Sprung from the African forests, where its
counterpart can still be heard, it was adapted, changed, and
intensified by the tragic soul-life of the slave, until, under the
stress of law and whip, it became the one true expression of a
people's sorrow, despair, and hope.
Finally the Frenzy of "Shouting," when the Spirit of the
Lord passed by, and, seizing the devotee, made him mad
with supernatural joy, was the last essential of Negro religion
and the one more devoutly believed in than all the rest. It
varied in expression from the silent rapt countenance or the
low murmur and moan to the mad abandon of physical fervor,
--the stamping, shrieking, and shouting, the rushing to and
fro and wild waving of arms, the weeping and laughing, the
vision and the trance. All this is nothing new in the world,
but old as religion, as Delphi and Endor. And so firm a hold
did it have on the Negro, that many generations firmly be-
lieved that without this visible manifestation of the God there
could be no true communion with the Invisible.
These were the characteristics of Negro religious life as
developed up to the time of Emancipation.
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