The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  CHAPTER XIX.

  Public Effort—Excommunication

  From this time the opposition to my life work commenced, instigated by the minister, Mr. Beman.

  Many in the church were anxious to have me preach in the hall, where our meetings were held at that time, and were not a little astonished at the minister’s cool treatment of me. At length two of the trustees got some of the elder sisters to call on the minister and ask him to let me preach. His answer was: “No; she can’t preach her holiness stuff here, and I am astonished that you should ask it of me.” The sisters said he seemed to be in quite a rage, although he said he was not angry.

  There being no meeting of the society on Monday evening, a brother in the church opened his house to me, that I might preach, which displeased Mr. Beman very much. He appointed a committee to wait upon the brother and sister who had opened their doors to me, to tell them they must not allow any more meetings of that kind, and that they must abide by the rules of the church, making them believe they would be excommunicated if they disobeyed him. I happened to be present at this interview, and the committee remonstrated with me for the course I had taken. I told them my business was with the Lord, and wherever I found a door opened intended to go in and work for my Master.

  There was another meeting appointed at the same place, which I, of course, attended; after which the meetings were stopped for that time, though I held many more there after these people had withdrawn from Mr. Beman’s church.

  I then held meetings in my own house; whereas the minister told the members that if they attended them he would deal with them, for they were breaking the rules of the church. When he found that I continued the meetings, and that the Lord was blessing my feeble efforts, he sent a committee of two to ask me if I considered myself a member of his church. I told them I did, and should continue to do so until I had done something worthy of dismembership.

  At this, Mr. Beman sent another committee with a note, asking me to meet him with the committee, which I did. He asked me a number of questions, nearly all of which I have forgotten.

  One, however, I do remember: he asked if I was willing to comply with the rules of the discipline. To this I answered: “Not if the discipline prohibits me from doing what God has bidden me to do; I fear God more than man.” Similar questions were asked and answered in the same manner. The committee said what they wished to say, and then told me I could go home. When I reached the door, I turned and said: “I now shake off the dust of my feet as a witness against you. See to it that this meeting does not rise in judgment against you.”

  The next evening, one of the committee came to me and told me that I was no longer a member of the church, because I had violated the rules of the discipline by preaching.

  When this action became known, the people wondered how any one could be excommunicated for trying to do good. I did not say much, and my friends simply said I had done nothing but hold meetings. Others, anxious to know the particulars, asked the minister what the trouble was. He told them he had given me the privilege of speaking or preaching as long as I chose, but that he could not give me the right to use the pulpit, and that I was not satisfied with any other place. Also, that I had appointed meeting on the evening of his meetings, which was a thing no member had a right to do. For these reasons he said he had turned me out of the church.

  Now, if the people who repeated this to me told the truth—and I have no doubt but they did—Mr. Beman told an actual falsehood. I had never asked for his pulpit, but had told him and others, repeatedly, that I did not care where I stood—any corner of the hall would do. To which Mr. Beman had answered: “You cannot have any place in the hall.” Then I said: “I’ll preach in a private house.” He answered me: “No, not in this place; I am stationed over all Boston.” He was determined I should not preach in the city of Boston. To cover up his deceptive, unrighteous course toward me, he told the above falsehoods.

  From his statements, many erroneous stories concerning me gained credence with a large number of people. At that time, I thought it my duty as well as privilege to address a letter to the Conference, which I took to them in person, stating all the facts. At the same time I told them it was not in the power of Mr. Beman, or any one else, to truthfully bring anything against my moral or religious character—that my only offense was in trying to preach the Gospel of Christ—and that I cherished no ill feelings toward Mr. Beman or anyone else, but that I desired the Conference to give the case an impartial hearing, and then give me a written statement expressive of their opinion. I also said I considered myself a member of the Conference, and should do so until they said I was not, and gave me their reasons, that I might let the world know what my offense had been.

  My letter was slightingly noticed, and then thrown under the table. Why should they notice it? It was only the grievance of a woman, and there was no justice meted out to women in those days. Even ministers of Christ did not feel that women had any rights which they were bound to respect.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  A Visit to My Parents—Further Labors

  Some of the dear sisters accompanied me to Flatbush, where I assisted in a bush meeting. The Lord met the people in great power, and I doubt not there are many souls in glory to-day praising God for that meeting.

  From that place I went home to my father’s house in Binghamton, N.Y. They were filled with joy to have me with them once more, after an absence of six years. As my mother embraced me, she exclaimed: “So you are a preacher, are you?” I replied: “So they say.” “Well, Julia,” said she, “when I first heard that you were a preacher, I said that I would rather hear you were dead.” These words, coming so unexpectedly from my mother, filled me with anguish. Was I to meet opposition here, too? But my mother, with streaming eyes, continued: “My dear daughter, it is all past now. I have heard from those who have attended your meetings what the Lord has done for you, and I am satisfied.”

  My stay in Binghamton was protracted several months. I held meetings in and around the town, to the acceptance of the people, and, I trust, to the glory of God. I felt perfectly satisfied, when the time came for me to leave, that my work was all for the Lord, and my soul was filled with joy and thankfulness for salvation. Before leaving, my parents decided to move to Boston, which they did soon after.

  I left Binghamton the first of February, 1855, in company with the Rev. Henry Johnson and his wife, for Ithaca, N.Y., where I labored a short time. I met with some opposition from one of the A.M.E. Church trustees. He said a woman should not preach in the church. Beloved, the God we serve fights all our battles, and before I left the place that trustee was one of the most faithful at my meetings, and was very kind to assist me on my journey when I left Ithaca. I stopped one night at Owego, at Brother Loyd’s and I also stopped for a short time at Onondaga, returned to Ithaca on the 14th of February, and staid until the 7th of March, during which time the work of grace was greatly revived. Some believed and entered into the rest of full salvation, many were converted, and a number of backsliders were reclaimed. I held prayer meetings from house to house. The sisters formed a woman’s prayer-meeting, and the whole church seemed to be working in unison for Christ.

  March 7th I took the stage for Geneva, and, arriving late at night, went to a hotel. In the morning Brother Rosel Jeffrey took me to his house and left me with his wife. He was a zealous Christian, but she scoffed at religion, and laughed and made sport during family worship. I do not know, but hope that long ere this she has ceased to ridicule the cause or the followers of Christ. In the latter part of the day Brother Condell came and invited me to his house. I found his wife a pleasant Christian woman. Sabbath afternoon I held a meeting in Brother Condell’s house. The colored people had a church which the whites had given them. It was a union church, to be occupied on alternate Sundays by the Methodists and Baptists.

  According to arrangement, this Sunday evening was the time for the Methodists to
occupy the church. The Rev. Dawsey, of Canandaigua, came to fill his appointment, but, when we arrived at the church, the Baptist minister, William Monroe, objected to our holding a meeting in the house that evening, and his members joined with him in his unchristian course. Rather than have any trouble, we returned to Brother Condell’s house. The minister preached and I followed with a short exhortation. The Lord was present to bless. They made an appointment for me to preach at the union meeting-house on the following Tuesday evening.

  Monday evening I went with some of the sisters to the church, where there was a meeting for the purpose of forming a moral reform society.

  After the meeting, Brother Condell asked the trustees if they had any objection to having me speak in the church the next evening. To this, Minister Monroe and another man—I had almost said a fiend in human shape—answered that they did not believe in women’s preaching, and would not admit one in the church, striving hard to justify themselves from the Bible, which one of them held in his unholy hands.

  I arose to speak, when Mr. Monroe interrupted me. After a few words I left the house.

  The next afternoon, while taking tea at the house of one of the sisters, Minister Monroe came in to tell me he heard that our brethren had said they would have the church for me if they had to “shed blood.” He asked me if I wanted to have anything to do with a fight of that kind. I replied: “The weapons with which I fight are not carnal, and, if I go to a place and am invited to use the weapons God has given me, I must use them to his glory.”

  “Well,” said he, “I shall be in the pulpit at an early hour, and will not leave it though they break my head.”

  “Mr. Monroe,” said I, “God can take you from the pulpit without breaking your head.” At this he became very much excited, and raved as if he were a madman. For two hours he walked the floor, talking and reading all the time. I made him no reply and tried not to notice him, and finally he left me.

  At the proper time we went to the church. It was full, but everything was in confusion. Mr. Monroe was in the pulpit. I saw at once that God could not be glorified in the midst of such a pandemonium; so I withdrew at once. I was told they kept up the contention until after ten o’clock. Mr. Monroe tried hard to get our trustees to state I should not preach in the place, but they would give him no such promise.

  As I was obliged to leave in a few days, to meet other appointments, our men procured a large house, where I held a meeting the next evening. All that attended were quiet and orderly; one man arose for prayers.

  Dear sisters, who are in the evangelistic work now, you may think you have hard times; but let me tell you, I feel that the lion and lamb are lying down together, as compared with the state of things twenty-five or thirty years ago. Yes, yes; our God is marching on. Glory to his name!

  22

  JARENA LEE

  (1783–1855)

  Most of what is known about Jarena Lee’s life is gleaned from her autobiographical account, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee (1836), and an expanded version, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, (1849). Lee tells of being born to free black parents in Cape May, New Jersey, in 1783 but sent out to work at age seven. She describes her struggles with sin, a conversion in 1804 at age twenty-one, and her unusual request of the Rev. Richard Allen, head of the A.M.E. Church, for an opportunity to preach her own sermon. Allen denied Lee at first, but, eight years later, after seeing Lee reinvigorate another preacher’s failing sermon, he allowed Lee to preach, making her the church’s first authorized female preacher. For the rest of her life, Lee worked tirelessly, giving hundreds of sermons each year and promoting abolitionism in the United States and Canada. Lee’s work, like that of Sojourner Truth and Phillis Wheatley, broke down the initial barriers between black men and black women and set the stage for later, post–Civil War, black women’s movements.

  In the following excerpt from Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel, Lee describes her reasons for wanting to be a preacher. To Lee, the act of preaching is no more complicated than the retelling of Christ’s story. She writes, “Did not Mary first preach the risen Savior, and is not the doctrine of the resurrection the very climax of Christianity . . . ?” Lee insists that men and women are equals in the eyes of God. “If a man may preach, because the Savior died for him, why not the woman? . . . Is he not a whole Savior, instead of a half one?” Like the other female preachers whose work is featured in this anthology, Julia A. J. Foote and Zilpha Elaw, Lee answers to a higher authority than the rule of any man on earth.

  Selection from Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel (1849)

  SOURCE: Jarena Lee, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel (Philadelphia: Printed and Published for the Author, 1849).

  By the increasing light of the Spirit, I had found there yet remained the root of pride, anger, self-will, with many evils, the result of fallen nature. I now became alarmed at this discovery, and began to fear that I had been deceived in my experience. I was now greatly alarmed, lest I should fall away from what I knew I had enjoyed; and to guard against this I prayed almost incessantly, without acting faith on the power and promises of God to keep me from falling. I had not yet learned how to war against temptation of this kind. Satan well knew that if he could succeed in making me disbelieve my conversion, that he would catch me either on the ground of complete despair, or on the ground of infidelity. For if all I had passed through was to go for nothing, and was but a fiction, the mere ravings of a disordered mind, then I would naturally be led to believe that there is nothing in religion at all.

  From this snare I was mercifully preserved, and led to believe that there was yet a greater work than that of pardon to be wrought in me. I retired to a secret place (after having sought this blessing, as well as I could, for nearly three months, from the time brother Scott had instructed me respecting it) for prayer, about four o’clock in the afternoon. I had struggled long and hard, but found not the desire of my heart. When I rose from my knees, there seemed a voice speaking to me, as I yet stood in a leaning posture—“Ask for sanctification.” When to my surprise, I recollected that I had not even thought of it in my whole prayer. It would seem Satan had hidden the very object from my mind, for which I had purposely kneeled to pray. But when this voice whispered in my heart, saying, “Pray for sanctification,” I again bowed in the same place, at the same time, and said, “Lord sanctify my soul for Christ’s sake?” That very instant, as if lightning had darted through me, I sprang to my feet, and cried, “The Lord has sanctified my soul!” There was none to hear this but the angels who stood around to witness my joy—and Satan, whose malice raged the more. That Satan was there, I knew; for no sooner had I cried out, “The Lord has sanctified my soul,” than there seemed another voice behind me, saying, “No, it is too great a work to be done.” But another spirit said, “Bow down for the witness—I received it—thou art sanctified!” The first I knew of myself after that, I was standing in the yard with my hands spread out, and looking with my face toward heaven.

  I now ran into the house and told them what had happened to me, when, as it were, a new rush of the same ecstasy came upon me, and caused me to feel as if I were in an ocean of light and bliss.

  During this, I stood perfectly still, the tears rolling in a flood from my eyes. So great was the joy, that it is past description. There is no language that can describe it, except that which was heard by St. Paul, when he was caught up to the third heaven, and heard words which it was not lawful to utter.

  My Call to Preach the Gospel.

  Between four and five years after my sanctification, on a certain time, an impressive silence fell upon me, and I stood as if some one was about to speak to me, yet I had no such thought in my heart. But to my utter surprise there seemed
to sound a voice which I thought I distinctly heard, and most certainly understood, which said to me, “Go preach the Gospel!” I immediately replied aloud, “No one will believe me.” Again I listened, and again the same voice seemed to say, “Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth, and will turn your enemies to become your friends.”

  At first I supposed that Satan had spoken to me, for I had read that he could transform himself into an angel of light, for the purpose of deception. Immediately I went into a secret place, and called upon the Lord to know if he had called me to preach, and whether I was deceived or not; when there appeared to my view the form and figure of a pulpit, with a Bible lying thereon, the back of which was presented to me as plainly as if it had been a literal fact.

  In consequence of this, my mind became so exercised that during the night following, I took a text, and preached in my sleep. I thought there stood before me a great multitude, while I expounded to them the things of religion. So violent were my exertions, and so loud were my exclamations, that I awoke from the sound of my own voice, which also awoke the family of the house where I resided. Two days after, I went to see the preacher in charge of the African Society, who was the Rev. Richard Allen, the same before named in these pages, to tell him that I felt it my duty to preach the gospel. But as I drew near the street in which his house was, which was in the city of Philadelphia, my courage began to fail me; so terrible did the cross appear, it seemed that I should not be able to bear it. Previous to my setting out to go to see him, so agitated was my mind, that my appetite for my daily food failed me entirely. Several times on my way there, I turned back again; but as often I felt my strength again renewed, and I soon found that the nearer I approached to the house of the minister, the less was my fear. Accordingly, as soon as I came to the door, my fears subsided, the cross was removed, all things appeared pleasant—I was tranquil.