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[CHAPTER 30]
[Page 1]
SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS
By 1861 the Negro Church in Louisiana was regarded by many devout slaves as “a rock in a weary land and a shelter in the time of storm.” The leading denominations--Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, African Methodist, and others--kept the fires of faith burning in the heart of their little flocks during the crucial days of the war when everything seemed in doubt. Many of the slaves associated themselves in their own minds with the “child‟en of Irrael” who had been enslaved in the land of the “Gypshuns,” and lo! they looked up after the war, and their hour of bondage was ended. It was to their churches that they turned to celebrate this great victory of Right over Might, and to thank God for their deliverance from chains. Negro religious groups throughout the State held services in commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation. When the war ended the various denominations set about to “spread the gospel throughout all the land.”
Because of its dynamic appeal to Negro masses, and because so many Negroes had been sold into Louisiana from non-Catholic States, that religion soon found itself superseded by the Baptist faith in many sections. This was especially true in the rural sections where the people even boasted in their spirituals:
I‟m Baptist bred
And Baptist born;
When I‟m dead
I‟ll be a Baptist gone.
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