“I, too, think smoking is a bad habit,” I hastened to say. “Still, is it sin? But once I saw a man put a lighted cigarette down on a beautiful mahogany piano and scar the top. The furniture was ruined. And his mother wept. I might tell that man, to convince him, it is sinful to spoil furniture.”
“Yes, yes, Brother Han. I ain’t understood you, at first. I think we agree upon smoking.”
Bonheure changed the subject. He wanted to get back to sanctification and Glory hallelujah. I saw that he was really no arguer. I might have helped Ginsburg out, too, citing verses I knew in the Bible about more than one woman. But Ginsburg was too dumb. Suppose I told him, when Bonheure went out, what to say? No, he could never remember it all.
3
I soon found out that God’s plan was a revival in Atlantic Beach, with baptism of the converts in the river. Posters were already up all over town, advertising this revival. The posters read, “Jews and Chinamen to be sanctified!”
Then I thought I had been brought there under false pretenses. I went to Bonheure and spoke up. I refused to have anything to do with the baptizing. I had already been baptized once, and I wasn’t going to do it again. Elder Bonheure listened thoughtfully and said, Well, did I object to speaking? No, I told him, I was a very good lecturer. I wouldn’t mind speaking in his church. I would speak about the Bible and literature. So Bonheure said, “Well, well, Brother Han, yours is an exceptional case. And you know, we got to hang together, till we see what the Lord’s going to do about us. The Lord told me to go and git you. He wasn’t saying what for. As for the saints, you know we don’t hold for no Presbyterian baptizing. Immersion or not at all with us. But your case is somewhat different. I think, having listened to you, Brother Han—you are very strong in the quoting of Scripture—I think you have received immersion of the spirit, and your inner man has been rightly baptized. Something tells me, Brother Han, you is staying right by me in this revival, going to be my right-hand man.”
Now while in Atlantic Beach I began to get more and more hints as to how this Saints business was run. To make those posters, Bonheure had his own private printing press. There was an office, too, in the Saint’s House, with big typewriters and adding machines, where Negro girls worked all the time attending to “God’s work.” These girls were specially picked. Bonheure believed, with Carlyle, “There is a perennial nobleness, even sacredness in work, and blessed is he who has found his work.” So he devoted a good deal of talent to picking the right person for the right job. He was really a genius at this, and all the saints seemed happy and industrious. “All work for one and one for all,” said Elder Bonheure, and from what I saw, this was strictly true. And Bonheure was the one.
But my, what a marvellous and effective organization! That man really had the big business brain. Thanks to him, for the whole thing was his idea, the saints had a meat market of their own, a vegetable and fruit market, they had a business making ice cream and one making doughnuts. And the saints were not only self-subsistent. They engaged in commerce with the outside world and brought home the profits. Some of the women-saints could sew very well, and besides making clothes for the other brothers and sisters, they went out by the day; others went out as charwomen, washer-women and cooks, and all the money they made they brought to “The Church.” Yes, every cent earned by anybody went straight to the pocket of Bonheure, for the “work of God.” He pretended this money was not his, but belonged to the common store. But why did he always dress so much better than they did, then? I knew a little about overcoats and his overcoat was the kind that sells in Wanamaker’s for $200. His shirts were of the finest cloth, his socks of the best silk. His closets were full of clothes. Nothing fancy, of course. He always avoided the fancy or the bright as not being suited to one who had renounced the World. But everything elegant, expensive and grand. Why did he live with such luxury, he alone among the saints? I made my own investigation. In the common dining room, the saints had a good diet. Everything was well-cooked, clean and wholesome. But plain. And all the honey-dew melons and chicken and turkey and duck went to serve Elder and Sister Bonheure in private dining rooms.
The saints were supposed to live together communally, with clothes and food provided by the house. Every month each man and each woman received a pay envelope from the House, all neatly inscribed with his or her name. This was spending money. Each envelope contained exactly the same amount, only a few dollars. It was all a saint ever got, no matter what was originally earned. Even that, for the most part, found its way back to God’s treasury (which was Bonheure’s bank account). For the saints had no vices and no responsibilities and they threw it all on the collection plate again, as soon as they became intoxicated by the Gospel. All the saints worked hard, some inside, some outside. And Bonheure saw that there was a job for every man. And no new jobs were taken without consulting him. Sometimes he objected and vetoed, if he thought the new job might take a member too far out into the world, or could in any way slacken the old bonds. Of course, such a life was good for those unable to take care of themselves. Most of the saints were very lowly and ignorant and unquestionably better off working for Bonheure than before, cleaner and healthier and better-looking. But, as you can see, such a system was very bad for the abler ones. It killed all initiative and was just like slavery. So I could not help wondering how sincere Bonheure was. I tried to get his opinion on Elmer Gantry, by reading him certain passages and offering to let him borrow the book, but Bonheure was so ignorant he did not know what it was about, anyhow. “Well, what could you expect of any Baptist or Methodist minister?” was all that he said. Bonheure was of the “Holiness” persuasion.
Bonheure’s church in Atlantic Beach had been originally a movie theatre; and once in a while it had been a sinful dance hall as well. He had bought it over with money earned by the saints and he was proud of having done this and so hatched it from the devil’s hands. There it was, a permanent symbol of the saints’ great fight that time with the devil. To spend an evening in Bonheure’s church, I found, was as different from ordinary life as to spend it in heaven or hell. (Bonheure of course would say heaven and not pandemonium.) But Bonheure preached on Black Sin, and every time that God or Christ or Heaven was mentioned, the congregation would jump up and cry Hallelujah. Every time Black Sin or Hell or the devil was mentioned, they would cry Hallelujah, too. So they had a great opportunity to cry Hallelujah, for Bonheure liked to use the helliest, strongest Shakespearean, and his topics, in spite of his limited sex vocabulary, were of the sort usually prohibited by censorship and the Sumner committee. He made the most of Ginsburg, whom he put up on the platform beside him and figuratively stripped. He described how he had found this brother in a little dirty tailor shop, with only a curtain between bedroom and business office, and behind that curtain the bed of Black Sin, all soiled, shouted Elder Bonheure, and in that bed, a woman of the streets. Elder Bonheure told how he hauled this woman up and made her get dressed and told her to leave Ginsburg, for God had him now. “Oh, oh, oh, Lord, what a difference!” and Bonheure pointed his long skinny finger at Ginsburg. “Brother Ginsburg is saved and sanctified!”
“Thank God, brothers and sisters, thank God!” cried the Negroes. “Hallelujah!”
“But think of the time he was on that soiled dirty bed naked with a woman!” Bonheure shook his fingers and closed his eyes. “Yes, sir, Brothers and Sisters, we all know what sin is. It’s black, black. It’s the way of flesh. It is not God’s way. What do God say unto you? If burning, get married. Choose your own dear sister in Christ. All the fun we want, we can have, brothers and sisters, when it’s holy and sanctified! . . . Well, you know how God come to me and say ‘Save Brother Ginsburg. He’s low, he’s a black sinner, he’s a Jew, he crucified my son. But ain’t nobody, Elder, too low to be saved and sanctified.’ That’s what the Lord say to me. Welcome him, brothers and sisters. Make him happy here among God’s saints. No high, no low, here among us. Brother Ginsburg done sho
w now he wants to be a saint before the Lord. Praise God, hallelujah!”
I looked and all the Negroes were crying about Ginsburg’s conversion. They cried so easily. All except Bonheure. He alone had the control. Almost it left him sometimes. You thought the next moment he might break, his quavering voice became choked in tears and hysteria, and his whole body sink writhing in convulsions, as he swayed up there on the platform with shut eyes. (That was always the tensest moment, just before the passing of the collection plate. When the collection plate went round, Bonheure recovered; his eyes were open then.)
Now all the Negroes were jumping. The women would start. “O bless our dear Brother Ginsburg,” and they crowded around him, tears falling, to shake his hand, to hug him, then to turn and hug one another. The whole congregation joined in, jumping and shouting hoarsely, “I’se so happy. Lordy, I’se happy. Bless our Elder, our dear Elder Bonheure. Bless Sister Bonheure too!”
Rich waves of emotion and brotherly love buffeted you on all sides. It was a very moving atmosphere, and I found it hard not to cry too. I saw that the Negro is richer emotionally than other peoples. He could unite with his brothers harmoniously as if under one soul, but that soul was Elder Bonheure.
It was my turn to stand up and make a speech. I preached on racial prejudice, using Walt Whitman as text. And I told them to wake up, wake up and join the world of higher things. “Make something of yourselves. Be educated.” My voice was fervent, too. I was deeply moved. Bonheure, sitting on the stage behind me, would pluck my coat every little while and whisper, “Brother Han, Brother Han, once in a while mention the name of God.” That was easy, “My God, wake and come out of the slum! Leave off your ignorance and laziness, for Christ’s sake! Don’t depend on leaders. They can’t help you. Nothing can, but your own will to make something of yourself!” With everybody round gaping to cry Hallelujah, it was the easiest place to swear in the world. Hell to it! Devil! Christ! Everything you couldn’t say in polite missionary households, here for every swear-word the chorus came back, “Hallelujah! Praise God! Christ is here!” Even so, if Bonheure hadn’t constantly prompted, “More about God, Brother Han,” they might have been puzzled.
I stopped and for a moment there was a big silence. Then a Negro woman jumped up and cried, “A-ai-ai. . . . Praise God. . . . Judgment Day is comin’! . . . Chinaman can speak, too! Chinaman can read!”
Bonheure bowed and shook hands with me, in tall impressive dignity. “Amen, Brother Han! Amen!” he turned to the congregation. “Now you hear what he say, Brothers and Sisters? Lift yourselves up. Listen to your pastor and learn. Watch your speech, Brothers and Sisters. I heard my sister say just now, ‘Chinaman can speak.’ Chinaman! That ain’t the way. I ask you, Brother Han, is that the way to speak? No! You womans must speak good English from now on. One—Chinee . . . two—Chinese. . . .”
“Chinee—Chinee can speak!” they all cried, jumping up and down and embracing each other, and me as well.
“That was a good speech, Brother, you made,” Bonheure took me aside confidentially. “But some words you don’t speak right. You, too, Brother Han. It’s genu-wine, you know, not genuine. You want to look out for that.”
It was the longest church meeting I ever attended, for it lasted from half-past seven until twelve o’clock at night. They jumped more than if they had been to a dance. All solo performance, too—real blackbottom, hands clapping and voices shouting. Afterwards everybody was tired and happy. But that was the night I had to sleep with Brother Ginsburg. He kept up a steady snoring and groaning. To make him stop snoring, I would grab him by the shoulder and shake, “Brother, you’re in nightmare. You’re dreaming about Hell, Brother, too much.” Because I couldn’t say he was snoring. How glad I was to hear Brother Washington knock in the morning with summons to breakfast, hot cakes, melons, partridges, things like that . . . (eggs were always secondary with Bonheure). But afterwards I took Bonheure off and complained about Brother Ginsburg. Either Brother Ginsburg or I was leaving, I said. Bonheure smoothed me down and said Ginsburg had to go back to his business anyway after the baptizing. “But you, Brother Han, you must stay and help me out in the work of God.” And then he said something vague about a Negro school he had in mind to found, out of the saints’ money, and he wanted to place me at its head. Again I was impressed by Bonheure’s big vision. I thought in that event I might play a real intellectual part in America. So I stayed.
4
Well, Brother Ginsburg had to have the baptizing, but I got out of that. I watched from the river bank. Bonheure had about twenty-five or thirty converts which he was to duck in the river. Tall and handsome, he waded out, a white silk surplice over his clothes, until he was over waist-deep. The converts were not so well protected. They wore white robes of a thin sleezy cheesecloth, and nothing on besides but the birthday suit. So I guess I was squared with poor Ginsburg, who was such an annoyance to me. How he sputtered and swore coming up, it was so cold in that water! And how ridiculous and vulgar he looked! Spectators were lined up ranks deep on the river bank, and I saw them laughing and laughing, for they had come for the show. It was a burlesque. I don’t suppose Bonheure really meant it to be so sexy (though always he knew how to appeal to the crowd, white as well as black). But those nightgowns, as soon as they got wet, clung like filmy gauze and carved out every mold. Nudity would have been less noticeable. It looked as if the young girls had a thin veil, just to tantalize young men, and the young men also the same, to tantalize young girls. But the saints didn’t see that, neither the old ones nor the new ones. They were exalted and serious. Tears came in their eyes, as they watched the long line of Negroes in white robes going down into the river, and coming up clean, with howls and hosannas, made more intense and vibrational by the cold water and wind. With the saints, the spirit was moving too much . . . the flesh wasn’t weak enough to think how the flesh looks sometimes.
In Bonheure’s Holiness Church, all the sanctification of the saints seemed founded on sex-morale. That was the perennial subject of his sermons; that was the point at which the Devil and the Flesh kept up perpetual opposition. The saints believed in the Devil as much as they believed in God, and they thought a man and woman saint, no matter how old or ugly, couldn’t be together in private for an hour without the Devil proving too much. One day one poor young saint of seventeen or eighteen came to prayer meeting in a new blue dress that fell just below the knee. It was when all girls were wearing short dresses and showing much of the silk stocking leg—that which to George was the best part of a girl’s looks. And, of course, here the Negro girl would have just as good a chance in the contest as the bathing beauties from Florida. To Bonheure this part was too much flesh. He pointed his finger at that poor girl, and he preached an extemporaneous sermon on the wickedness of short-dressing, how it is designed to arouse the devilish emotions of men and beckon them into the hell-fire of unlawful burning. That poor young thing was so overcome with shame, she repented herself so sincerely! She was one of the new converts Bonheure had just baptized, and now she felt she had fallen into sin again. Next night, her dress became as long as Sister Bonheure’s and the saints rejoiced that she was won back to God. But she had ruined her dress to save her soul. She had to put on a flounce of a different color—perhaps she cut up another dress to patch it, perhaps ruined both. That was hard. No woman anywhere wants to look out of style. But Bonheure had no spirit of compromise.
Sex was the subject, too, of all the testimonials. In the first flush of revival the saints held testimonial over and over. The penitent, and everybody else, got a kick out of that. Nothing was too embarrassing to tell. Not even the women were shy, when they began to feel saved and sanctified.
“Two years ago, on Saturday night, the Devil came to me. And I wanted to run out with a man into the woods and under a bush. I didn’t care about that man’s soul! All I care about, that man’s body, low-down dog in man’s body. I went out with that man. I couldn’t keep away
from that man. Devil sent me to him all the time. Then my dear pastor come along. He pulled the Devil off of me. He said, ‘Sister, you got to be saved and sanctified. You got to forget the flesh and come with me.’ And I done went, Brothers and Sisters. Now I got a husband, brothers and sisters. There he is. Sitting right there beside Brother Washington. Now I don’t want no low-down pig for a man. My husband, he’s good enough for me!”
Brother Washington stood up. And when he spoke, I jumped, I was so surprised. He waited on Elder Bonheure in the Atlantic Beach private dining room, a little, meek, thin man, bow-legged, with a childish high thin voice. That voice didn’t go with the words he was saying:
“Ten years ago, I was a wild man! I drank! I smoked! I fit with razor blades. I went out with women. Yes, sir, Brothers and Sisters, every night a wild woman lay by me. Not my wife neither. I never had no wife in those days, Sisters. A different one every night, and I left them all. Thank God, those days is over and done, I got a wife. (She’s my dear sister over there.) Wild man ain’t wild no more!”
He had all the emotional exuberance of the rest, but it wasn’t thick-sounding, because of his trebling voice. Now when Brother Jones got up, he had a deep bass voice. He really sent a Mephistophelian thrill up the spine, when he counted off his sins, thrusting out his great broad chest: “Seven years ago, I was blacker than Hell. I went out with a virgin—my own cousin. I taught her to sin with me. That’s what I done, low-down, dirty, black scoundrel! Now I let my cousin alone. My sister’s good enough for me. I don’t look at no woman’s legs on the street. My eye’s straight on the Lord. And I don’t steal no more. When I go to that farm where the melons grow, I leaves them. Why, if I picked up a pocketbook with a hundred dollars in it, know what I’d do? Run to our good Elder here. He’ll tell me what to do with all my money!” (And I thought, Brother Jones is right, there.) “Yes, sir, Brothers and Sisters, I sleeps with my own dear sister now, and I’se saved and sanctified.”
East Goes West Page 41