Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
but the free must be sent away, and those who remain, must be slaves. I have
no doubt that there are many good men who do not see as I do, and who are
for sending us to Liberia; but they have not duly considered the subject—they
are not men of colour.—This land which we have watered with our tears and
our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satised to stay where
wisdom abounds and the gospel is free.”
“RICHARD ALLEN,”
“Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal “Church in the United States.”
I have given you, my brethren, an extract verbatim, from the letter of that godly
man, as you may nd it on the aforementioned page of Freedom’s Journal. I know
that thousands, and perhaps millions of my brethren in these States, have never
heard of such a man as Bishop Allen—a man whom God many years ago raised up
among his ignorant and degraded brethren, to preach Jesus Christ and him
crucied to them—who notwithstanding, had to wrestle against principalities and
the powers of darkness to diuse that gospel with which he was endowed among
his brethren—but who having overcome the combined powers of devils and wicked
men, has under God planted a Church among us which will be as durable as the
foundation of the earth on which it stands. Richard Allen! O my God!! The bare
recollection of the labours of this man, and his ministers among his deplorably
wretched brethren, (rendered so by the whites) to bring them to a knowledge of the
God of Heaven, lls my soul with all those very high emotions which would take
the pen of an Addison to portray. It is impossible my brethren for me to say much
in this work respecting that man of God. When the Lord shall raise up coloured
historians in succeeding generations, to present the crimes of this nation, to the
then gazing world, the Holy Ghost will make them do justice to the name of Bishop
Allen, of Philadelphia. Suce it for me to say, that the name of this very man
(Richard Allen) though now in obscurity and degradation, will notwithstanding,
stand on the pages of history among the greatest divines who have lived since the
apostolic age, and among the Africans, Bishop Allen’s will be entirely pre-eminent.
My brethren, search after the character and exploits of this godly man among his
ignorant and miserable brethren, to bring them to a knowledge of the truth as it is
in our Master. Consider upon the tyrants and false Christians against whom he had
to contend in order to get access to his brethren. See him and his ministers in the
States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, carrying
the gladsome tidings of free and full salvation to the coloured people. Tyrants and
false Christians however, would not allow him to penetrate far into the South, for
fear that he would awaken some of his ignorant brethren, whom they held in
wretchedness and misery—for fear, I say it, that he would awaken and bring them
to a knowledge of their Maker. O my Master! my Master! I cannot but think upon
Christian Americans!!!—What Kind of people can they be? Will not those who were
burnt up in Sodom and Gomorrah rise up in judgment against Christian Americans
with the Bible in their hands, and condemn them? Will not the Scribes and
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