making good
money--as money went in those days--on the side. At the close of the
war, however, though he had a trunk full of Confederate money, all of
his good money was gone.

Father could neither read nor write, but had a good head for figures and
was very pious. His life had a wonderful influence upon me, though I was
originally worldly--that is, I drank and cussed, but haven't touched a
drop of spirits in forty years and quit cussing before I entered the
ministry in 1879.

I learned to pray when very young and kept it up even in my unsaved
days. My white master's folks knew me to be a praying boy, and asked
me--in 1865--when the South was about whipped and General Wilson was
headed our way--to pray to God to hold the Yankees back. Of course, I
didn't have any love for any Yankees--and haven't now, for that
matter--but I told my white folks straight-from-the-shoulder that I
_could not_ pray along those lines. I told them flat-footedly that,
while I loved them and would do any reasonable praying for them, I could
not pray against my conscience: that I not only wanted to be free, but
that I wanted to see all the Negroes freed!

I then told them that God was using the Yankees to scourge the
slave-holders just as He had, centuries before, used heathens and
outcasts to chastise His chosen people--the Children of Israel."

(Here it is to be noted that, for a slave boy of between approximately
15 and 17 years of age, remarkable familiarity with the Old Testament
was displayed.)

The Parson then entered into a mild tirade against Yankees, saying:

"The only time the Northern people ever helped the Nigger was when they
freed him. They are not friends of the Negro and many a time, from my
pulpit, have I warned Niggers about going North. No, sir, the colored
man doesn't belong in the North---has no business up there, and you may
tell the world that the Reverend W.B. Allen makes no bones about saying
that! He also says that, if it wasn't for the influence of the white
race in the South, the Negro race would revert to savagery within a
year! Why, if they knew for dead certain that there was not a policeman
or officer of the law in Columbus tonight, the good Lord only knows what
they'd do tonight"!

When the good Parson had delivered himself as quoted, he was asked a
few questions, the answers to which--as shall follow--disclose their
nature.

"The lowest down Whites of slavery days were the average overseers. A
few wer