belt, the first three persons to be fed were white men. Since 
 then the ratio of whites and colored has been about equal. 
 The white men at first seemed loath to accept the offered hos- 
 pitality, but hunger conquered prejudice and most of the men 
 have left vowing to remember the church in a substantial way 
 when they get on their feet. . . 
 
 " When we saw the magnificent work done by the ' Tri- 
 bune ' in lightening the burden of the unemployed, and when 
 we knew of the many cases, in our midst, of destitution and of 
 inability to obtain work," said Doctor Fisher, " we thought 
 surely the church should not be outdone by a newspaper. 
 Therefore, we have in a humble way joined in the work." 
 
 Not only in this work but in charitable pursuits in 
 general did he lead his church. Especially, was this 
 true in reference to the many smaller churches in the 
 city and State. Many of the churches were successful 
 after Rev. Mr. Fisher recommended a man to them. 
 Mr. Samuel Sisson, a life-long admirer and friend, ac- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 101_ 
 
 cepted the pastorate of the Saint Paul Church in Hyde 
 Park and later accepted a call to the church at Dan- 
 ville. Central Church was a store front on State 
 Street, but under the Rev. G. M. Mason, a brother 
 pastor of Mr. Fisher in Nashville, secured a commo- 
 dious building. The Rev. R. L. Darden, of Georgia, 
 was recommended to the Providence Church on the 
 West Side. Through a misunderstanding the congre- 
 gation divided ; Mr. Darden pastored one faction, and 
 Rev. Dr. S. L. M. Francis was recommended to the 
 other. The Rev. E. T. Martin was recommended to 
 the Bethesda Church and successfully led the people 
 from worship in a store to a beautiful church home on 
 Wabash Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street. The Rev. 
 S. A. Mathis was called to the Friendship Church on 
 the West Side. A church was organized at Glencoe, 
 and the Rev. George Duncan, the successful assistant 
 pastor of Olivet, was elected to take charge. The 
 church at Evanston had been in confusion. The Rev. 
 I. A. Thomas, of Georgia, was recommended as pas- 
 tor and peacemaker. He remained a friend of his 
 sponsor and succeeded in erecting a modern edifice to 
 house one of the most powerful congregations in the 
 State of Illinois. The Second Church at Joliet was 
 built by his friend, Rev. Mr. Curtwright, after the de- 
 sign of the Olivet structure. Many other cities still en- 
 joy the effects of his generous interest. On the whole, 
 there were few colored churches in Chicago or vicinity 
 that have not been helped morally or financially by 
 
102 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Olivet under Pastor Fisher. Not all of those whom 
 he has helped have been grateful ; not all of them admit 
 their obligation; only a few remembered the bridge 
 that carried them over, but as often as he would be 
 daggered by the subjects of his benevolence, just so 
 often would he forgive and forget. " Certainly virtue 
 is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are in- 
 censed and crushed; for prosperity doth best discover 
 vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." 
 
 The Rev. Elijah Fisher was born to show what 
 human powers, unaided by anything saving culture and 
 goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are 
 displayed amidst the competition and jealousy of pub- 
 lic life. Not to be misunderstood, note that it is not 
 intended to assert that if a man exert himself to the 
 utmost there is no height he cannot reach. This is 
 not true, for ambition cannot be substituted for intui- 
 tion, nor effort develop genius, nor intensity of will 
 produce power of mind. As well might a butterfly 
 hope by persistent strivings to outsoar the eagle, the 
 sloth to rival a Man-O'-War in fleetness, or the ant to 
 acquire the size of the elephant. Innate ability is 
 needed. The resultant, therefore, of this innate ability 
 and everlasting at-it-ness is greatness. Pastor Fisher's 
 works did not make him great, they simply revealed 
 that attribute. 
 
 His greatness was evinced primarily in the field of 
 religion, as an organizer and church builder, but in 
 other lines he was none the less conspicuous because 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 103 
 
 of his ability and many endeavors. The answers to 
 some questions sent him might serve to exhibit Pastor 
 Fisher as a lover of his race, e. g. : 
 
 1 . Do you believe that every revised Constitution of the 
 Southern States which disfranchises Negro citizens is advan- 
 tageous to the Negro as an American citizen? 
 
 Ans. There is no advantage to be had by the Negroes in 
 any Southern State where disfranchisement exists because they 
 are deprived of rights which this government guarantees. 
 
 2. Should the Negro ask for or be satisfied with less of 
 the American citizenship rights than other citizens? 
 
 Ans. The Negro should be contented only with every 
 right that belongs to an American citizen and should be satis- 
 fied with nothing less. 
 
 3. Do you think it proper to advise the Negro to give up 
 his contention for civil and political rights and be content to 
 work and get a bank-account? 
 
 Ans. A bank-account is only guaranteed by civil and 
 political rights, which must be contended for by the Negro and 
 by other American citizens. 
 
 4. Do you believe that the Negro is so peculiarly consti- 
 tuted that he cannot be benefitted by the treatment accorded 
 other citizens? 
 
 Ans. The Negro is like other people. The same endow- 
 ment and treatment benefitting them will benefit him. 
 
 5. Do you believe a Negro man should be regarded as a 
 safe and capable leader of the race who is silent on lynching 
 (except to palliate it and excuse it in the Southern States) and 
 other outrages against the Negro? 
 
 Ans. Since lynching is a violation of the law no man 
 should keep silent at its violation and especially as a leader 
 whose brother is the victim. 
 
104 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 6. Do you believe the Negro of Illinois or any part of this 
 country, will be helped by any leading or public Negroes con- 
 ceding the inferiority of the race? 
 
 Ans. / do not, but, on the contrary, the race will be 
 greatly injured. 
 
 7. Is a man a proper and acceptable leader of the Negro 
 who publicly boasts to the white people that he teaches Negro 
 women how to work on the farm? 
 
 Ans. No, that is, if he boasts of nothing higher. 
 
 8. Do you believe, taken as a whole, the young Negro 
 should be given the same sort of education which best fits the 
 youth of other races for all avenues and professions of life? 
 
 Ans. / believe that whatever it has taken to make the 
 youths of other people great it will take the same to make the 
 youths of the Negroes their equals. 
 
 9. Do you believe the Negro as a race should be trained 
 only for menial labor and industrial pursuits? 
 
 Ans. No, but trained for every avenue of life. 
 
 10. Do you believe that the teaching of Booker T. Wash- 
 ington has in a large measure been responsible for the increase 
 of mob violence and lynching of Negroes? 
 
 Ans. / do not believe that Booker T. Washington is at 
 all responsible for any of the lynching and, yet, in my judg- 
 ment, he has not spoken out in unmistakable terms against it 
 as he might. 
 
 1 1 . How do you account for Mr. Washington's silence on 
 the state of second slavery or peonage in his own State and at 
 his door where hundreds of ignorant Negroes are found to be 
 in worse slavery than before the Civil War? 
 
 Ans. / think the silence of Mr. Washington on the second 
 slavery or peonage question in his State simply means to say 
 that while in the way with thine adversary agree with him 
 quickly. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 105 
 
 12. Is Booker T. Washington's popularity as a leader in- 
 creasing or diminishing among Negroes? 
 
 Ans. / do not know whether Mr. Washington is increas- 
 ing or decreasing as a leader among Negroes. 
 
 It is not very hard to obtain Mr. Fisher's point of 
 view on the problem that is still paramount in the 
 forums of public opinion. His position was not en- 
 tirely conservative nor radical, but it savored of both, 
 leaning, however, toward radicalism. He had abiding 
 confidence in the people whom he essayed to lead. He 
 believed firmly in the enforcement of every righteous 
 law of the land. Still, he was careful not to make 
 statements that would smack of injury to the reputation 
 of a leadership established through suffering, toil, and 
 woe, and honored by men of every color. To do so 
 would be to commit the same offense against others 
 which his less charitable brethren were guilty of as 
 touching him. However, if he was not correct in his 
 judgments, he was at least consistent in his thinking. 
 People have always followed a consistent and positive 
 leadership. On all matters pertaining to the Negro his 
 position was not negative but positive. 
 
 Many Negroes of Chicago appreciated this fact. It 
 was a common occurrence for him to sit on the church 
 steps evenings about six o'clock waiting to talk to the 
 laborers as they returned from work. From ten to 
 twenty persons were always in attendance. 
 
 Gertrude Lillian Fisher- Brown, who had been a 
 great help in the church, died March 4, 1908. The 
 
106 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 funeral was delayed several days because Mr. Fisher 
 established a custom of not having Sunday displays. 
 To purchase a burial lot in Oakwoods Cemetery it 
 was necessary to pay considerably more than if she 
 had been white. What caused the difference God 
 only knows, but Rev. Mr. Fisher resolved from that 
 day to have a cemetery for his own people. Mount 
 Glenwood Cemetery Association was advertising for 
 colored stockholders. He bought several shares of 
 stock but withdrew from active participation in the 
 company after finding that the concern was controlled 
 by white people. He called Undertakers Charles S. 
 Jackson, Daniel Jackson, George O. Jones, Clifford 
 Johnson, Dr. George C. Hall, the Rev. Dr. S. L. M. 
 Francis, and Messrs. S. A. Griffin, R. M. Johnson, 
 and W. H. Terrell together and laid plans for the 
 purchase of beautiful Mount Forest Cemetery in the 
 suburbs of Chicago. Today, this resting-place is a 
 landmark along the course of Mr. Fisher, and it is 
 used and kept up almost wholly by the ever-increasing 
 number who die as members of the Olivet Church. 
 
 The purpose of the following remarks is not to re- 
 hearse the views of Pastor Fisher nor to vindicate the 
 legitimacy of the conclusions which he reached, but 
 rather by some notes to show his further attitude to- 
 ward good government. He was partisan. He had 
 no hesitancy in endorsing those candidates whose past 
 record appealed to him and whose attitude toward the 
 Negro was seemingly fair. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 107 
 
 Dear Dr. Fisher: August 1 7, 1 908. 
 
 I thank you cordially for your letter of congratulations of 
 the eleventh instant and assure you that the sentiments ex- 
 pressed therein are highly appreciated by me. It is indeed 
 a pleasure to receive such as yours. Your good will and sup- 
 port were of great advantage to me. 
 With best wishes, I am 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 C. S. Deneen. 
 
 The last paragraph of the next letter from the 
 Chairman of the Republican National Committee, who 
 was later Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the 
 cabinet of President Taft, shows with what constancy 
 he labored for the Republican Party and for his race : 
 
 St. Louis, November 2, 1908. 
 Dr. E. J. Fisher, 
 
 Twenty-seventh and Dearborn Streets, 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 Dear Doctor: 
 
 I have your letter of October 31 and am gratified to have 
 your expression of confidence and satisfaction with what I 
 undertook to do. 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to reciprocate, and to say to you 
 that your support from the start to the end of the campaign 
 has net only been a matter of encouragement to me personally, 
 but has been accepted as an effective contribution to the general 
 results which will, no doubt, be a triumph for the Republican 
 Party, and through it, for your race. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Charles Nagle. 
 I 
 
108 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 He was solicitous, too, about the mistreatment of 
 his people in all sections of the country. The church 
 sent a petition to President Roosevelt concerning the 
 Brownsville affair. Governor Deneen respecting the 
 Springfield lawlessness writes: 
 
 The mob violence here has been suppressed, and the machin- 
 ery of the law is in operation. Thirty-eight persons have been 
 indicted, and I have been informed that there will be about 
 fifty others indicted. Their trials will begin about the first 
 day of next term, which will be within two weeks. I believe 
 that speedy justice will be meted out to those who disgraced 
 our city. 
 
VII 
 
 ON UNKNOWN SEAS 
 1910-19 
 
ON UNKNOWN SEAS 
 1910-1912 
 
 The National Baptist Convention in its regular ses- 
 sion at Columbus, Ohio, September 19, 1909, elected 
 a delegation, of which Rev. Mr. Fisher was chairman, 
 to sit in the World's Missionary Conference in Edin- 
 burgh, Scotland. This honor offered an opportunity 
 for travel which had never come to him before. The 
 opportunity indeed was not so unusual as in times gone 
 by and yet even now the number of clergy who make 
 the voyage is small in comparison with those who aspire 
 to the opportunity. The greatness of the occasion con- 
 sisted in the opportunity it afforded for travel, the 
 largeness of his mission, and the prominence of the 
 position held by him. These facts are worthy of space 
 here, but the things that the conference discussed and 
 the movements of the party are mentioned by him in 
 the only diary he kept. 
 
 On May 23, 1910, a "friendship parting" was 
 given by the Olivet Church for Pastor Fisher. The 
 following Saturday he arrived in New York. He 
 spent the Sunday preaching for the Rev. Dr. A. M. 
 Gilbert, pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church. 
 The days following were full of business cares and 
 final preparation for the welcome journey. 
 
 Ill 
 
1 12 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Saturday, June 4, 1910. 
 
 We came aboard the Arabic, White Star Line, at 8.45 
 a. m. Room 1 75, berth 2, was assigned to me. Lunch was 
 served at 10.45. We then registered so as to get our assign- 
 ments at the table. Number 43 was mine. Rev. Dr. F. L. 
 Lights, of Houston, Texas, sat opposite me. Rev. H. R. 
 Harrison, of Atlanta, Georgia, sat at the end, and Rev. Wes- 
 ley, of Texarkana, Texas, sat near me. The remainder of our 
 table was white. . . The day was spent in meeting the many 
 passengers and in making acquaintances. The sea was calm 
 during the greater portion of the day. Later in the afternoon 
 the winds arose, and many of the party found themselves a 
 little sea-sick. By suppertime many were in bed. Some went 
 to supper but were not able to eat. 
 
 Monday morning still found many sick and unable to get 
 out of bed. The sea was still rough. Our party was fifteen 
 hundred strong, the large majority Irish. Some were dancing, 
 some playing heads and tails, some doing one thing after 
 another, while many were calling for the doctor on every hand. 
 I was among that number. Doctor Bacote was much worse 
 off than I. 
 
 Tuesday morning found most of us up and ready for break- 
 fast on time. . . We were now nearing mid-ocean and were 
 beginning to turn our attention from New York to Liverpool. 
 Then the thought of the great beyond flashed into my mind — 
 how we span life's ocean looking to the great beyond " for- 
 getting those things which are behind." At 7.30 we had 
 a song service led by Rev. Skipworth, of New York, and 
 myself. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 The weather was very warm and the sea calm. We were 
 all sitting watching the vaulted sky and the deep blue sea. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 At Sea 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER U3 
 
 Friday. 
 
 You could see the grade in the Atlantic and the seeming 
 hill in the ocean. Our attention was called to a large number 
 of flying-fish and porpoises after them. At 7.30 there was a 
 benefit concert for the Seamen's Orphanage at New York and 
 Liverpool. I was the leading character in the affair. We had 
 lunch at 9.00 o'clock and retired for the night. 
 
 On Saturday the fog became so dense that the whistle was 
 compelled to blow every two or three minutes to prevent other 
 vessels from colliding. This was kept up all night. The ship 
 was compelled to stop as many as a half dozen times. 
 
 Mr. Fisher wrote briefly of the last days of the jour- 
 ney. 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 The morning brought us in touch with each other again 
 after the ringing of the first bell. After breakfast we attended 
 the services of the Church of England, in keeping with the 
 occasion. We reached Queenstown at 3.30, where many pas- 
 sengers disembarked. Shamrock Lighthouse, forts, and ships 
 were in full view. Leaving Queenstown we moved up the St. 
 George's Channel toward Scotland with Ireland on one side 
 of us and Wales on the other. At 8 p. m., we had a regular 
 church service. Dr. W. W. Brown was at the piano, and I 
 led in the singing. Dr. F. L. Lights led in prayer. Dr. P. 
 James Bryant, of Atlanta, Georgia, preached a most excellent 
 sermon. 
 
 The next stop was at Liverpool where the delega- 
 tion disembarked. The party remained there only a 
 few hours getting not a daylight glimpse of England's 
 great seaport. They boarded the train for Edinburgh 
 
U4 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 arriving in time to get a little sleep before the opening 
 of the conference on Monday. 
 
 The conference continued from June 1 4 to June 23 
 and proved a source of inspiration to Mr. Fisher and 
 delegation. Not only were the themes of Professor 
 Beach, of Yale University, Doctors McEwen, Borden, 
 and MacAlpine, Hon. William Jennings Bryan, and 
 others, covering the entire field of missionary activity, 
 very helpful, but the close association with leading men 
 of the world, both lay and clergy, such as John R. 
 Mott, Hon. Seth Low, Drs. Robert E. Speer, J. 
 Campbell Morgan, Stalker, Zwemer, Professor Pat- 
 terson, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and hundreds more, 
 was duly appreciated by Pastor Fisher as he showed 
 by his missionary zeal on his return. 
 
 Not much time could be taken from the conference 
 for seeing Scotia's famous capital, although glimpses 
 now and then were gained of the place Sir Walter 
 Scott calls " mine own romantic town." Mr. Fisher 
 visited on Tuesday John Knox's dwelling, Hume's 
 birthplace, and Lord Erskine's house. Securing a 
 guide he visited Holyrood Palace and saw the suite 
 of Lord Darnley with its gorgeous tapestries and rare 
 portraits. 
 
 Each day a little of the attractive and romantic was 
 seen. He told of his visit to Abbotsford, where the 
 keys of Lochleven Castle and the ancient Tolbooth 
 abide. Many rare things, weapons and books, were 
 here — Napoleon's pistol, Scott's sword, pistol, and 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER U5 
 
 gun, and Rob Roy's sword and gun. He bought two 
 coats for his daughters, a brooch for his wife, a book 
 of Burns' poetry, and many souvenirs. In the Burg 
 of Northumbrian Edwin, Mr. Fisher with his crutches 
 and blackness was an attraction to many children. 
 They would follow him from place to place for an op- 
 portunity to feel his hand to find out if he was painted 
 or to ask him if he had been born that way. In Scot- 
 land the Negro was a novelty. 
 
 He left Scotia's capital Thursday evening. The 
 hour-and-a-half ride to Glasgow was full of historic in- 
 terest, the city being very near to Stirling and Dun- 
 fermline, " where Bruce and several Scottish monarchs 
 lie buried." Many important places were to be seen, 
 including George's Square, containing historic statuary, 
 and Bishop Tumbull's School. He writes: 
 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow have very fine schools. All of the 
 Scotch people can read and write. Every parent seems anxious 
 to have his child go to college. 
 
 After a few hours' visiting he crossed the North Chan- 
 nel to Ireland, stopping first at Belfast. By train he 
 then passed to Dublin, the seat of Trinity College, 
 where Oliver Goldsmith and Dean Swift were stu- 
 dents. Mr. Fisher remarks : 
 
 Here you see Phoenix Park, which the Irish say is the finest 
 pleasure resort in the world. Cricket and golf are great sports 
 in this place. 
 
U6 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Again he set out for Liverpool to get a daylight 
 glimpse of the home town of Mesdames Hemans and 
 Oliphant and of William Roscoe and Gladstone. It 
 was worth while to be in the city where Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne had resided as American consul and to see 
 the free libraries and picture-galleries, the palatial- 
 looking piles of office buildings, built of hewn stone 
 in the Italian Renaissance style, Sefton Park, St. 
 George's Hall, and the statue of Queen Victoria and 
 Lord Beaconsfield's and Wellington's monuments. 
 
 As in other places our traveler did not remain long 
 but took train for the British metropolis, London. 
 ' We hired a cab and made our way to the European 
 Hotel, where we again joined our delegation from 
 America." He narrates very little concerning London 
 as the few hours there were spent in rest at the hotel. 
 
 " At 8.30 p. m., we made our way to the station 
 where we boarded the train for Paris." He relates in 
 his diary nothing of his ride through fertile Kent to 
 Dover, his cross of the Pas-de-Calais and subsequent 
 travel to Paris. Here he is brief and states that the 
 party had breakfast at the Tourist Hotel. 
 
 We retired for two hours. We luncheoned at one, then 
 made a three-hour auto tour of that great city. We then re- 
 turned to our hotel and after a little rest went out again through 
 portions of the city we had not seen. 
 
 Not until he returned home did he tell of the magna- 
 nimity of the French people, the Champs de Mars, 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER H7 
 
 Eiffel Tower, the lights of the boulevards blazing from 
 the Place de la Concorde to the column in the Place 
 de la Bastille. He summed up his description as fol- 
 lows: " We saw the city apparently as it was, full of 
 wickedness and sin." Speaking further he says: 
 
 Sunday morning we took a stroll through the park across 
 the Seine River until we had reached the Baptist church. The 
 pastor was absent in Edinburgh, but his wife was holding the 
 fort. After church we spent the rest of the day going from 
 place to place. We retired early. 
 
 Monday morning we left Paris in company with Doctors 
 Lights and Wesley of Texas. We made our way to the 
 station and were soon off for Brussels. We arrived here at 
 4.30 in the afternoon and made our way with a guide to the 
 Morties Hotel. We had dinner, went for a short walk, and 
 retired with a view to rising early the next morning. This we 
 did, and with an interpreter we toured the city. We were 
 taken to the palace where King Leopold had lived, but be- 
 hold, the King of kings had called him thence to give an ac- 
 count of his stewardship. 
 
 He also related seeing the Hotel de Ville in the lower 
 and less Healthy part of the city where a painting of 
 Attila's defeat at Chalons is especially striking; the 
 mansion opposite where Egmont and Horn were con- 
 fined the night before their death, a statue of Godfrey 
 of Bouillon and a more modern sight, the World 
 Exposition. 
 
 The World Exposition was going on in this city, and peo- 
 ple and things were here from every part of the globe. The 
 exhibits were truly wonderful. We met several Africans. 
 
US THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The attraction, however, was the American Negro attending 
 an exposition in Brussels, not as a servant but as a visitor. We 
 were approached by many who asked whence we came and 
 what was our business. Many inquirers had never seen peo- 
 ple of our color before. 
 
 After two days our travelers were back in London, 
 having an opportunity to see Buckingham Palace, the 
 British Museum, Saint Paul's Cathedral with its tombs 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Lord 
 Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and others, the 
 Tower of London conspicuous for its long list of po- 
 litical prisoners, the Thames Embankment, and West- 
 minster Abbey of coronation fame and memorial to 
 early English kings, patriots, and poets from Chaucer 
 to Dickens. 
 
 He set sail from Liverpool on July 2. Pastor 
 Fisher was tendered a banquet on his return by his 
 church, the mission society taking the leading part. At 
 this time, with the aid of a stereopticon, he related 
 more in detail the places visited, the things he had 
 heard, and the sum total of the conference. 
 
 The result was plainly evident. The Rev. James 
 H. Wilson and wife, members of the Olivet Baptist 
 Church, were sent on the twenty-seventh of December, 
 1910, to take charge of the Bethel Baptist Church, 
 Demarara, South America. Mr. Fisher became an 
 enthusiast over missions. Dr. L. G. Jordan, Secretary 
 of the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist 
 Convention, was invited to the church to speak espe- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER H9 
 
 dally on the work of his board. In the midst of Doctor 
 Jordan's passionate plea for Africa, Pastor Fisher 
 arose and stated that he would give his horse and 
 buggy to the cause. His wife objected strenuously 
 when she heard of the affair, and Mr. Fisher contented 
 himself with making a donation to the cause of mis- 
 sions. Probably the idea of a fiery mare and buggy 
 traveling from Chicago to Africa was ridiculous ! But 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher was determined to do a good deal 
 for missions in general and Africa in particular. He 
 offered to help Eben S. V. Koti, an African student in 
 the State University at Louisville, Kentucky, when he 
 was prepared to sail. Mr. Koti acknowledged his 
 indebtedness : 
 
 I have learned from the Rev. T. W. Longwood that you 
 were prepared to send me some money to buy a horse. Twenty 
 pounds is the estimate to get a pony out there. Indeed I can- 
 not find words to express my gratitude and indebtedness for 
 your kindness to me. 
 
 In the fall of 1910, Mr. Fisher attended for his 
 twenty-third consecutive meeting the National Baptist 
 Convention in its annual session in New Orleans, 
 Louisiana. While there he was thrown from the step 
 of a street-car on to the ground. The accident was 
 serious and left its marks on his body. He was 
 brought home in a weakened and much perturbed con- 
 dition. At first his condition was considered lightly by 
 his family, and it was thought that a few days' rest 
 
120 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 would again see him in good condition. According to 
 his custom, he called in several of the young physicians 
 to encourage them in their work. The accident was 
 only the occasion of his illness, the cause being grief 
 over the loss of his daughter and worry over the pangs 
 of leadership. A specialist was called in, and in a few 
 days recovery was assured. 
 
 Once again he took his accustomed place at the helm 
 of the church. The membership had increased to 
 thirty-one hundred, and his was easily the largest Pro- 
 testant congregation North of Mason and Dixon's 
 Line. He immediately turned his attention to the elec- 
 tion of good men to office. He never had warmer 
 friends nor more staunch admirers than Congressmen 
 Martin B. Madden and W. A. Rodenberg. 
 
 October 3, 1910. 
 My dear Doctor: 
 
 Mr. Rodenberg and I were in Chicago on last Friday and 
 called at the Republican National Congressional Committee 
 Headquarters and requested Colonel Casson to assign you for 
 two days in our district. We would like to have you on Friday 
 and Saturday, October 28 and 29. The meeting on Satur- 
 day, October 29, will be at East St. Louis in the city hall, and 
 we will try to make this meeting as successful as the one which 
 was held in the hall two years ago. You will probably re- 
 call that in addition to yourself we did expect to have Mr. 
 Vernon, but he was unable to reach the city in time. We will 
 probably have Mr. Vernon at this meeting on the 29th, and 
 you will certainly have to be in good trim if you expect to make 
 a better impression than you did two years ago, because, with- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER \2A_ 
 
 out any flattery, it is a fact that many of our citizens are still 
 mindful of the manner in which you raised the roof. 
 
 I will leave for East St. Louis tomorrow evening, and I 
 would appreciate it if you would advise me at the earliest 
 possible moment whether or not we can depend upon you for 
 the two dates above mentioned, October 28 and 29. 
 With sincere good wishes, I am 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Edw. E. Miller. 
 
 Mr. Fisher accepted the invitation. The result 
 was that Mr. Rodenberg was again seated in Con- 
 gress, where he served as Chairman of the Committee 
 on Industrial Arts and Expositions. 
 
 .„ , r. n-. , November 15, 1910. 
 
 My dear Doctor risher: 
 
 Now that the election is over, I desire to take this opportu- 
 nity of expressing to you my sincere appreciation for the splen- 
 did work done by yourself in this congressional district. Your 
 speeches at East St. Louis, Brooklyn, and Alton did much to 
 induce our voters to vote the straight Republican ticket, and 
 were the means of arousing a good deal of party enthusiasm. 
 I hope we will be so fortunate as to have you with us again 
 during the next campaign two years hence. In the meantime 
 if I can be of service to you, I trust you will not hesitate to 
 write me. 
 
 With kindest regard from Mr. Miller and myself, I remain 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 W. A. Rodenberg. 
 
 His main exploits were not in the field of politics but 
 religion. Still he realized the thought of Doctor Rau- 
 
]22 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 schenbusch that " under the warm breath of religious 
 faith all institutions became plastic." 
 
 He found time this year to serve as trustee of many 
 institutions of education in connection with carrying 
 on the work of a growing church. Many activities 
 were claiming his attention and aid. Dr. Booker T. 
 Washington visited him during the winter and gave 
 an appreciated address to a crowded house. The 
 campaign for a colored branch of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association in Chicago was at fever heat. 
 Churches, clubs, and individuals were responding 
 nobly. On January 16, 1911, Olivet subscribed six- 
 teen hundred dollars. Pastor Fisher's general opinion 
 of the Association was that, if the church was doing 
 her duty, George Williams would have had no occa- 
 sion for its foundation. We might glean his view on 
 such an organization from his sermon on ' The 
 Church, the Pillar and Stay of Truth ": 
 
 The church has a mission that no other organization can 
 accomplish. No other society in the world can be substituted 
 for it. Were the attempt made to combine all the noble aims, 
 to consolidate all the excellent characteristics that are claimed 
 by all the organizations now existing in the world, into one, 
 in itself a complete, yet merely human organization, it could 
 not fill the place now occupied by the church of God. . . Some 
 ennobling aspects of truth for the uplifting of mankind may be 
 engrafted into some of them, some work of beneficence and 
 succor to the unfortunate and suffering of the race may be 
 accomplished by many of them, but all they can legitimately 
 claim to stand for of good to mankind in the world is but a 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER [23 
 
 scintillation, a pale reflection of the many-sided truth for which 
 the Christian church stands. Truth full-orbed with power of 
 life, with the years of eternity before it, beams forth from the 
 church. The power of her truth gives sight to the blind, heal- 
 ing to the sick, cleansing to the filthy, and life to the dead. 
 Within her home a new and higher life is born, for her Head 
 has said, " Except a man be born of the water and of the 
 Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 
 
 Pastor Fisher was willing to use his good offices to 
 encourage any worthy movement whether it was fos- 
 tered by white or black, Methodist or Baptist; his only 
 inquiry being, Is the cause a meritorious one? 
 
 His services were constantly in demand as a revival- 
 ist. He was always glad to conduct meetings in the 
 South. Often did he go to his old pastorates in Nash- 
 ville and Atlanta to conduct meetings. It must have 
 been great joy to return to his former pastorate in At- 
 lanta, whose pastor had been ordained by him and was 
 now serving in a large way. 
 
 One of the most helpful meetings conducted in At- 
 lanta was at the Wheat Street Baptist Church, of 
 which the Rev. Dr. P. James Bryant was pastor. 
 The two were spoken of as the " Modern Paul and 
 Silas." By way of advertisement this statement was 
 issued by the press : 
 
 Doctor Fisher is preaching the gospel in a simple, convinc- 
 ing, and unanswerable manner. His clarion voice in gospel 
 and song is now like trumpet-blasts, then like a mighty cyclone, 
 and then again akin to the dove and nightingale. 
 K 
 
224 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Atlanta! Yes, Atlanta, the city of sunlight, love, 
 and sorrow, with its magnolia trees making fragrant the 
 walks over which they had blossomed for years; its 
 picturesque red hills and palatial residences were beau- 
 tiful indeed, but more delightful than scenic nature 
 were the trees of righteousness " planted by the rivers 
 of waters," lifting their branches in air and being as- 
 sured of their place in divine mansions on high. 
 
 Mr. Fisher's evangelistic tendencies were national. 
 From a note to his sister, Mrs. S. A. Brown, of New- 
 nan, Georgia, he refers to a recent revival conducted in 
 January. " I have been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," 
 he said, " conducting a ten-days' meeting for Dr. H. 
 W. Childs. Over a hundred were converted." 
 
 He was equally fitted for the work of an evangelist 
 or a pastor, but the pulpit at Olivet Church was his 
 throne, and there he reigned over a willing people. 
 His congregation expressed a desire to make the fifty- 
 eighth anniversary of the church a telling success. The 
 program extended from July 31 through August 6, 
 1911, and was graced by many of the city pastors and 
 by the Rev. Frank L. Anderson, D. D., Dr. E. P. 
 Johnson, of Atlanta, Georgia, and the Rev. T. L. 
 Griffith, President of the Western Baptist Convention, 
 of which Mr. Fisher was a life member. 
 
 Olivet by this time was a machine which could roll 
 along with any good engineer. It was so constituted 
 as not only to take care of its three thousand members 
 but of all who might wish to join. Pastor Fisher knew 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 125 
 
 this and could branch out more and more into other 
 fields of religious endeavor. 
 
 He represented the National Baptist Convention at 
 the World's Alliance at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 
 and attended other meetings all over the country, al- 
 ways putting Olivet to the front as a representative 
 Negro and Christian organization. 
 
 Ever since the organization of the National Educa- 
 tional Congress, he was appointed as a delegate by the 
 Governor of the State. Governor Deneen in appoint- 
 ing him a delegate for 1912 says : 
 
 I have been requested to appoint delegates to the National 
 Negro Educational Congress, to be held at St. Paul, Minne- 
 sota, July 15-19, 1912. Accordingly, I am pleased to ap- 
 point you a delegate to this Congress. I enclose herewith a 
 copy of letter addressed to me by the Hon. Adolph O. Eber- 
 hart, Governor of Minnesota, in regard to the Congress. 
 
 State of Minnesota 
 
 Executive Department 
 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Adolph O. Eberhart, Governor. 
 
 u rv c r^ March 26, 1912. 
 
 Hon. Lhas. b. Deneen, 
 
 Governor of Illinois, 
 
 Springfield, 111. 
 
 My dear Governor: 
 
 The Negro National Educational Congress will hold its 
 annual session in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, July 15-19, 
 1912. 
 
126 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The object of this organization is: 
 
 To raise the standard of Negro citizenship in the United 
 States ; 
 
 To instill in the youth of this race higher ideals of manhood 
 and womanhood, a greater respect for law and a love for 
 honest toil, economy, and thrift. 
 
 You have no doubt in your State many worthy Negroes 
 whose united effort along the above lines would result in great 
 good for the race, and it is from among this class that I would 
 ask you to appoint a suitable delegation to this convention and 
 advise me of such appointment. 
 
 The movement is a worthy one and I trust that you will 
 lend it your support. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Adolph O. EBERHART, Governor. 
 
 Mr. J. R. White, the chairman of the committee of 
 the movement, sent a letter on April 27, 1912, compli- 
 menting Rev. Mr. Fisher on his appointment and 
 stating that " your Governor will appoint any man or 
 woman that you may recommend, and I trust that Illi- 
 nois will make a good showing in this coming meeting 
 and carry off the banner." 
 
 The relation between Pastor Fisher and Governor 
 Deneen was not caused wholly by their close associa- 
 tion in political affairs, but was built on service ren- 
 dered mankind in the past and greater opportunities 
 for advancement in the future. This must be true, for 
 even during Democratic administrations, in which Rev. 
 Mr. Fisher was never actively interested, appointments 
 came to him. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 127 
 
 October 4, 1913. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have the honor to appoint you a delegate to attend the 
 celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation 
 Proclamation at Exposition Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 
 October 6-13, 1913. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. F. DUNNE, Governor. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Fisher had big ideas not only in church, 
 city, State, and national ways but in international re- 
 lations. What his ultimate aim was nobody knows, but 
 from correspondence dated April 18, 1912, with Al- 
 bert A. Ipso, Ansah Province of Ashanti, whom he 
 met in London — he must have favored a wise, sober 
 movement designed to bring about a proper race-con- 
 sciousness and closer relationships between the hun- 
 dreds of millions of darker peoples of the whole world. 
 
 Reverting to our conversation some time ago when you were 
 here, with reference to the drawing closer together of the 
 American members of our race and those of us on the West 
 Coast of Africa, I think this can be accomplished by our be- 
 ing brought together in commercial relations. The advantage 
 of this would lie in the intercourse which will follow and make 
 us better acquainted with each other. 
 
 This idea was good, the purpose unselfish, and the 
 motive very helpful, but in the strength of Mr. Fisher's 
 love for his race lay his apparent weakness. People 
 had heard him repeat his motto, " Be somebody, do 
 
128 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 something, have something," and took advantage es- 
 pecially of the last link. He paid little attention to 
 the whims of the people. To show that some of the 
 goods of this world were needed to prove the useful- 
 ness of men, he humorously told a story of an old 
 Negro who owned a farm on both sides of the Chatta- 
 hoochee River in Georgia and Alabama. 
 
 His business grew to such proportions [said Mr. Fisher] 
 that he employed other men to run the farm while he ferried 
 people from one side of the river to the other. One day a 
 white man came along and wanted to cross but had no money. 
 The white brother said that he would pay when he returned. 
 The wise old colored man replied, " No boss, if a man hain't 
 got money nuff to pay his way cross dis shere riber, he ain't 
 got no business on the other side, fur he is just as much service 
 on one side as he is on the other." 
 
 Schemers and designing men knew that this senti- 
 ment was characteristic of Mr. Fisher's life, and when- 
 ever a new project came up they sought him. A 
 Negro settlement was to be started in Gary, Indiana, 
 whereupon Pastor Fisher bought a block of property 
 which upon investigation was found to be entirely sub- 
 merged in water. He took shares in a Negro mining 
 concern which has never been heard of since. In this 
 time of money stringency and the cost of high living, 
 we look at a receipt for four hundred dollars " for 
 stock issued Rev. Fisher " by a Negro coal and oil 
 company, and today we are still smelling the fumes of 
 cold " gas." 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 129 
 
 This was not all, for he spent considerable money in 
 trying to foster Negro business. He conceived an idea 
 of a print-shop in which all churches would cooperate 
 in having all their printing done. He invested, but no 
 other ministers joined. He and three lay partners car- 
 ried on the enterprise for about a year; his investment, 
 however, was always an expense account, so he with- 
 drew. The need of a first-class drug-store was promi- 
 nent in his mind. Accordingly he contracted for the 
 purchase of a two-story brick building at 2701 South 
 State Street, opened a drug-store, and rented the sec- 
 ond floor for offices. Having no one to look after his 
 interests he sold the drug outfit. Rev. Mr. Fisher then 
 let his store to the White House Candy Company. 
 The company was not successful, and Mr. Fisher de- 
 cided to refrain from further business undertakings. In 
 all of his investments he was at least logical, if not 
 financially successful. He did not generalize from one 
 or more particulars, but kept putting his faith in men 
 only to find that many deceived him. At the rate he 
 was going, confident in the honesty of all partners in 
 business, he could have lived to the end of time only to 
 find that it was as easy to apply Christ's principles to 
 business as to change flour into wheat. 
 
VIII 
 
 PRECIOUS CARGOES FROM 
 MANY PORTS 
 
 1912-19)5 
 
PRECIOUS CARGOES FROM MANY 
 PORTS 
 
 1912-1915 
 
 Late in 1912 Rev. Mr. Fisher conceived the idea 
 of a religious school for the Baptist denomination in 
 Chicago. Objections were coming fast. " Jim-Crow- 
 ism! " Why then have Negro churches? Was a 
 school needed? Certainly the educational program of 
 the Negro Sunday school teacher was inadequate; she 
 needed training. What of missionaries for home and 
 foreign lands? The ministerial aspirants who had 
 neither time nor money to go from the black belt, those 
 whose preliminary work was too elementary for a di- 
 vinity school — what of them? He made the attempt 
 with a " child of faith without endowment or 
 donors," giving the church as headquarters for the 
 Chicago Religious Training Seminary, having for its 
 object " the preparation along the lines of Christian 
 service." One hundred pupils took advantage of the 
 courses offered in English, Theology, Music, Mission- 
 ary and Sunday School Work. Rev. Mr. Fisher and 
 a few ministers of the city conducted this promising 
 institution day and night for eleven months in the year. 
 As President, Mr. Fisher taught a class but was also 
 
 133 
 
J34 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 a pupil in the school of adversity. George Crabbe was 
 correct in stating that " individuals are envious of the 
 rank, wealth, and honors of each other." Mr. Fisher 
 did not fail to garner a goodly measure of that higher 
 criticism, spoken of by Thackeray as pertaining to 
 Henry Esmond, 
 
 which neither books nor years will give, but which some men 
 get from the silent teaching of adversity; she is a great school- 
 mistress, as many a poor fellow knows that has held his hand 
 out to her ferrule and whimpered over his lesson before her 
 awful chair. 
 
 Mr. Fisher was a pioneer in this field, but he knew 
 full well that he had instituted a system that must pre- 
 vail even in Chicago if heresies are to be counteracted 
 and churches are to do more effective work. This con- 
 clusion was not a mere notion, but was the reflection of 
 forty-nine years of service in the Baptist church. More- 
 house College, formerly Atlanta Baptist Seminary, his 
 alma mater, conferred the degree of Doctor of Di- 
 vinity upon him at its commencement exercises in 1912. 
 
 The Seminary in Chicago had grown to over two 
 hundred students. It had purchased a beautiful semi- 
 nary home at 3333 Wabash Avenue. Doctor Fisher 
 had less time to devote to the theoretical side of the 
 school, so he began to devote all of his time to a prac- 
 tical ministry. He, therefore, served only as trustee. 
 The school prospered well under President Curt- 
 wright, and was day by day making bids for a perma- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 1135 
 
 nent place among the institutions of Chicago. The 
 " Chicago Tribune," making an appeal for funds, 
 states that " it has been endorsed by the Association of 
 Commerce.*' 
 
 The church was still moving on. The " Illinois 
 Idea " states that Pastor Fisher preached three times 
 Sunday (May 4, 1913). 
 
 While each sermon was truly instructive and fraught with 
 profundity, yet the discourse to the Knights of Pythias at 3.30 
 was said by the leaders of that order to be the best they had 
 ever listened to in the City of Chicago. 
 
 The preaching of lodge sermons was unusual for 
 Olivet. The rostrum and pulpit were very sacred to 
 the pastor, and for that reason not everybody could 
 enter the stand. Especially was this true of secret 
 societies, so after he defined the " bounds of their habi- 
 tation " they generally preferred other churches. He 
 was not wholly against the lodge, for he was himself 
 an Odd-Fellow, but he made every organization sub- 
 ordinate to the church and used all occasions to preach 
 the gospel. 
 
 In November he went to Oakland, California, to 
 conduct a revival for Rev. Mr. Coleman. While there 
 he had a chance to see the " Golden West " and to 
 visit many churches and cities. He returned home in 
 December to take up his work at the mighty Olivet. 
 
 Early in the spring of 1914 he was asked to pay 
 another visit to California. It happened that this was 
 
136 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 the rainy season and he had to be taken to church in 
 a boat. The church extended him a call, and since his 
 work at home was such that any minister could have 
 carried it on, he probably would have accepted the 
 call if his commission had read, " Row ye into all the 
 world, and preach the gospel," instead of " go " and 
 " preach." True, he was going to heaven by water, 
 but not to church by boat. 
 
 He returned home to complete the work along the 
 lines started. The prime factor in the church life was 
 the saving of the lost and the edifying of the saints, 
 with special emphasis on missions and outstations. 
 The church was to take the initiative in an educational 
 program as sanctioned by the Chicago Religious Semi- 
 nary, where Christian workers could become efficient; 
 coupled with a social and a civil service course includ- 
 ing the teaching of stenography, dressmaking, cooking, 
 printing, and other useful arts. Also larger and more 
 efficient mothers' unions where practical talks would be 
 given were planned. Along the line of organized phi- 
 lanthropy, the Olivet Athletic Club and Girls' Twi- 
 light League, both planned for the community, the 
 twenty-three church clubs catering to the public, the 
 free employment bureau, the benevolent societies of 
 Andrew and Peter, the Standard Literary Society, the 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Loyal 
 Temperance Legion, and the two mission stations were 
 not enough, but he had a plan for church activity car- 
 ing for individuals from the cradle to the grave. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 137 
 
 Fifty of the best years of his life had been spent in 
 the Baptist church. It was honor enough for him — in 
 fact, the highest honor a man could attain in Chris- 
 tian circles — to be pastor of a New Testament church. 
 But in fellowship with other churches, in Associations, 
 State and national conventions he did not hold aloof. 
 Five years before he had organized the Bethlehem 
 Baptist Association of Chicago and Vicinity, and had 
 drawn up its rules and regulations, and he was directly 
 responsible for its being one of the largest Associations 
 in Illinois. He was chairman of the committee that 
 drafted the constitution of the General Baptist State 
 Convention of Illinois, served as one of the incorpora- 
 tors of this organization, and as fraternal commissioner 
 from this body to the State Convention of Kansas, and 
 was a member of the Executive Committee from his 
 arrival in Chicago. He held no further office until the 
 end of 1913. Then he was elected president and 
 served the interests of the people to the best of his 
 ability. He was also a trustee of the Missouri Baptist 
 State Convention and President of the Western Bap- 
 tist Convention, which was representative of all the 
 Western States and Territories. 
 
 In national affairs he realized that the time had come 
 to help young men to the front. At a Philadelphia 
 meeting of the National Baptist Convention, the Rev. 
 Sutton E. Griggs was allotted only twelve minutes to 
 put his plea before that body. Mr. Fisher moved to 
 extend the time of Mr. Griggs, and the speaker made 
 
138 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 such an impression that he has never retired from the 
 stage of national activities. By twenty-five years of 
 persistent striving Doctor Fisher had won for himself 
 a most influential place in that body. He served on 
 various committees, being on the committee of the Na- 
 tional Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist 
 Convention on the question of " a theological school 
 for Negroes of the United States." Many Northern 
 white Baptists thought that no form of cooperation 
 should have been initiated between the National Bap- 
 tist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention. 
 The National Baptist Convention realized that the 
 question of property in slaves had divided the white 
 Baptist denomination in 1845, but thought that the 
 Southern Baptists felt that they owed the Negro a debt 
 which they should pay. The National Baptist Con- 
 vention favored giving them a chance. Pastor Fisher 
 was also a life member, member of the Executive 
 Board, and vice-president of the National Baptist 
 Convention, and was one of the incorporators of the 
 National Baptist Publishing Board, and served for 
 ten years on every committee appointed by the Con- 
 vention to determine the relations between the Board 
 and the Convention. For over a decade it was con- 
 sidered his place to move, after the president's annual 
 address, to go into the election of officers. Dr. E. C. 
 Morris was thus always unanimously elected. It is the 
 consensus of opinion that the Convention would have 
 split in Philadelphia in 1914, if it had not been for 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER B9 
 
 Mr. Fisher, and that it would not have made a blot on 
 the escutcheon of Chicago in 1915 if he had lived to 
 help in shaping the destiny of that body. 
 
 A very delicate matter had been in litigation con- 
 cerning the ownership of the National Baptist Publish- 
 ing House, and especially was this evident at the con- 
 vention at Nashville, Tennessee, in September of 
 1913. The minutes of this session state that " Dr. E. 
 J. Fisher presiding, ruled that the commission (on the 
 matter of the publishing-house) report be referred to 
 the committee of vice-presidents." This series of in- 
 vestigations as to who owned and should control the 
 possessions of the Boards of the National Baptist Con- 
 vention and the impudence of the Publishing Board 
 were certain to involve lengthy conflicts. All of this, 
 however, was put aside for the moment and interest 
 directed to a National Gospel Campaign. Five field 
 workers were appointed, and Doctor Fisher was one 
 of the active forces in this effort to reach the unsaved 
 and to create more spirituality among the saved. Al- 
 ready over ten thousand souls had been garnered into 
 the kingdom through his instrumentality, and more 
 protracted meetings were in view. 
 
 The Rev. S. W. Batchlar, Shiloh Baptist Church, 
 Indianapolis, Indiana, wrote to him March 28, 1914: 
 
 My dear Brother: 
 
 I am writing to you again asking you to consent to come 
 to Indianapolis to assist me in a ten-days' meeting. . . 
 L 
 
]40 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The Baptists of Indianapolis are very badly in need of some 
 good gospel preacher to come in here and really preach the 
 gospel. 
 
 I do not know of a man who can do that one thing better 
 than you. I want the people of Indianapolis to be convinced 
 that there are some real qualified preachers among us who do 
 know how to conduct a successful revival. The time is ripe; 
 if you can come, you will without doubt have a great success. 
 
 Yours in His name, 
 
 S. W. Batchlar. 
 
 If he had desired to devote his time exclusively to 
 evangelistic work he would have kept busy the year 
 round. However, in spite of the growing work of a 
 large pastorate, there is no State in the Union where 
 Negroes are numerous in which he has not conducted 
 revivals, and there is hardly a Negro settlement which 
 his influence has not permeated. His last large effort 
 was in Los Angeles, California, at the Mount Zion 
 Church, in February of 1914. All the pastors of the 
 city united in this effort. Standing-room was hardly 
 procurable. The churches took on new life and many 
 hundreds were added to them. 
 
 This result was typical of the many meetings that 
 were held from time to time. Many thousands of souls 
 were added to the churches. Many of these are living, 
 doing yeoman Christian service, while many others 
 have slept to wake no more. Great good has followed 
 his numerous protracted meetings. There is no way to 
 find out the exact numbers converted under his minis- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER Hd 
 
 try, for as he sailed in the great sea the waves of his 
 influence rippled far away, and left no further trace 
 of the vessel's course other than the scores who today 
 greet his posterity and call them blessed. 
 
 This same year he was called upon to be the re- 
 ligious statesman of his race in an appeal against the 
 house bill of Congressmen Edwards and Aswell for 
 segregating government employees. 
 
 Mr. Chairman: 
 
 I appear before you and this assembly to make a minority 
 report on the two bills offered for the segregation of the Negro 
 from the white race in the government employ. 
 
 In all the history of civilization the country that denied the 
 poorest citizen equal justice has fallen. The races cannot be 
 kept socially and economically distinct. Neither race wishes 
 it ; witness the great mulatto population of the South. A policy 
 of segregation breeds unrest, fosters anarchy, stirs up social 
 antagonism, and defies the ameliorating influences of Christian 
 brotherhood. There is no white or black supremacy, only the 
 supremacy of service to humanity. The prosperity of a nation 
 is most secure when all elements and classes of that nation 
 are at peace with each other. We have one God, one country, 
 and one flag. Partisan bitterness and vengeful spirit do not 
 develop friendly relations between the two races. 
 
 The denial of freedom in any of its phases to a race tends 
 to develop irresponsibility in that race. Responsibility must 
 rest upon opportunity of the human family. You cannot crush 
 out of a race the common rights of humanity and expect that 
 race to make the best citizens. Whatever separation comes 
 must be an individual separation, not racial but meritorious. 
 Let the separation be between the good and the bad, the effi- 
 
142 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 cient and the inefficient, the industrious and the indolent, not 
 determined by color. . . The recognition of irrational legis- 
 lation by the government is the beginning of an influence that 
 will put this nation to shame. It is as unfair to the white 
 youth as it is to the black, to teach him that superiority is based 
 on anything other than character, intelligence, and recognition 
 of the supremacy of God. . . 
 
 There were two distinct civilizations begun in this country — 
 one at Jamestown, Virginia, and the other at Plymouth, Mas- 
 sachusetts. One was based upon the idea of inferiority and 
 ignorance of one class of its people and the superiority and 
 knowledge of the other class; the other was based upon 
 equality, freedom, and knowledge, for which we contend. The 
 world's greatest Teacher said over nineteen hundred years 
 ago, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The 
 great Lincoln paraphrased this into the statement that the 
 country could not exist half-free and half-slave. If this segre- 
 gation law obtains, the saying of immortal Lincoln must fall. 
 The nation was humiliated at a tremendous sacrifice of her best 
 blood. Shall we at this late date resurrect these idols that have 
 already cost us too much, by a separation of ourselves with a 
 revengeful sectional spirit that will be difficult to erase? 
 
 The slavery of cast and color is more galling, more intoler- 
 able, more expensive than physical slavery. Saint Paul has 
 told us, " God has made of one blood all nations of men for 
 to dwell on all the face of the earth." Who is so ignorant 
 today as to believe or even repeat the old superstition that the 
 Negro is not included as a part of the " nations of the earth "? 
 Evidently all discriminating laws are wrong. . . A nation 
 cannot live separately within a nation. The proposed law is 
 an inconsistency of thought, illogical and impracticable. Is it 
 just or unjust, fair or unfair? Will it lead to the betterment 
 of all concerned? Will it give more efficient service? Will 
 the government profit by it? The answer to each question is, 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 143 
 
 No! Physically, temperamentally, and mentally there is no 
 line of demarcation between the races. There is no ideal the 
 Anglo-Saxon can approve that the Negro cannot attain. He 
 has been just as brave and courageous, just as polite and intel- 
 ligent, just as progressive, just as productive, and just as 
 worthy. He has always shown the best of feeling for the 
 government, has always been stanch and true to his country. 
 " Servant of all " is his title. He has hewn the wood and 
 drawn the water for others with a fidelity that is wonderful 
 and a patience that is marvelous. As an example of patient 
 fidelity to humble duty, he stands without a peer. 
 
 His conduct in the war that resulted in his freedom was as 
 rare a bit of magnanimity as the world has ever seen. The 
 helpless ones of this oppression, in his power, nobly stayed his 
 hands from vengeance and, at last, when he held up his hands 
 that his bands might be loosed or severed, his emancipator found 
 them scarred with toil unrequited, free from blood of men, ex- 
 cept that which was shed in honorable open battle. He vies 
 with the white man in pouring forth his blood like the waters 
 of a stream to enrich the soil, from which has sprung the great 
 tree of liberty. Yet, sirs, we have seen him hanged from its 
 stalwart limbs, and bound at its rugged base. His body has 
 been murdered, but his will is unbent. We as a government 
 have said, " Thus far and no farther shalt thou go." Shall 
 we murder the mind, the hand, and the soul that have sup- 
 ported us and always borne us good-will? Shall we strike 
 the hand that fed us? Shall we permit our brother to ask us 
 for bread and we give him a stone? 
 
 Then he uttered a prophecy that may yet be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 Gentlemen, if you harden the hearts of the present genera- 
 tion by the enactment of cruel legislation, your children and 
 
]44 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 mine will pay for it at a greater cost than that of '61 -'65, 
 in blood, in tears, in money, in misery, in sorrow, and in human 
 life. 
 
 An address of this kind could not have been repre- 
 sentative unless he had been gaining in popularity with 
 the brethren. When he was a friend you knew it, and 
 when he was an enemy you did not have to wonder as 
 to his attitude. He had an easy adaptability that kept 
 him in close contact with the commoner and the aristo- 
 crat, the untutored and the learned. His presence was 
 familiar and his manner soothing. In his discussions 
 he was logical and even waxed eloquent, and in his de- 
 termination to carry conviction he was a terror when 
 antagonized either in private or public. He had noth- 
 ing that was not at the disposal of his friends. His 
 home was the rendezvous of visiting ministers. Many 
 a time he brought home a hungry traveler, and the mis- 
 tress of the manse with less than a loaf and not a small 
 fish in the larder, like the widow of old, would make 
 the cake from the last of the meal in the barrel, de- 
 pending upon faith as a foraging agent for the next de- 
 mand. Often too has his family seen the visitor take 
 the last roll from the tray or spear the last piece of 
 meat from the platter, while telling of some amusing 
 incident that happened in Georgia or Tennessee. One 
 brother remarked that he was about starved when he 
 met Mr. Fisher, and the meal at his home saved his 
 life. In Conventions, Associations, Church, and State 
 was he ever loyal to righteous men and measures. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 145 
 
 Certainly, if there is not an agreement with all of 
 Doctor Fisher's strivings, there must be admiration for, 
 and faith in, him because of his convictions. To be a 
 worker politically for the " Grand Old Party " de- 
 lighted him; to labor zealously for men and measures 
 he deemed worthy of his support, and to oppose men 
 and measures which would tear ultimately at the very 
 vitals of democratic government, was patriotism enough 
 for him. Not a " hat-in-the-hand," profiteering poli- 
 tician who would sell his birthright to forward a selfish 
 ambition ! No ! There is no record of his ever receiv- 
 ing filthy lucre. Not office-seeking, conniving at evil 
 to get in touch with men doing big jobs. No! The 
 jobs sought him. 
 
 National Taft Bureau, 
 
 The Raleigh Hotel, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 The Rev. E. J. Fisher, 
 2940 South Park Boulevard, 
 Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I have been informed of the active interest you are taking 
 in the renomination of President Taft, and beg to assure you 
 of our hearty appreciation of your cooperation. . . 
 
 The letters and telegrams which we are receiving daily show 
 a constantly increasing Taft sentiment, and we have every rea- 
 son to believe that the President will be renominated on the first 
 ballot. 
 
146 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 I shall be glad to hear from you from time to time as to 
 conditions in your State. 
 
 With very best wishes, I remain, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Wm. B. McKinley, Director. 
 
 Evidently Mr. McKinley had been informed by 
 outside forces. In reply to the director, Doctor Fisher 
 gave a reason for his policy. 
 
 You, Mr. McKinley, have my cooperation because of the 
 party and chieftain which you represent. For thirty-two years 
 I have had the interest of the Grand Old Party at heart, work- 
 ing with it but neither changing to the right nor to the left. I 
 have never asked for any position in the party, only working to 
 the finish, and supporting every measure which I was persuaded 
 to believe was right. 
 
 After all, could a man be in political affairs and 
 emerge untarnished? Truly, Doctor Fisher's life is 
 an attestation. But even granting this, Was it worth 
 while? We have only to look for names of Negroes 
 who received special appointments under the adminis- 
 trations he helped to foster. Probably the Illinois 
 administration in city and State was as favorable to 
 Negroes during Doctor Fisher's participation in legis- 
 lative affairs as that of any other city or State in the 
 Union. No doubt the City of Chicago outstripped 
 other places in its kindly attitude toward the Negro, 
 and the present or recent unparallelled influx into this 
 Northern section must be laid at the door of opportu- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 147 
 
 nities not only in the field of economics, but in religion 
 and politics which Chicago offers. 
 
 Such a record of service naturally attracted com- 
 mendation from those who recognize and follow 
 leadership. The two letters that follow, though pos- 
 sessing humorous features, illustrate the adoration and 
 even worship and devotedness of the common people 
 to true leadership : 
 
 Dr. Fisher, Chicago. 111. sir 
 
 you may not remembir me I am the one who weight on you 
 in Indianapolis Ind sir I think a man of your standing it will 
 be a honor for me to have a presn frome you at my marrying 
 so anything you send will be glad rece but I tell you what I 
 
 wood like you send me that is a cut glass vace. I am 
 
 P. S. Just send anything you like I just wont a presen at 
 my maring from the Biggest Baptis preacher in the union sure 
 do send Just somtin if not the cut glass vace. 
 
 The next letter is interesting in the use and misuse of 
 
 the term Bishop. 
 
 Detroit, Mich., Dec. 2, 1914 
 
 Bishop E. J. Fisher D D L L D 
 Bishop Baptists of Chicago 
 
 Dear Bishop 
 It affords me profound pleasure to write to you. I will be in 
 Chicago the 22 of Dec. You know Bishop you are my ideal 
 and I highly esteem you above all the Baptists Bishops in 
 Chicago. I desire to be in your charge during my stay in the 
 West. 
 
 I remain yours in Christ , 
 
]48 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The idiosyncrasies of Pastor Fisher easily distin- 
 guished him from that " numerous piece of monstros- 
 ity " called the public. This was true even of his 
 noble physique, towering over six feet, at least dis- 
 cernible above the stature of ordinary men. He 
 dressed extremely well. He was proud of his calling 
 and of his position, and whenever he walked the 
 streets his personality caused the casual pedestrian to 
 look around to see what sort of individual he was. On 
 Easter, especially, was it a pleasing sight to see Mr. 
 Fisher with high silk hat, Prince Albert suit, clean 
 linen as " spotless as a lily-white doe," walnut crutches 
 with brazen trimmings glittering in the sunlight, en 
 route to Olivet. To the discomfort, however, of his 
 daughter or son accompanying him, he spoke to every 
 passer-by, being unembarrassed when the courtesy was 
 not returned. 
 
 In 1 9 1 4 the struggle for control of national Baptist 
 affairs was at its height. Dr. E. W. D. Isaac, Corre- 
 sponding Secretary of the Baptist Young People's 
 Union Board, wrote on October 1 7 : 
 
 The church supply business is gone. The copyrights have 
 passed from us. The little Negro dolls have left us. Now the 
 denominational paper is gone. I hope you will get busy and 
 exert yourself concerning these matters before everything that 
 the denomination has is gone. 
 
 Much apprehension and fierce denominational strife 
 resulted when the Publishing Board, led by Dr. R. H. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 
 At the Age of 58 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 149 
 
 Boyd, took, so it is alleged, properties owned by the 
 National Baptist Convention. Although there was not 
 an organic split, yet in sentiment there were two fac- 
 tions established, one led by Dr. E. C. Morris and the 
 Convention, and the other led by Dr. R. H. Boyd and 
 the Publishing Board. Churches and pastors lined up 
 with one faction or the other. 
 
 In a letter to Doctor Fisher the first of December, 
 Doctor Isaac prophetically states: 
 
 I have contended for ten long years that a law-suit is the 
 inevitable. I think so yet, and the quicker we have it the better 
 for all concerned. 
 
 At every denominational gathering the fight was on. 
 A meeting was called at Nashville for December 
 29, of the commissioners from the National Baptist 
 Convention joined by representative persons of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention for the purpose of re- 
 conciling the rebellious Publishing Board. The Pub- 
 lishing Board attempted to flood the commission with 
 outsiders, hoping to create confusion and disorder and 
 to break up the meeting. 
 
 The chairman says: 
 
 Yours of the sixteenth instant is received. I am glad to 
 know that you will be here on the twenty-ninth. We need 
 somebody here who has the courage to bring things to pass. . . 
 I will be glad to see you and to have a conference with you 
 before the commission is called to order. It is now time for 
 action; any further delay is dangerous, and the people whom 
 we represent must suffer the consequence. 
 
150 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The controversy waxed hotter and proved helpful 
 in correcting loose business arrangements and faulty 
 methods that had been growing up for years and in 
 exposing Doctor Boyd's Board in gathering to itself 
 that for which the people had sacrified so nobly, as 
 they thought, for themselves and for the Convention. 
 
 The newspapers were full of the conflict. A battle 
 of pens was waged, Doctor Sutton E. Griggs uphold- 
 ing the Convention, and Doctor Boyd the Publishing 
 Board. There could be no advantage gained by either 
 side by this publicity ; a peaceful settlement needed to 
 be tried. 
 
 In a letter to Doctor Griggs, February 1 1 , Doctor 
 Fisher says : 
 
 I have noticed with peculiar interest in your paper, and that 
 of Doctor Boyd, the manner in which you write each other up 
 before the world, and I cannot see what either of you hope to 
 gain by so doing. Have you forgotten the old saying, " Right 
 the day will win "? I sincerely hope that . . . every denomi- 
 national paper will cease its writing respecting the pros and 
 cons of our National Convention affairs, and let the people of 
 God come together with hearts of love and faith in God, and 
 all matters can be easily and peacefully settled. 
 
IX 
 
 INTO THE HARBOR 
 
 1915 
 
INTO THE HARBOR 
 1915 
 
 Doctor Fisher never knew that his end would come 
 in the midst of his public brilliancy. On January 26 
 his church tendered him a reception at his home. His 
 twelfth anniversary message to his church appears in 
 the " Olivet Herald " for January 3 1 : 
 
 To the Officers and Members with the friends of Olivet: 
 
 Beloved, it gives me great pleasure to appear before you to- 
 day (January 26), to recount the labors of the past twelve 
 years' stewardship. I was not perfect, and therefore my ad- 
 ministration has not been perfect, but I have had a perfect 
 pattern, which was Christ Jesus after whom I have been fol- 
 lowing day and night. 
 
 We began our work together complete strangers, one not 
 knowing the other ; and I, a Southerner, coming to you with all 
 of my Southern traits and peculiarities, had to learn you and 
 your ways. You also had to learn me and my ways. We began 
 from the bottom with not a dime's worth of anything on earth 
 save faith in God and confidence in ourselves, and agreed to- 
 gether to rent this basement floor for sixty-five dollars per month 
 for two years. At the expiration of that time we arranged to 
 purchase the building from the parties to whom the Supreme 
 Court gave it, Charles M. Barnes of the Englewood Sash and 
 Door Company, at a cost of twenty-eight thousand five hundred 
 dollars, in 1905. We then let the contract for the comple- 
 tion of the building at a cost of seventeen thousand five hun- 
 
 153 
 
]54 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 died dollars. In order that we might be able to purchase, I 
 loaned the last cash dollar I had, which was one thousand, 
 without one dime of interest on the same. 
 
 Our enrolment showed about six hundred names as mem- 
 bers, and today it shows about thirty-nine hundred. The debt 
 of forty-six thousand dollars has been reduced to less than 
 three thousand dollars with all expenses paid to date. We 
 have a well-organized Sabbath school with about fifty officials, 
 a splendid Baptist Young People's Union, and a Standard 
 Literary Society among our young people that is not surpassed 
 anywhere in this country for its real worth. We also have a 
 Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Andrew and Peter which takes 
 care of the membership by giving them four dollars per week 
 in sickness, and sixty dollars upon the day of their death — they 
 have sufficient funds in the bank today for this purpose. We 
 also have two missions supported by us, with seventeen other 
 auxiliaries, making twenty-three in ioto. We believe in the 
 power of organization. 
 
 When I came to you there were very few persons in the 
 church attempting to own homes. Today there are more than 
 three hundred. Our church is making through its mission cir- 
 cles more than two hundred visits weekly among the people, 
 and is furnishing help in many cases. We have been giving 
 more than a thousand dollars a year to missions alone and 
 several hundred for education. Our church is divided into 
 missionary and educational groups working the year around. 
 We also have a training-school running day and night, reach- 
 ing the needs of the people, men and women. We have three 
 financial secretaries and one regular church clerk, besides a 
 secretary for each auxiliary. We have over fifty professional 
 men in the church, including five attorneys, eight physicians, 
 four pharmacists, three real estate men, nine business men and 
 others, all of whom have united with Olivet save two during 
 my pastorate. We have performed two hundred and forty- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER ^55 
 
 five marriages, buried two hundred persons, immersed fifteen 
 hundred persons, and our finance has not been less than ten 
 thousand dollars annually for all purposes. Today we have 
 on our sick list ten members. 
 
 Sisters and brethren, Rev. G. E. Duncan, my assistant 
 pastor, deserves much credit for the loyal help he has rendered 
 me in this work of the Lord. There has not been a single 
 thing between him and me in our ten years of acquaintance- 
 ship. Let me thank you, every one separately, and then col- 
 lectively, for the aid you have rendered in the work of the 
 Lord. My entire board of twenty-three officers, save four, 
 have united with the church since I have been your pastor. 
 
 Now, as our great National Baptist Convention with its 
 two million five hundred thousand members is to convene with 
 us September 10, let me urge you to leave no stone unturned 
 for the members' comfort and happiness during their stay 
 among us. " Arise, and let us go hence " (John 14: 31). 
 
 Thanking you for the joy you added to my family, and 
 
 praying the blessing of God upon you, your homes, and your 
 
 friends, I beg to remain 
 
 Yours in Him, „ T _ 
 
 E. J. Fisher. 
 
 In this same month the Rev. C. H. Young, of At- 
 lanta, Georgia, conducted a revival for him in which 
 there were many converted. The anniversary occa- 
 sion was also the scene of rejoicing over souls as well 
 as other blessings that God had given to the church. 
 
 Doctor Fisher was fast breaking under incessant 
 labors. The winters were cold and dreary, but the 
 pastor of Olivet left his home walking over ice and 
 through snow to church. The wintry blasts of snow 
 coated his garments a sparkling white, numbed his grip 
 M 
 
156 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 on the crutches, and decorated his face with frozen 
 mixtures of breath and snow. With cloth hat pulled 
 down over his ears, with ulster buckled around a muf- 
 fled neck, and with heavy boot, the minister plied his 
 way religiously from his warm house. During his 
 twelve years at Olivet there were not a score of meet- 
 ings, concerts, entertainments, or worshipful service in 
 which he was not present at least a part of the time un- 
 less hindered by sickness or absence from the city. 
 
 This constant strain was severe upon his physical 
 body, but it shows the perpetual care required of a 
 good shepherd for his sheep. The day of the minis- 
 terial consumer who sleeps all night and half the day 
 and rests the other half is fast passing. Probably the 
 time will come, as it should, when along with the re- 
 ports of the different workers of churches will come a 
 report from the minister stating the amount of his activi- 
 ties. Such a report should show an equal distribution 
 of hours spent in work, recreation, and rest, with an 
 allowance of one day in seven. In the case of the 
 Negro shepherd, he gets more of his share of work and 
 little or no recreation and rest. 
 
 Perhaps no Negro minister of the gospel ever toiled 
 harder, was opposed more, complained less, or accom- 
 plished more. 
 
 Some think there may have been ground for some of 
 the opposition. Men will not submit tamely to iron- 
 handed rule. On the other hand, human nature is so 
 normally fallible that where men have equality of op- 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 157 
 
 portunity and office, if one person succeeds markedly 
 above the other, jealousy and its sequel, opposition, 
 come from many, if for no other reason than to attract 
 attention from their own incapabilities. 
 
 If Doctor Fisher's ambition was to be the leader of 
 the Baptist forces in the Gateway to the Middle West, 
 indeed it was a laudable one, the logical result of his 
 position as pastor of the mother church. He fought a 
 victorious fight against all who dared usurp his pre- 
 rogatives. He had built his work with a will indomi- 
 table. He never pastored a split, and no church dared 
 split under him. He was pastor of his church, so he 
 said, " from the pulpit to the backdoor and to the 
 grave-yard." But he would rend any Association or 
 Convention if he believed his views to be right, and 
 that such a course would advance God's kingdom. 
 
 Conspiracies were formed by many to hurt the in- 
 fluence of Olivet, and even a " Union " was organ- 
 ized to pass on the eligibility of churches to receive aid 
 from the white Baptists. This " Union " tried to elimi- 
 nate him and Olivet as factors of power with white 
 Baptists. However, the white brethren considering 
 Olivet stronger than the combined churches of the 
 " Union " would follow no policy that did not include 
 Olivet. The organization remained in existence two 
 years, but did not succeed. 
 
 Doctor Fisher never lost a battle, but the energy 
 used in fighting could have been conserved if men had 
 taken time to understand him. The thing that told 
 
158 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 most on his life was the opposition of those men who 
 had lived on his bounty. He continued to labor in his 
 course despite the accumulation of every form of perse- 
 cution. Venturing on the Providence of God in mak- 
 ing an experiment in the Northwest at a time when the 
 results were problematical, he had been useful in con- 
 verting thousands to Christ. He is not permitted to 
 witness the triumph of the system which he did so much 
 to inaugurate, but he did see that even churches which 
 did not wish to cooperate with him, relied in a large 
 measure upon his methods for their increase in power 
 and usefulness. When the memory of his antagonists 
 will be forgotten or remembered, chiefly, because of 
 their antagonism to him, the church with which his 
 name and life are associated will continue to operate 
 as a potent factor in hastening the latter-day glories 
 of the Lord. This is not an idle prophecy. It is be- 
 ing fulfilled today. The Olivet Baptist Church stands 
 today the most vital moral force in the Negro race and 
 the largest Protestant church in the world, with the 
 Rev. Dr. Lacey Kirk Williams, pastor, used mightily 
 by God. 
 
 Ah! But the story might have been different and 
 the end might have come sooner had it not been for 
 Pastor Fisher's angelic wife. She was expected to re- 
 tail to her husband grievances of some weakling too 
 prudent to bring his trouble directly to the pastor, but 
 she was too thoughtful to do that. She knew full well 
 the agonies of suffering her husband had to endure 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 159 
 
 without heaping further burdens on him. His restless 
 nights told of his burdens and of the tales of weal and 
 woe poured into his soul; of the mournful recital of 
 family troubles; of the ingratitude of children recalled 
 from hazy memories ; and of personal grievances made 
 out of trivialities. " You have plenty," wrote a promi- 
 nent clubwoman, dissatisfied because Pastor Fisher 
 did not announce her business, 
 
 and should remember that you get a great deal of it by 
 grinding it out of humanity. . . You happen to strike one that 
 does not have to live on the unfortunates, and you are not 
 capable of advertising me either. . . I have lived in Chicago 
 twenty-three years, and succeeded in business and have made 
 openings through our business for others to succeed in the same 
 line. What have you done? 
 
 The faithful wife read scores of other letters of abuse 
 and disappointment. But who made his life as happy 
 as it was? The mistress of the manse! Who kept 
 Doctor Fisher from resigning and made him resigned? 
 Who wiped away the frowns of fortune, and who with 
 winsome kiss coaxed smiles to his ebony cheeks? Mis- 
 tress of the manse, " Mary in the house of God, a 
 Martha in her own," mother, woman, let Ruskin sing 
 of you! " Such helpmeets you are that no man can 
 stand without that help nor labor in his own strength." 
 The work night and day was wearing Doctor Fisher 
 out. On the fourth of January his friend, Dr. S. L. 
 M. Francis, pastor of the Providence Baptist Church 
 and Dean of the Chicago Religious Seminary, died. 
 
160 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 The result of his death on Doctor Fisher can hardly be 
 estimated. He took a much needed trip for rest the 
 middle of March, but whenever he was known to be 
 in a town he was marshalled into service. While in 
 Cincinnati for rest his life-long friend, the Rev. Samuel 
 S. Sisson, compelled him to preach. He carried on a 
 revival for Mr. Sisson, but the death of one of his 
 stanch workers necessitated his coming home. 
 
 .. . XVT . f Cincinnati, March 29, 1915. 
 
 My dear Wife: 
 
 I am still suffering. I hope you are all well. I will leave 
 
 for home tomorrow and reach there, D. V., Wednesday at 7 
 
 a. m. Give my love to the children. Sam sends love to all. 
 
 He is doing well here. I hope everything goes well. I am ever 
 
 Your husband, 
 
 E. J. Fisher. 
 
 His friends and family saw the strain, but Doctor 
 Fisher would not stop. He had an inexhaustible fund 
 of nervous energy. His calmness and serenity of mind 
 had a most beneficial effect in keeping him up so long. 
 He could not rest. Some were storming his ship with 
 blasts of opposition. He must master his fate, captain 
 his soul, and safely anchor in calm waters. Even 
 though a Brutus unsheathed his blade and struck a 
 ghastly wound he yielded not. With double determi- 
 nation he set out to do nobler and grander works for 
 Christ. 
 
 The first Sunday in April was Easter. He took 
 his accustomed place, but was barely able to finish his 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER ]6± 
 
 message. He rested Monday. Tuesday he felt re- 
 vived and went to the Pekin Theater in an effort to 
 put Mr. Oscar DePriest over as the first Negro alder- 
 man in Chicago, and Mr. DePriest was elected. It 
 is pleasant, as well as beautifully characteristic of 
 Doctor Fisher, to recall that the illness threatening his 
 life did not diminish the endeavors so nobly begun in 
 behalf of others. In the course of his address he 
 swooned ; he was taken to a near-by drug-store where 
 he regained consciousness. 
 
 Wednesday, his wife thought it best to send him to 
 Provident Hospital for a rest. Mr. Fisher for two 
 weeks seemed to be getting along finely, and his phy- 
 sician, Dr. U. G. Daily, allowed him to come home. 
 He remained indoors for two or three days, improving 
 splendidly. 
 
 The news of the illness of Doctor Fisher spread like 
 a mighty conflagration to every corner of his acquain- 
 
 tanceshi P' April 26, 1915. 
 
 On receiving the sad intelligence of your illness, the Baptist 
 Ministerial Alliance of the City of Indianapolis, Indiana, by 
 unanimous vote in assembly, authorized the secretary to write 
 you and family this letter in which it does hereby express the 
 heartfelt sympathy of the entire brotherhood of the City of In- 
 dianapolis and the State of Indiana at large. . . 
 
 We are praying, and have prayed, if it is the will of God, 
 
 that you may immediately recover and once more be able to 
 
 reoccupy your pulpit. 
 
 Rev. G. L. LILLIARD, D. D., Pres. 
 
 Rev. F. L. Morris, A. B., Sec. 
 
162 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 Des Moines, Iowa, April 25, 1915. 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 I am sorry to hear that you are sick, and I hope that you are 
 so much better now as to be well on the road to recovery. 
 
 I suppose this accounts for my not hearing anything further 
 from you regarding the program for the Western Convention. 
 With best wishes, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 T. L. Griffith. 
 
 Oklahoma City, May 17, 1915. 
 
 My dear Friend and Brother: 
 
 Some weeks ago I was advised that you were ill but that 
 you would be up and out shortly. I take it that you are now 
 again at home and sufficiently convalescent to receive mail from 
 your friends and those who always wish you well. 
 
 H. Harrison. 
 
 Despite the seeming improvement of Doctor Fisher, 
 it was not quite clear to the household that he could get 
 the desired rest in Chicago. It seemed that a trip to 
 Indiana would put him in good order. Accordingly 
 he went to Gary to spend a while at the home of Rev. 
 Mr. Hawkins, for whom he had lifted the first spade 
 of dirt for a church building. After two weeks he 
 came home showing only a few signs of any sickness. 
 Many were the duties that should have come to his 
 attention during the interim. 
 
 The Lincoln Jubilee, celebrating the Half-century 
 Anniversary of Negro Freedom, was soon to take 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 163 
 
 place at Chicago, and he was one of the five men ap- 
 pointed on the Commission by the Mayor of Chicago 
 to represent the city. The president of the celebration, 
 Bishop Fallows, wrote him on May 7 : 
 
 Dear Doctor Fisher: 
 
 I am glad to know that you are gaining rapidly every day. 
 I am free to say that I have been sounding your praise at home 
 and abroad as one of the most useful preachers and leaders of 
 your race. 
 
 When I think of the past and the struggles of your early life 
 amid the conditions in which you were placed, and the present 
 exalted position you occupy today, I think we all ought to say, 
 " What hath God wrought." 
 
 As the secretary has informed you, the final preparation for 
 the convention cannot be done until we can have your physical 
 cooperation. You know the tremendous importance of this 
 work. We are therefore hoping that your recovery will be 
 speedy and complete, and that the work will go forward to a 
 complete success. 
 
 With best wishes, believe me, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Samuel Fallows, President. 
 
 In like manner the controversy of the National Bap- 
 tist Publishing House and the property holdings de- 
 pended very largely upon his maneuvers. The Hon. 
 William Harrison, attorney for the Convention, writes, 
 May 1 7, from Oklahoma City : 
 
 Everything has stopped and awaits your return to the wheel 
 and your wise guidance and your almost unerring counsel. My 
 
164 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 entire family is solicitous about you and yours, and all fer- 
 vently pray for your entire recovery and your invaluable ser- 
 vice for many revolving years yet. 
 
 Indiana seemed just the place for recuperation. He 
 liked the region so well that he went back again. 
 Seemingly he was recovering from the mental strain of 
 work. Telephone calls and letters brought messages 
 of a cheering vein. Unfortunately the message was 
 wired to Gary that Deacon Peter Wimby had passed 
 away and that the funeral had taken place. Brother 
 Wimby had been Doctor Fisher's companion ever 
 since he came to Chicago. Deacon Wimby was a 
 strong character, one of the founders of the Bethlehem 
 Association, a pillar in Olivet for years and its trea- 
 surer. The reaction caused Mr. Fisher a backset. 
 
 Doctor Fisher stayed a week longer in Gary, and 
 after a few days or so his wife received a note bearing 
 the statement that he was feeling fairly well and that 
 he would be home shortly. How well he was could 
 not be discerned from the letter ; and almost before the 
 note was in the hands of his wife he came home. His 
 physique was as strong-looking as usual, but his coun- 
 tenance bore the expression of wrinkled care. Mr. 
 Fisher's condition was disclosed only to the intimates 
 of the family and to the officials of the church. The 
 letters from the family to those solicitous for the wel- 
 fare of Doctor Fisher were always full of hope, giving 
 encouragement to others which was not always fully 
 shared by them. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 165 
 
 Students whom he had helped in one way or another 
 were very loyal and proved friends. Mr. Shishuba, a 
 native African, whom the church was helping through 
 Roger Williams University, Nashville, Tennessee, 
 writes : " I have learned from my President, Doctor 
 Townsend, that he found you in bed sick while he was 
 in your city. I am praying for you to get well." 
 
 Probably there was none more deserving of help or 
 who had a greater future for usefulness than the Rev. 
 Mordecai Johnson, then a student in the Rochester 
 Theological Seminary. He had free access to the li- 
 brary of Doctor Fisher and to the rostrum of the 
 church. Time and again was he the speaker at the 
 Sunday services, and often spent his summer vacations 
 in charge of the Olivet congregation. 
 
 Mumford, N. Y., May 21, 1915. 
 Dear Doctor Fisher: 
 
 I have learned that you are ill but trust that now you are 
 on the road to recovery. I pray that you may soon be well and 
 at your work again. . . 
 
 I still remember with gratitude your very kind interest in 
 me. I trust that your interest continues, and that I shall be 
 able to prove myself worthy of it. 
 
 My kindest regards to Mrs. Fisher and to your sons and 
 daughters, all of whom I hope are well. 
 
 Again let me express the hope that God may help you to 
 health and renewed usefulness. 
 
 Your younger brother in Christ, 
 
 Mordecai W. Johnson. 
 
166 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 For two or three days Pastor Fisher was able to 
 walk around in the house and read, but he was not 
 able to touch any of the duties of his pastorate. He 
 did not realize his condition, but the presence of so 
 many doctors and the many visitors that thronged to 
 see him indicated that his sickness was not of the ordi- 
 nary kind. 
 
 He was able to be up so long as he could manipu- 
 late his crutches. But about the middle of May his 
 strength left him, and he did not sit up as was his 
 custom. Helpless, weak, unable to talk plainly, he 
 remained in his room from the middle of May on. His 
 condition was growing worse each day. The family 
 at home was very anxious and wrote to the youngest 
 boy (the author of this volume), then in Morehouse 
 College : " We wrote you that your papa had a ner- 
 vous breakdown and at first did not know how serious, 
 but he is getting worse all the time; we want you to 
 come and see him before it is too late." 
 
 The lad easily imagined the peril of his father by 
 the letter. Immediately leaving college he reached 
 Chicago in time to receive an unforgetable benediction. 
 In a voice hardly distinguishable and with words 
 barely understandable, with hand in hand and hearts 
 of both throbbing rapidly, this question was under- 
 stood : 
 
 " Son, how did you do in college? " 
 
 " I did my best. I led my class and school and re- 
 ceived the first scholarship for next year." 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 167 
 
 The look of favor was benign. A Sabbath stillness 
 reigned. After a few minutes he uttered as best as he 
 could his benediction. 
 
 With tears in his eyes he said, " God bless you, I 
 knew you would do it." But he had not finished; he 
 was trying to utter more. Words could be distin- 
 guished to say : " You asked me before you left what 
 I wanted you to be. May God help you to be a man. 
 If you fail me I am lost." 
 
 The tired traveler turned over to rest. He tried 
 to hide from sight his realization of the fact that he 
 was fast approaching heaven, his harbor of rest. The 
 family was borne down because of the critical condi- 
 tion of the head of the house. Added to this Mrs. 
 Fisher received the sad intelligence from her sister in 
 La Grange, Georgia, that her mother had passed. 
 About a week later Miles got his leg broken in an 
 athletic contest. The burden on the heart of Mrs. 
 Fisher was lightened by the kind assistance of friends 
 who showed in a large way their love for the family. 
 
 There is a comfort in the strength of love; 
 'Twill make a thing endurable, which else 
 Would overset the brain or break the heart. 
 
 It was a fact that even if the recovery of Doctor 
 Fisher was a certainty, some time would be needed for 
 rest. Thereupon the Olivet Church and the family 
 requested all correspondence for the forthcoming Na- 
 tional Baptist Convention be directed to the Rev. I. 
 
168 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 A. Thomas, of Evanston, Illinois. Dr. E. C. Morris, 
 President of the Convention, endorsed this suggestion 
 in a letter to the family and enclosed the following 
 note: 
 
 Helena, Ark., June 5, 1915. 
 My dear Doctor Fisher: 
 
 This leaves me well and I hope you are much improved. 
 All matters are moving smoothly now, and we are planning 
 for a great time in your city in September. 
 
 You know that I am always glad to hear from you and 
 when you are better you may write. 
 
 Very truly, your friend, 
 
 E. C. Morris. 
 
 The cheerful tone of the following four extracts 
 gave greater encouragement to the family than was 
 warranted by the facts. President John Hope, of 
 Morehouse College, wished to be remembered kindly 
 to Doctor Fisher. Writing to his wife, he says, " I am 
 sure if he were well, he would be in Georgia this week 
 with the great Baptist host which I hope will have a 
 harmonious union." 
 
 Augusta, Georgia, June 22, 1915. 
 My dear Doctor: 
 
 Having heard of your illness I am writing to express my 
 sincere wish and prayer for your complete and speedy recovery 
 to health. Our entire convention (General Missionary and 
 Educational Convention of Georgia) at Macon, Ga., a few 
 days ago, passed resolutions of sympathy and had special 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER Jj69 
 
 prayer for your recovery. I trust you are being sustained by 
 the promises of Christ, and by the comforting influence of the 
 Holy Spirit in your affliction. 
 
 Remember me most cordially to the members of the family. 
 With best wishes, I am 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 C. T. Walker. 
 
 His sister, Sarah, says : " The people are so anxious 
 about him, both white and colored. I was there Satur- 
 day to Doctor Ridley's (the younger). They desire 
 to see him." 
 
 Dr. S. J. Williams, associated with him for many 
 years in State work and then pastor of the First 
 Church, Cairo, Illinois, wrote: 
 
 I pray for you and your great work, and trust that the Lord 
 will restore you to health. I have asked my church and peo- 
 ple to pray for you and Olivet, for we need you and your 
 good people to help us carry on the work of the Master's 
 kingdom. 
 
 The truth of the condition of Doctor Fisher was 
 that he rested quietly from day to day, but his wrinkled 
 forehead and nervous tension showed that he was in 
 pain and agony. The breath of July, like hot furnace 
 air, added to his discomfort. Specialists were called 
 in, a trained nurse was ministering to him night and 
 day, prescriptions were filled plenteously, but to no 
 avail. However, this did not trouble him, for when his 
 voice was clear as a clarion, and when his muscles re- 
 
170 THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 sponded like bands of steel, with lungs of brass and 
 bowels of copper he had proclaimed that 
 
 those who have laid hold of the hope that is set before us 
 in the gospel have entered " the glory of the immortal life," 
 where 
 
 " O'er all those wide extended plains 
 Shines one eternal day." 
 
 The Spirit in the Word has cheered us during our weary pil- 
 grimage with the promise, " Thine eyes shall . . . behold the 
 land that is very far off." At the grave we can stand beside 
 the dust of our departed friends and think that 
 
 " Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
 Was not spoken of the soul." 
 
 Nay, but the rather, " This corruptible shall put on incorrup- 
 tion, and this mortal shall put on immortality." 
 
 This thought had been a potent factor in all the 
 efforts of Doctor Fisher even before its proclamation 
 by him; and though the doctor, nurse, and prescrip- 
 tions could do him no good, fifty-one years before his 
 case had been diagnosed by the Good Physician, the 
 remedy had been prepared in the pharmacy of heaven 
 by that same hand that had created earth and every 
 living thing, and the " balm of Gilead " had been ap- 
 plied to his heart by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 He continued through the days of July in a state of 
 consciousness. The monotony of the days was broken 
 by the songs, " Jesus is All the World to Me " and 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER \T\_ 
 
 " I Am Happy in Him," by his daughters. No one 
 was allowed to see him. 
 
 The curtain of death which was occasionally lifted 
 during the two months and a half of confinement was 
 drawing closer and closer. As he sank into delirium 
 that last day of July, with a smile of " Well done," he 
 seemed transported with the most ardent impatience to 
 join the society of saints redeemed through his own in- 
 strumentality. The dark shadow which for hours had 
 been hanging came nearer; the sun was slanting her 
 golden rays to the West as a symbol of ended day. 
 That dear life was hanging low, and at three hours 
 and a quarter past the noon life ended here but began 
 there. 
 
 The funeral services, simple but impressive, were the 
 fitting sequel of the life lived. Flowers gathered from 
 many climes, telegrams and letters of sympathy from 
 rich and poor, lay and clergy, white and black, were 
 only the sad and pronounced echoes of an earthly loss 
 and heavenly gain. The words of the apostle Paul, 
 " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith," were used by the Rev. Dr. C. 
 T. Walker as a fitting tribute to this soldier of the 
 Cross. The multitude that had waited all night at 
 the church, the prayers and hymns that wailed plain- 
 tively even to heaven, the tributes paid by men promi- 
 nent in every walk of life, seemed to chant a refrain, 
 ' Yes, soldier, you have fought a good fight and kept 
 the faith." The funeral procession left lonely the 
 N 
 
172 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 hearts of the people. A short committal by " Father " 
 Duncan, a brief prayer to the Maker of men, forever 
 ended the earth-voyage of the weary mariner. His 
 soul had entered heaven's port — " Safe home at last." 
 The log-book of his life will be fully read when the 
 books are opened before the Great White Throne. 
 
 FINIS 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH 
 
 1915-1922 
 
OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH 
 1915-1922 
 
 Elijah John Fisher's work was done but, like John 
 Brown, " his soul goes marching on." One of the 
 finest tributes that can be paid to his labors, is that for 
 nearly a year after his decease the work of Olivet con- 
 tinued in harmony, as peaceful and efficient as during 
 his own lifetime. Even with empires, the death of a 
 monarch is sometimes the occasion for disruption, but 
 not so with the Olivet Church. It strengthened its 
 position, adding over four hundred members during the 
 year. 
 
 Undoubtedly one factor which tended to preserve 
 the unity of the church was the faithful, untiring, ener- 
 getic work done by the late minister's daughter, Miss 
 S. Mattie Fisher, now one of the church missionaries 
 under appointment of the Woman's American Baptist 
 Home Mission Society. If it is not too anticipatory, it 
 is timely to remark that the present pastor has shown a 
 kindly interest in Doctor Fisher's family in many ways. 
 For example, he was largely instrumental in having a 
 monument to the memory of the late Doctor Fisher 
 placed in Mount Forest Cemetery, and favors the 
 present monthly allowance of the church to the late 
 minister's widow. 
 
 175 
 
_176 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 If a division in the church was possible, the psycho- 
 logical background was there in the schism which 
 resulted in the formation of the National Baptist Con- 
 vention (incorporated), led by Dr. E. C. Morris, and 
 the National Baptist Convention (unincorporated), 
 led by Dr. R. H. Boyd, in the annual meeting in 
 Chicago in September, 1915. Olivet had invited the 
 Convention to be her guest and made a great effort to 
 entertain it, but since the only man in the denomination 
 that could have averted a schism had passed, a division 
 was inevitable. 
 
 This event did not, however, stop the work of the 
 church so successfully managed by Chairman Griffin 
 and his Official Board and " Father " Duncan, the 
 devout assistant pastor, long past " three-score years 
 and ten." It rather stimulated the church to outlive 
 the event that was unfortunate for the denomination, 
 and that put the Baptists of Chicago in an embarrass- 
 ing position. 
 
 The church then liquidated every sign of debt and 
 called the Rev. Lacey Kirk Williams, D. D., of 
 Fort Worth, Texas, to lead her. The church at that 
 time had over four thousand members, owning a meet- 
 ing-house valued at $85,000, and operating three mis- 
 sion stations in needy parts of the city. Besides this, 
 the church had eight paid workers, twenty-six depart- 
 ments, and two hundred and sixty officers. The con- 
 gregation believed, and rightly too, that Doctor Wil- 
 liams could keep the Olivet machine oiled and that he 
 
LACEY KIRK WILLIAMS, D. D. 
 Pastor, Olivet Baptist Church, Chicago 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 177 
 
 had inventive genius to add more parts to the machine 
 that Jesse F. Boulden, Richard De Baptiste, Henry 
 Harrison White, John Francis Thomas, and Elijah 
 John Fisher had tried in various ways to bring to 
 perfection. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Williams was the first college- and semi- 
 nary-trained man Olivet ever had ; he was a graduate 
 of Arkansas Baptist College with the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts, and of the theological course of 
 Bishop College, and was honored by Selma University 
 with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. For over 
 twenty years he had been the successful pastor of many 
 churches in the larger cities of Texas ; he had built five 
 houses of worship, the last of which, the Mount 
 Gilead, of Fort Worth, cost $90,000. Doctor Wil- 
 liams also served as president of the Baptist Missionary 
 and Educational Convention of Texas for twelve 
 years. This organization had espoused the cause of 
 The American Baptist Home Mission Society in a 
 way similar to that of the General Missionary and Edu- 
 cational Convention of Georgia mentioned in Chapter 
 III, and it was expected that the pastor-elect would 
 sustain relations between the Olivet Church and the 
 white Baptists of Chicago. Lacey Kirk Williams, the 
 seventh pastor 1 of the Olivet Baptist Church, was in- 
 
 1 Jesse F. Boulden was the first pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church, 
 but it is known that the organization had form before his time. A Negro 
 Baptist church existed in Chicago some time before October, 1848, but 
 it was not until April, 1853, that the Rev. Robert J. Robinson came from 
 Alton, Illinois, and organized the Zoar Baptist Church, of eleven mem- 
 
US THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 deed the man who many hoped would also unite the 
 Negro Baptists of Chicago. 
 
 In addition to the sad intelligence that the Baptist 
 constituency of Chicago was estranged, one of the first 
 things that came to the attention of Pastor Williams 
 was the fact that Negroes were migrating to Chicago 
 so fast that the city threatened in a short time to rival 
 the Negro centers of the South. The emigration of 
 the foreign element and the almost stoppage of immi- 
 gration impaired the war industries of the North. The 
 industries sent a call to the South for labor, and 
 Negroes seeking adventure and economic, educational, 
 social, and political advantages responded. 
 
 When Olivet saw that Negroes were coming North, 
 and coming to stay, and that many of the poorer emi- 
 grants had no idea what city life was like or who 
 would receive them or where they would stay, she was 
 
 bers. The Rev. H. H. Hawkins, of Chatham, Canada, West, the first 
 permanent pastor, served the church from 1855- to 1858. The church 
 was next pastored for seven months by the Rev. David G. Lett. In 
 March, 1860, about forty members withdrew and formed the Mount 
 Zion Baptist Church; Rev. Mr. Boulden, pastor. The Zoar Church, 
 after the secession, probably had for her pastor Rev. Mr. Tansbury, who 
 after remaining a short time went back to Canada. After this, through 
 the influence of the Rev. Jesse F. Boulden, the two bodies were re- 
 united into the Olivet Baptist Church, December 22, 1861. The pastors 
 of the Olivet Baptist Church have been: Jesse F. Boulden (1861-1863); 
 Richard De Baptiste. D. D. (1863-1882); James Alfred Dunn Podd 
 (1882-1883); Henry Harrison White (1883-1886); John Francis 
 Thomas, D. D. (1887-1902) ; Elijah John Fisher. D. D., LL. D. (1903- 
 1915), and Lacey Kirk Williams, A. B., D. D. (1916-). For a detailed 
 account see the author's " The History of the Olivet Baptist Church of 
 Chicago" (A. M. thesis, The University of Chicago). 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 179 
 
 especially active in securing homes and employment 
 through her information and employment bureau about 
 which many migrants had heard through an advertise- 
 ment carried in the columns of one of the Negro week- 
 lies. Hundreds of prospective migrants sent letters to 
 " Oliver," " Ovlivet," or Olivet for information. 
 Some wrote for passes; others simply said, " Meet me 
 at the station." One wanted " a suitcase to put his 
 things in." The following letter from Hawkinsville, 
 Georgia, tells another pathetic story : 
 
 March the 26— 1917. 
 
 My Dear frends i have seem yur in Striction of members of 
 the race coming from the South We will pree shade yu offer 
 in coming north We all are not able to come But our dezire 
 is to come Heep of us ant got the money to come with Some 
 of the peope of the race are unable to go they Kneed help to 
 come We wants to come We think yu peope for help We 
 are Poor class of Peope and wants help to come with and 
 think yu all Please to help we poor class of the race if we can 
 get off as Soon as we can get off for times is getting Bad hear 
 we wants to leve hear Befor we cant leve So give my love 
 to all howdy and good Bye Just a frend rite soon as possible 
 to 
 
 Scores of these immigrants united with the Olivet 
 Church each Sunday. Other churches were strength- 
 ened too; the membership of five churches was in- 
 creased to nearly five thousand, but the phenomenal 
 increase of Olivet was the direct result of her wide 
 
]80 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 popularity and the preparation of her pastor and 
 members for the incoming thousands. 
 
 The increase of the Olivet membership was so large 
 that the main auditorium seating about eighteen hun- 
 dred, the lecture-room holding about eight hundred 
 more, and the Dearborn Street Annex which had been 
 used for a kitchen and dining-room, were all used for 
 worship, and yet there were hundreds turned away. 
 Another building opposite the church on Twenty- 
 seventh Street was secured to be used as a kitchen and 
 dining-room, and the two upper stories fitted up for a 
 Working Men's Home. 
 
 It was evident that Olivet needed more room. 
 When the First Baptist Church desired to sell her 
 meeting-house, Olivet was asked to buy the property. 
 True enough the building would provide accomodation 
 for about three thousand persons, 2 but Pastor Williams 
 was not anxious to take over the property. The church 
 even voted not to buy it. It was the ambition of Doc- 
 tor Williams to build a tabernacle in Chicago, and as 
 a result he proposed to the Baptist Executive Council 
 of Chicago that if some of the smaller congregations 
 would unite and take over the property, Olivet would 
 contribute $3,000 to the same. The reply was that 
 no arrangements could be agreed upon with any Negro 
 Baptist organization except Olivet. Whereupon the 
 
 2 The First Church edifice was designed by architects Wilcox and 
 Miller to seat in the main auditorium, 1,500; in the Sunday school room, 
 900; and in the lecture- room, 530. — "The Standard," October 29, 1874. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 1SJ_ 
 
 church voted to buy the property for $85,000, the 
 price offered by a Methodist organization. The Bap- 
 tist Executive Council gave the church $15,000 of the 
 amount. This act of Olivet and her pastor put the 
 Baptists far in the lead of any other denomination in 
 Chicago, set a widely copied precedent for the buying 
 of church property, reopened relations between the 
 v/hite and colored Baptists of Chicago, and virtually 
 vindicated the position of the late pastor in respect to 
 the " Union " mentioned in the previous chapter. 
 
 The Second Sunday in September, 1918, was the 
 day the First Church was turned over to the Olivet 
 congregation. It was an unforgetable day when the 
 membership met in the old church home, formed a line 
 of march that paraded out State Street to Thirty- 
 first Street, and thence east to South Park Avenue, 
 singing as they went, " Onward, Christian Soldiers." 
 
 The gray stone building, with its gothic towers, one 
 rising one hundred and sixty feet, its sides divided with 
 buttresses and large stained- and cut-glass windows, 
 made the most pretentious Baptist meeting-house then 
 in the city. Its gallery amphitheater and semicircular 
 black walnut pews, with incised holly panels and tops 
 and arms veneered with root ash, were just part of the 
 interior arrangements which made the total initial cost 
 of the building $111,000. Now the keys of that 
 grand, historic building were turned over to Olivet. 
 But Olivet had been in the minds of the people that 
 worshiped there ever since the building of the edifice. 
 
^82 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 At the laying of the corner-stone, Saturday afternoon, 
 June 5, 1 875, the pastor of Olivet, the Rev. Richard 
 De Baptiste, made a short address along with other 
 city ministers. Furthermore, Dr. W. W. Everts, 
 pastor of the First Church, spoke wiser than he knew 
 at the dedication in April, 1876, when he preached 
 from Genesis 35:3: " And let us arise, and go up to 
 Bethel ; and I will make there an altar unto God, who 
 answered me in the day of my distress, and was with 
 me in the way which I went." Nor did the evening 
 message of the Rev. J. N. Murdock, D. D., of Bos- 
 ton, fall short of the program of world vision of the 
 First Church or of Olivet when he used Psalm 67 : 1 , 
 2 as a text, saying : " God be merciful unto us, and 
 bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. 
 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving 
 health among all nations." 
 
 Olivet, from the first, accepted the earthly challenge 
 of the modern message. In order to know the needs 
 of the field, a religious survery, extending over several 
 months, was begun. The worker would enter each 
 home with the statement : 
 
 We are making a survey of the district in order to find our 
 people, because we wish to establish for them a community 
 center in the church at Thirty-first Street and South Park 
 Avenue. In the interest of the work we are making a house- 
 to-house visit to all the people of the community, asking the 
 names of the adults in the house, their Christian connection, 
 their occupation, how long they have been in the city, and the 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 183 
 
 number, ages, and sex of their children. In this center we have 
 a kindergarten, information, and free employment bureau, clubs 
 for boys and girls, meetings for mothers and fathers, and many 
 other helpful organizations. Will you give us this information ? 
 
 In this way over five thousand homes were reached, 
 and direct contact between the church and community 
 was made vital. From such a survey it is easy to see 
 how in four years 62,000 visits were made to sick and 
 needy persons, and 986 of them aided. 
 
 In patriotic effort Olivet was no less responsive. She 
 paid $5,000 cash for Liberty Bonds of the second se- 
 ries. More than one thousand of her members sub- 
 scribed for Liberty Bonds of the third series. More- 
 over, Pastor Williams was given an indefinite leave of 
 absence for religious work in Camp Grant. The 
 church was open at all times as a war center, encourag- 
 ing patriotic addresses and exercises, entertaining sol- 
 diers, and housing the Red Cross Committee. Olivet 
 donated thousands of pieces of religious literature to 
 soldiers at Camps Grant and Dodge, and a communion 
 set to the latter training-station. 
 
 As the Olivet Church contributed her share in mak- 
 ing the war successful, so the war inspired her to do big 
 tasks. For example, in the course of four years, the 
 total collected and spent for community service, church 
 improvement, education, evangelism, and missions 
 amounted to $ 1 4 1 ,322.36. The greatest financial feat 
 accomplished by any known congregation of color was 
 staged on August 29, 1920, at which time over 
 
184 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 $1 8,000 in cash was laid on the table, making a finan- 
 cial effort of only a few weeks total more than 
 $29,000. This was accomplished through the wise 
 judgment of Pastor Williams, who took advantage of 
 the high labor returns, knowing that Negroes contri- 
 bute seventy-five per cent, more of their wealth for 
 church purposes than does any other race. 
 
 During the Chicago riot the Olivet Baptist Church 
 was the headquarters of the Peace and Protective As- 
 sociation, an organization composed of the leading 
 Negro citizenry, which met daily for thirty or forty 
 days, counseling sanity and peace and giving defense 
 and aid to needy and innocent riot victims. Thus it 
 is evident that Mr. Williams did not only talk of the 
 golden streets of the by and by, but of the dirty, 
 crooked highways and byways of now and here. 
 
 The divine worship of the church is not neglected; 
 every Lord's Day at eleven o'clock in the morning 
 preaching services are held in the main auditorium, the 
 Sunday school room, and the lecture-room of the 
 church. Rev. Mr. Williams is himself a thoughtful, 
 forceful, orthodox, interesting, and emotional preacher. 
 In one sermon he satisfies the intellectual elite, he con- 
 vinces the skeptic, and he electrifies the washerwoman. 
 An extract of his sermon on the " Quest of God " 
 (Gen. 32 : 29) will serve to illustrate his style: 
 
 Philosophers have given much thought to the study of God, 
 and after their searches and researches many gave him the 
 name of First Cause, the Great Unknown. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 185 
 
 Homer called him Zeus, having his permanent abode in 
 Mount Olympus, which trembled when he stamped his feet or 
 nodded his head. The Romans called him Jupiter, Venus, 
 and Mercury, and ascribed to these gods the powers and some 
 of the attributes that we ascribe to our God. The Northmen 
 called him Odin and Thor; the Egyptians, Isis and Osiris, or 
 Typhon ; while other nations gave him other names. Abraham, 
 David, and Moses, when they first saw him called him a man, 
 for they saw him walking and talking, or striving with them as 
 man would with man. When he commanded Moses to go 
 and tell Pharaoh to let his people go, Moses inquired what 
 was his name, for he knew that would be the first question 
 Pharaoh and the children of Israel would ask. And to Moses 
 he said, Tell them my name is, " I AM." A personal, self- 
 existing Being! . . 
 
 Tell me thy name, thou that fillest all space, inhabitest the 
 sea, dwellest in the loneliness of the mountains, soarest up to 
 heaven, and keepest vigil in hell. . . Thou that knowest all, 
 and hast the wisdom of the deep, of the blinking stars, and 
 blinding suns, of rocks and rivers, landscapes and grottoes, I 
 want to know thy name. Thou that has power so that none 
 can hinder thee, so that none can prevail against thee, so that 
 thou askest none for bread, or what course thou wilt pursue; 
 thou that findest the cause and power of thy existence within 
 thyself, that rulest all, that hast never failed in any engage- 
 ment, nor got tired in any undertaking — " Tell me, I pray, thy 
 name." . . Thou, the secret and nameless One of my exis- 
 tence, the Source of my fears, the Object of my hopes and 
 faith, the Inspiration of my life, the one animating and inde- 
 scribable Impulse within me, I hear thy voice when I am alone 
 and in the dark; when none else is there, thou art. I feel thy 
 touch, I have received thy aid; when my own imaginations 
 have failed me, when my resources are exhausted, when I need 
 protection in the crucial moments of my life, when I stand face 
 
_I86 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 to face with emergencies, when I have felt insecure, and tor- 
 menting fears have crept over me, when the attributes of the 
 flesh offer and hold no comfort for me — tell me, Who art thou 
 that comest with the gentleness of the dew and the power of a 
 God and rescuest me? 
 
 It is putting the fact conservatively to state that 
 about thirty-five hundred people throng to hear this 
 preacher each Sunday, and yet hundreds of the mem- 
 bership go to other churches because they can not gain 
 admittance at their own. Since 1916, seventeen hun- 
 dred and ninety-seven persons have been added to the 
 church by baptism. In the fall of 1918 a great re- 
 vival was held, at which time the Rev. S. E. J. Wat- 
 son, D. D., of Topeka, Kansas, but now of the Pil- 
 grim Baptist Church, Chicago, was the preacher. 
 More than eight hundred souls were added to the 
 church. The same year the number of persons re- 
 ceived by Christian experience, letter, and baptism was 
 twenty-six hundred and seventy. At this writing, ap- 
 proximately one out of every fifteen Negro residents 
 of Chicago is a member of the Olivet Baptist Church ; 
 the enrolment is ten thousand and twelve, a group as 
 large as the combined constituency of the ten leading 
 churches of the Chicago Baptist Association, 
 
 The Sunday school has thirty-one hundred pupils 
 enrolled. In addition, there is a children's church 
 which meets each Sunday morning. 
 
 All of the work has been accomplished by Pastor 
 Williams and his assistants: the Rev. George Duncan 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 187 
 
 until he died, March 11, 1918; the Rev. Joseph H. 
 Branham, his successor, a good preacher and a won- 
 derful associate; the Rev. Joseph C. Carroll, and three 
 or four ministerial students from the University of Chi- 
 cago. There are in all, thirty compensated workers 
 and eight hundred and sixty church and departmental 
 officers in charge of fifty-five departments. 
 
 The church owns a lot at Thirty-eighth Street and 
 Prairie Avenue, now used for athletics and summer 
 chautauquas, an automobile bus, costing $2,600, which 
 brings children to and from the kindergarten, old and 
 decrepit members to worship, and gives recreational 
 rides to needy convalescent members, soldiers, and 
 others. The Day Nursery and Working Girls' Home, 
 located at 3144-3146 Vernon Avenue, cost $8,250 
 without equipment. The total property valuation is 
 estimated at $250,000; the income for last year was 
 $89,000. 
 
 The Olivet Baptist Church is a reminder of the 
 capacity of the Negro and a timely rebuttal of the 
 statement that Negroes are incapable of self-govern- 
 ment. The white Baptists of the North have not failed 
 to recognize the ability of Doctor Williams nor to ac- 
 cept the leading position of the Olivet Church. On 
 several occasions Pastor Williams, himself a keen 
 student of the relation of the races, has been asked to 
 speak before white groups. With much ability he has 
 lectured at numerous churches, and before the North- 
 ern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Divinity School 
 O 
 
m THE MASTER'S SLAVE 
 
 of the University of Chicago, the Illinois Baptist State 
 Convention, and the Northern Baptist Convention. 
 His church takes delight in permitting him to serve in 
 this capacity as well as in lending his influence to needy 
 places of the race. He has recently conducted suc- 
 cessful revivals in St. Louis, Kansas City, Peoria, and 
 Omaha. In the last named place, the influence of 
 Olivet is so great that Pastor Botts of the large First 
 Church, designed his meeting-house after the Olivet 
 structure. Olivet would have long since gone to seed 
 had she been self-centered and anti-missionary. She 
 progressed because she performed her duty. Her 
 medical missionary, Dr. Robert M. Sissusa, labors in 
 Liberia, West Coast, Africa ; and, as a matter of fact, 
 throughout all of the Northern territory, from the 
 many struggling churches in Chicago, which Olivet has 
 helped, to the outstanding congregations in the North- 
 west, there is hardly a place where the influence of 
 the Olivet Baptist Church and Pastor Williams has 
 not permeated. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that, in a position so con- 
 spicuous and with a reputation so far-reaching, Doctor 
 Williams has much opposition. Yet he remains unper- 
 turbed though very sensitive to accumulating criticism 
 and hostility which is chiefly political. 
 
 Unlike his predecessor, Doctor Williams tries not 
 to be partisan or to ally himself with any political fac- 
 tion. It is hard at this period of political history to 
 determine with what faction the former pastor would 
 
THE OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH 
 Thirty-first Street and South Park Avenue, Chicago 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 189 
 
 ally himself. We know, however, that his last efforts 
 were spent in support of Mr. De Priest for alderman 
 under the ticket vouched for by the Hon. William 
 Hale Thompson, Mayor of Chicago. Doctor Wil- 
 liams has never attended a political meeting, and it is 
 not certain that he is a party to any faction. Because of 
 this attitude, a newspaper, which many believe is sup- 
 ported by the " organization," continually attacks him 
 and his church. The prime motive for these attacks is 
 to increase the circulation of the paper and to " bring 
 into line " the Olivet Church which has too much in- 
 fluence, they say, not to be controlled by any one 
 faction. 
 
 Then there is another yellow journal whose editor, 
 a candidate for the United States Congress, felt 
 slighted when he was not invited to speak at the chau- 
 tauqua of the church held in the summer of 1919. His 
 animus was further kindled by the fact that Doctor 
 Williams advocated Negroes joining, where possible, 
 the unions of organized labor in preference to the 
 one of the " would-be congressman " which, in addi- 
 tion to other things, could in no wise keep down race 
 friction. 
 
 It does seem that since Doctor Williams is not for 
 the Thompson machine in its entirety, nor for 
 " Parkerism," he is sympathetic with the faction in 
 which Ex-governor Lowden played so conspicuous a 
 part. Probably not because of this altogether, but on 
 account of the ability of Mr. Williams as a leader of 
 
]90 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 men he was named by the Governor as member of the 
 Race Commission during the riot that occurred in 
 Chicago. 
 
 Whatever may be said concerning the opposition 
 that tried hard to estrange the people that met at the 
 two houses of worship, Doctor Williams proved the 
 master of the situation. Afterward the church sold the 
 meeting-house at Twenty-seventh and Dearborn 
 Streets to the Liberty Baptist Church, of which the 
 Rev. D. W. Bowen is pastor. Another result of the 
 opposition is that it strengthened the church and solidi- 
 fied it for work as a religious, political, and social 
 organism. 
 
 With all this, the splendid accomplishments of the 
 church could not have been achieved without sympa- 
 thetic friends and financial aid. The Elizabeth Mc- 
 Cormick Memorial Fund is furnishing help to develop 
 a free clinic for the undeveloped children of the kin- 
 dergarten and day-nursery. The local Red Cross pro- 
 vides two nurses who give regular instruction to classes 
 in nutrition and in the home care of the sick. A cer- 
 tificate is given to those who successfully complete the 
 course. About $18,000 in cash has been contributed 
 by the Baptists, not counting the salaries of the head 
 of the kindergarten and of two of the three church mis- 
 sionaries which are paid by the Woman's American 
 Baptist Home Mission Society. Members of this so- 
 ciety and of The American Baptist Home Mission So- 
 ciety, together with the city ministers, meet in an 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 191_ 
 
 advisory board with Doctor Williams and his workers 
 to plan the activities of this great institutional church. 
 The following is the weekly program of the church : 
 
 Sunday 
 
 6.30 A. M. Sunrise prayer-meeting. 
 9.30 Sunday School. 
 
 10.30 Morning worship; preaching in three places. 
 
 11.30 Children's Church. 
 
 12.00 P. M. Loyal Temperance Legion. 
 
 Lord's Supper each first Sunday. 
 3.30 Missionary program each fourth Sunday. 
 
 Missionary program of the junior society each 
 
 fifth Sunday. 
 Standard Literary Society. 
 5.00 Herald or Cabinet meeting. 
 
 Junior B. Y. P. U. 
 6.00 Senior B. Y. P. U. 
 
 7.45 Evening worship. 
 
 8.30 Ordinance of Baptism each first Sunday. 
 
 Monday 
 
 2.00 P. M. Junior Missionary Society. 
 
 Senior Missionary Society. 
 8.00 Social Service Committee. 
 
 Young Ladies' Cosmopolitan League. 
 
 Ministers and Christian Workers' Bible 
 School. 
 
J92 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 Tuesday 
 7.00 P.M. Boy Scouts. 
 7.30 Young Men's Social Unit, second and fourth 
 
 Tuesdays. 
 7.45 Girls' Community Guild. 
 
 Day-nursery and Community Club, first and 
 
 third Tuesdays. 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union, first 
 
 and third Tuesdays. 
 Sisterhood, second and fourth Tuesdays. 
 Brotherhood, second and fourth Tuesdays. 
 8.00 Ministers and Christian Workers' Bible 
 
 School, Tuesday before the fourth Sunday. 
 
 Wednesday 
 
 7.30 P.M. Circle Meetings— The Pastor's Aid, Wide 
 Awake, Calvary, Queen Esther, Galilee, 
 Helping Hand, Metropolitan, Olivet, Pro- 
 gressive, Providence, Royal, Good Will, 
 Willing Workers, and Victory Circles. 
 
 Thursday 
 
 1 0.00 A. M. Missionary Art and Needle Craft. 
 2.00 P. M. Community Mother's Meeting. 
 7.30 Prayer-meeting. 
 
 Friday 
 
 7.30 P. M. Sunday School Teachers' Meeting. 
 
 Choral Class Rehearsal. 
 8.30 Sunday School Teachers' Training-class and 
 
 Bible School. 
 
 Young Men's Baraca Class. 
 
 Overflow Choir Rehearsal. 
 
ELIJAH JOHN FISHER 193 
 
 Saturday 
 
 2.00 P. M. Industrial Institute. 
 7.30 Choir Rehearsal. 
 
 There are other activities which fill out most of the 
 week-days and sometimes extend into the evenings. 
 The kindergarten is operated every morning except 
 Saturday and Sunday ; the health bureau, day-nursery, 
 and information and free labor bureau every day until 
 evening, and the public library is open until nine 
 o'clock in the evening. Each summer a Daily Vaca- 
 tion Bible School is conducted. In 1920 there were 
 six hundred children enrolled, including French, Jew- 
 ish, Italian, Irish, Cuban, West Indian, and Negro 
 boys and girls. When unemployment was at its 
 height Olivet fed eight hundred, gave free beds to three 
 hundred and eighty, free baths to three hundred and 
 sixteen, and served nineteen thousand free meals. This 
 is the institution that again entertained the National 
 Baptist Convention in September of last year. 
 
 Truly Olivet is a beehive of Christian activity, but 
 donations and means need to be forthcoming if Olivet 
 is to accomplish the task for which many are persuaded 
 to believe God has called her — donations of clothing 
 for the poor and materials for properly maintaining the 
 day-nursery; means for the liquidation of the debt on 
 all the church property; means for more paid workers 
 in the kindergarten, day-nursery, industrial enterprises ; 
 means to direct the play life of boys and girls ; means 
 
]94 THE MASTERS SLAVE 
 
 to expand the vision of young men and young women; 
 means to spread the gospel. For if on the gaily 
 colored ramparts of religious endeavor is to appear the 
 sign by which men conquer, it must be placed there by 
 the same agencies and means by which the lesser forces 
 for right and righteousness triumph — paid workers. 
 
 The past has flown with its sacrifice, its indomitable 
 leader, Elijah John Fisher; the present is here with its 
 hero, Lacey Kirk Williams. What the future holds 
 we know not, but one thing is certain — the denomina- 
 tion will suffer unless there is a common bond of union 
 between the institutions in Chicago. As the dream of 
 Fisher was realized when the Negro Baptists of the 
 North came together, February 15, 1922, and voted 
 to take over the property of the Baptist Missionary 
 Training School of Chicago and operate another 
 school, so let us hope that one of the most useful minis- 
 ters of color in all the world, Lacey Kirk Williams, 
 will unite the latent forces in Chicago to hasten the 
 kingdom of the Lord. 
 
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