The first Negro preachers and evangelists had the inevitable persecution, and as inevitably the persecution failed. The North grew very sympathetic, and Bibles grew as plentiful in the South as dandelion blossoms. It became the unique lesson book of the Negro. It alone fed his spiritual consciousness. He obtained at once an appreciation of its worth to him that made[20] it his greatest treasure, his only offset against his bondage. He learned it by heart, and there came to be a greater textual knowledge of the Bible among the Black masses than among any other people in the world. It is so to-day, though it is fading. The spiritual life of the Negro became as it were an answering beacon to the fervor of the Abolitionists of the North, most of whom were passionate Christians of Puritan type.

[20]

The South grew sulky, grew infinitely suspicious and restive, and irritated and fearful. It began to fear a general slaves’ rising. The numerical superiority of the Negroes presented itself to the mind as an ever-growing menace. The idea of emancipation was fraught with the economic ruin it implied. It is difficult now to resurrect the mind of society preceding the time of the great Civil War. It is the fashion to emphasize the technical aspect of the quarrel of North and South, and to say that the war was fought in order that the Union might be preserved. But it is truer to say that it was fought because the South wanted to secede. And the South wished to secede because it saw more clearly every day that the institution of slavery was in danger. Every month, every year, saw its special occasions of irritation, premonitory splashing out of flame, petty explosions and threats. More slaves escaped every year. The Underground Railway, so called, by which the[21] Friends succored the poor runaways and brought them out of danger and distress into the sanctuary of the North grew to be better and better organized. On the other hand, the punishments of discovered runaways grew more barbarous and more public, and the rage of the North was inflamed.

[21]

Heroic John Brown made his abortive bid to light up a slaves’ insurrection by his wild exploit of Harper’s Ferry. And then John Brown, old man as he was, of apostolic aspect and fervor, was tried and condemned. He did not fear to die. But he wrote to his children that they should “abhor with undying hatred that sum of all villainies, slavery,” and while he was being led to the gallows he handed to a bystander his last words and testament—

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that 

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