along their religion to the race inferior in attainment. The religious
emissaries generally follow along in the wake of the traders. If we make
the assumption, on the foregoing grounds, that the very ancient African
Negro got in touch with the religion of Ancient Egypt, then the
appearance of the frog, birds, etc., in Negro Rhyme is explained, for if
we read the lists of animal gods of Ancient Egypt and the animal states
through which spirits were supposed to pass, we have no trouble finding
the list of animals extolled in Negro rhyme and story.

If Negro Rhyme has always centered about Negro religion, then when the
Negro was brought to America and began changing his religion, he should
have had some songs or rhymes on the dividing line between the old and
the new. In other words, there ought to be connecting links between
"secular" Folk Rhymes and Jubilee Songs, songs that by nature partake of
both types. This must happen in order to be in accord with the law of
the presence of connecting links where evolution produces a new type
from an old one. By using the procedure under Mendel's law of mating
like descendants from a cross between two and by eliminating those who
do not reproduce constant to the type which we are trying to produce, we
can produce a new and constant type in the third succeeding generation
of descendants.

Now the Negro slave turned quickly in America from heathenism to
Christianity. This was accomplished through white Christians correcting
and eliminating all thoughts and productions which hovered on the border
line between heathen ideals and Christianity. They used the Mendelian
procedure of eliminating all crosses that did not give a product with
Christian characteristics and thus necessarily eliminated Rhymes or
songs of the connecting link type. They did a good thorough job but the
writer believes he sees two connecting links that escaped their
sensitive ears and sharp eyes. They are Jubilee songs; one is "Keep
inching along like a poor inch worm, Jesus will come by-and-by," the
other is "Go chain the lion down before the Heaven doors close."

The reader will recall that I have already shown that the worm and the
lion were connected with native African worship. Of course we all know
quite well that a "Caddis worm" is not an "Inch worm," but for a man
trying to turn from the old to the new, from idolatry to Christianity, a
closer relation than this might not be very comfortable neutral ground.