The First Negro Priest on Southern Soil (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909. Excerpt: ... BISHOP HOLLY TO DR. CRUMMELL. Evangelical Truth. Apostolic Order. Catholic Charity. Bishop Holly, the Senior Negro Bishop of the Anglican Communion now living, sends his hearty Christian greetings to the Rev. Dr. Crummell, the senior Negro presbyter of the same Communion, now living; on the occasion of the Jubilee of his ordination to the Priesthood of the Christian Church. The Bishop begs to be permitted to add to his greetings, the following reflections suggested by that important event. A century ago, at a time of general doubt and misgivings about the capacity of the Negro race; and when the men of that race were, as a matter of fact, still in the undeveloped state, where slavery and oppression had kept them, during a period of about a century, and three-fourths of another century, in the United States; there was even then found a Catholic-hearted Prelate, in the person of the first Bishop of Pennsylvania, who had the Christian courage to ordain the Rev. Absalom Jones, a man of the Negro race, to the Sacred Ministry of the Church of Christ. When the jubilee of that first ordination of a Negro-clergyman in the United States came around, the Christian spirit manifested by that Bishop fifty years before, had unfortunately grown narrower and meaner: instead of becoming larger and generous, towards the Negro race. Strange to say, this retrograde feeling had thus come about, in spite of the marked advancement in various resoects. that had been made by that race during the preceding half century. The Rt. Rev. James Theodore Holly, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Haiti. To rebuke this unchristian spirit in the high places of the Church, God, in His wonderful Providence, was pleased to raise up and bring into notice, at or about that year of the jubilee anniversary o...