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fication in this way, they put their own interpretation upon that
verse of the First Epistle General of John, chap. Ill, verse 9, which
reads:
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed
remaineth in him; and he cannot sin because he is born of God."
Thenceforward they think their souls are absolutely safe, no
matter what they do. As a consequence the thing which they call
religion is a disadvantage to them. It is unnecessary to give facts
in proof of this because the State is full of them. But the follow¬
ing is noteworthy as an indication of what follows such a creed.
It is extracted from the State newspaper, and shows that John Jasper,
an ignorant negro preacher, who is said to have baptized more
negroes in their late revival than any other of their preachers, and
who, I learn, has more credit with his race than any preacher of
the eighteen colored churches in this city (12 Baptist, 3 Methodist,
2 Episcopal and 1 Catholic)—claims to predict events, not by dreams,
but as a direct revelation from the Almighty; whose actual presence
is sensibly felt by him. When interviewed by a reporter about
certain predictions he replied:
(The phraseology here is the reporter's). " I am near to God and
it is through inspiration these things are made known to me. * * *
I don't know a better way to illustrate and make myself understood
than by giving an illustration; say there are two persons seated by
a hot fire, one is very near the grate, the other remote. The one
who is near feels the heat very perceptibly; it burns him. While
the other, who is remote from the fire, sees and knows that his friend
is feeling the effect of the fire, but he himself does not. And that is
my experience of inspiration. I can feel the inspiration of the Lord
in me, and by that I am able to forsee what is going to take place."—
State, June 11,1889.
Does not this have a relish in it of the present extravagance of
the negroes in Liberty county, and other places in Georgia and
Alabama, of which we read every day? Does it not smack of
Havti ? Above all does it not remind us of Nat. Turner, who believed
himself chosen of the Lord to lead his people to freedom? "For
a long time," says Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
" he claimed to have heard voices in the air and to have seen signs
in the sky Portents were written on the falling leaves of the woods,
and in spots of blood upon the corn in the fields to inform him of
his divine mission. In his Bible, which he knew by heart, he found
prophecies of the great work he was called upon to do. He was
regarded as having unusual mental power and resources." If
brooding over his servile condition inspired him to the Southampton
massacre, what may not the exultation of success under Republican
auspices inspire in the heart of some negro "of unusual mental power
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