THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE NEGRO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 4

THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE NEGRO.

A lady, Mrs E. D. Cheney, writes s*a follows in a Boston paper, concerning the' freedom of the Southern States :— "I have entire faith in the negro race and their destiny ; believing that, while the difference between them and the Caucasian race in intellectual characteristics are very slight and not easily defined,' they have ethnological peculiarities of great value in morals and aesthetics, which will add new power and grace to our civilization, when they are fairly represented in it. In consequence of this belief, my principal work for the last ten years has been aiding the education of the freedmen, as the most immediate duty to themselves and to us.

" Out of the influences of slavery and what is called Evangelical piety has grown that sensational, superstitious, ignorant form of religion which is moreprevalent in the South, both among whites and blacks, than where education' prevails to a greater degree; and I repeat, not that there is no morality among the freedmen, but that, as a general rule, they do not consider it to have any special connection with religion. That a man is honest, kind, temperate, industrious, and so forth, does not prove that he has "got religion," or the reverse,. But that he shouts, and sings, and falls down in trances, and so forth, does indicate piety, although he may lie and stealthe next day, "But I believe that the negro has 4 special genius for religion, and that if, avoiding all controverted dogmas, we go, to him with the simple, grand truths of' religion, and show their relation to life and morals, he is very readily receptive > of them. In travelling through the South on a special mission to freedmen's schools, the friend who was with me and myself spoke every Sunday, either in churches, prayer - meetings, or Sundayschools. We spoke our own thoughts of religion without any reference to the current opinions of the people, and we never failed to meet a warm response from the people, who sometimes came to us won-dering-how we could understand and sympathize so well with them. "In one case, a revival preacher, who had been urging the young people-not to go to school lest it should hinder their * getting religion,' came forward and indorsed our views, when we had been showing the necessity of education as developing the heart and mind, so that we could serve God with them truly. This was on a week-day, however."