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The second fact noted, namely, that the Negro church antedates
the Negro home, leads to an explanation of much that is
paradoxical in this communistic institution and in the morals
of its members. But especially it leads us to regard this
institution as peculiarly the expression of the inner ethical life
of a people in a sense seldom true elsewhere. Let us turn,
then, from the outer physical development of the church to
the more important inner ethical life of the people who compose
it. The Negro has already been pointed out many times
as a religious animal,--a being of that deep emotional nature
which turns instinctively toward the supernatural. Endowed
with a rich tropical imagination and a keen, delicate appreciation
of Nature, the transplanted African lived in a world
animate with gods and devils, elves and witches; full of
strange influences,--of Good to be implored, of Evil to be
propitiated. Slavery, then, was to him the dark triumph of
Evil over him. All the hateful powers of the Under-world
were striving against him, and a spirit of revolt and revenge
filled his heart. He called up all the resources of heathenism
to aid,--exorcism and witch-craft, the mysterious Obi worship
with its barbarious rites, spells, and blood-sacrifice even,
now and then, of human victims. Weird midnight orgies and
mystic conjurations were invoked, the witch-woman and the
voodoo-priest became the centre of Negro group life, and that
vein of vague superstition which characterizes the unlettered
Negro even to-day was deepened and strengthened.
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