Delivered in Allen Temple A. M. E. Church. 19
not a slaveholder in the church, and that a man could not be¬
long to the church and hold slaves, the colored people flocked
to it. The ministers preached against slavery and the institu¬
tion in all of its forms, and told the people how God had deliv¬
ered the children of Israel; and informed them that God would
hear their cries by reason of their bondage. They, on account
of their anti-slavery principles, were the object of hate by the
pro-slavery masses. They often were called, by way of reproach,
"King's niggers," "black abolitionists," etc. But feeling that
their object was the elevation of the race, they were willing to
suffer and bear the reproach for a season, knowing that God
would bring them out safe in the end. As fast as fugitives
from the south came across the river, the members of the church
would hide them away, and convey them to places of safety on
the underground railway to Canada. Thus the good work went
on, and when a free man or woman came from the south, he or
she found an asylum in the little red church on the green.
THE OLD LIME HOUSE.
The next place I find this society is in the old lime house, or
carpenter shop, on Seventh street, east of Broadway. In this
house they worshipped for a number of years. It was two stories
high; the lower part was used for a lime house and the upper
part for a carpenter shop; so some call it the carpenter shop,
and others the lime house. It was both. Sister Charlotte Mc¬
Donald says that she lived up stairs in one room, and a Mr.
Schooly, a school teacher, in the other; but they finally turned
the whole into a church, and stopped the hole in the sides and
put an addition on it, for the congregation continued to increase
by accessions from the free men and women who came to the
city from different parts of the east, and those who came from
the south. The preachers of this church were anti-slavery men,
and they were in sympathy with the congregation, some of whom
had friends in the south. Husbands had left their wives, and
wives their husbands; children without parents were there.
Oh, the broken hearts ! the broken hearts that were in that
congregation! And only one of their own race could bind up
those hearts without pain. Wyle Reynolds, John Boggs, and
Noah Webster would encourage the congregation to trust in
God; while Austin Jones, Jeremiah Miller, and others, gave
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