Subject: INCIDENTS #45 From: ELIZABETH RUSSO Date: November 05, 1998 INCIDENTS AND CHARACTERS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF METHODISM By The Reverend John Elmore DuBois Edited by Elizabeth A. DuBois (c) 1998 DuBois Publishing Co, Simsbury, Connecticut. All rights reserved. FIFTEEN [cont.] In Greensboro, every Sabbath afternoon was devoted to the Negroes, and they enjoyed the preaching of every minister stationed in the place. Indeed, the first talent of the Church, from the earliest days of our organization to the close of the war, ministered to them with an earnest zeal. In the brightest days of the place, when the Southern University was in its glory, and boasted a faculty second to no institution of the kind in our country, its leading members, Drs. Wightman, Wadsworth, and Wills, took pleasure in preaching to, and instructing the Negroes, while the Rev. Urquhart, then a student in the University, now the residing Elder of the District, served them with marked success and ability. Every year we held for them protracted meetings. These were to them seasons of great pleasure and happiness. While they were allowed to give expression to their emotional natures in outbursts of enthusiastic shout and song, they were, nevertheless, restrained from improprieties, and taught to worship God as God, in spirit and in truth. By permissions, they flocked to these meetings in vast crowds. And hundreds of them were converted and joined our branch of the Church, many of whom are to this day faithful and consistent Christians. Every honest man from the North, who had an opportunity of witnessing the religious devotions of the Negro before the war, under our administration, and has enjoyed the same opportunity since the war under the guidance and direction of the Northern Church, must cry out, "Why were the former days better than these?" [To be continued] ==== SCROOTS Mailing List ==== Go To: #, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Main |