I thought it almost too absurd when he said he would take the liberty to
praise God in the 17th hymn, and beg all the company to join chorus. He
then gave out the stanzas in the most strange pronunciation.
"Gentle Jesus, God um lub," &c.
When the hymn was finished, which was sung by the whole congregation, in
the most delightful discord,--everyone chose his own key--he gave an
extempore prayer, which was most unfortunately incomprehensible, and
then commenced his discourse, which was on _Faith_. I shall omit the
head and front of his offending, which would, perhaps, hardly be
gratifying although ludicrous. He reminded me of a monkey imitating a
man; but what amused me most was his finale, in which he told his
audience that there could be no faith without charity. For a little
while he descanted upon this generally, and at last became personal. His
words were, as well as I can recollect, nearly as follows:--
"And now you see, my dear bredren, how unpossible to go to heaven, with
all the faith in the world, without charity. Charity mean, give away.
Suppose you no give--you no ab charity; suppose you no ab charity--you
no ab faith; suppose you no ab faith--you all go to hell and be damned.
Now den, let me see if you ab charity. Here, you see, I come to save all
your soul from hell-fire; and hell-fire dam hot, I can tell you. Dere
you all burn like coal, till you turn white powder, and den burn on till
you come black again; and so you go on, burn, burn, sometime white,
sometime black, for ebber and ebber.
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