CHAPTER XVII—IS GOD OMNIPOTENT?

AS Gaston left the Preacher, the Rev. Ephraim Fox approached. He was the pastor of the Negro Baptist church, and had succeeded old Uncle Josh at his death ten years before.

He bowed deferentially, and, hat in hand, stood close to the seat on which Durham was still resting.

“How dis you doan come down ter our chu’ch en preach fur us no mo Brer’ Durham? We been er havin’ powerful times down dar lately, en de folks wants you ter come en preach some mo.”

“I can’t do it, Eph.”

“What de matter, Preacher? We ain’t hu’t yo feelin’s.”

“No, not in a personal way, but you’ve got beyond me.”

“How’s dat?” asked Ephraim rolling his eyes.

“Well, as long as I preach to your folks about heaven and the glory beyond this world, they shout and sweat and sing. And when I jump on the old sinners in the Bible, they are in glee. They like to see the fur fly. But the minute I pounce on them about stealing, and lying, and drinking, and lust,—they don’t want to furnish any of the fur.”

“De Lawd, Preacher, hit’s des de same wid de white folks!” urged Ephraim with a wink.

“That’s so. But the difference is your people talk back at me after the meeting.”

“How’s dat?” Ephraim repeated.

“Why when I preach righteousness and judgment on the thief and accuse them of stealing, I lose my wood, and my corn, and my chickens.”

Ephraim was silent a moment and then he smiled as he said, “Preacher, dey ain’t er nigger in dis town doan lub you.”

“Yes, I know it. That’s why they steal from me so much.”

“Go long wid yo fun!” roared Ephraim. “You know you ain’t gone back on us des cause some nigger tuck er stick er wood—deys sumfin’ else—you cain fool me.”

“Well, you are right, that isn’t the main reason. There are others. You turned a man out of your church for voting the Democratic ticket.”

“Yes, but Preacher,” interrupted Eph impatiently, “dat wuz er low-down mean nigger. He didn’t hab no salvation nohow!”

“Then you keep a deacon in your church who served two terms in the penitentiary.”

“But dat’s de bes’ deacon I got,” pleaded Eph sadly.

“Turn him out I tell you!”

“But dey all does little tings.”

“Turn ’em all out!”

“Den we ain’t got no chu’ch, en de shepherd ain’t got no flock ter tend, er ter shear. You des splain how de Lawd tempers de win’ ter de shorn lam’. Den ef I doan shear ’em, de win’ mought blow too hard on ’em. En ef I doan keep ’em in de pen, how kin I shear ’em? I axes you dat?”

The Preacher smiled and continued, “Then I’ve heard some ugly things about you, Eph,” suddenly darting a piercing look straight into his face.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you. And I can’t afford to go into the pulpit with you any more. In the old slavery days you were taught the religion of Christ. It didn’t mean crime, and lust, and lying, and drinking, whatever it meant. Your religion has come to be a stench. You are getting lower and lower. You will be governed by no one. I can’t use force. I leave you alone. You have gone beyond me.”

“But de Lawd lub a sinner, en his mercy enduref for-eber!” solemnly grumbled Ephraim.

“In the old days,” persisted the Preacher, “I used to preach to your people. I saw before me many men of character, carpenters, bricklayers, wheelwrights, farmers, faithful home servants that loved their masters and were faithful unto death. Now I see a cheap lot of thieves and jailbirds and trifling women seated in high places. You have shown no power to stand alone on the solid basis of character.”

“Why Brer’ Durham,” urged Eph in an injured voice, “I baptised inter de kingdom over a hundred precious souls las’ year!”

“Yes, but what they needed was not a baptism of water. You negroes need a racial baptism into truth, integrity, virtue, self-restraint, industry, courage, patience, and purity of manhood and womanhood. I used to be hopeful about you, but I’d just as well be frank with you, I’ve given you up. I’ve said the grace of God was sufficient for all problems. I don’t know now. I’m getting older and it grows darker to me. I have come to believe there are some things God Almighty can not do. Can God make a stone so big He can’t lift it? In either event, He is not omnipotent. It looks like He did just that thing when He made the Negro. Leave me out of your calculation, Ephraim.”

“Mus’ gib de nigger time, Preacher!” Eph muttered as he walked slowly away.

When Gaston emerged from the court house, the Preacher joined him and they walked home to the hotel together.

“What did the two farmers on your committee think of the chances of preventing the Alliance from joining the negroes?”

“Not much of them. They say we can’t do anything with them when the test comes, unless we will endorse their scheme of issuing money on corn and pumpkins and potatoes stored in a government barn. If it comes to that, I will not prostitute my intellect by advocating any such measure on the floor of our convention. We stand for one thing at least, the supremacy of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. I had rather be beaten by the negroes and their allies this time on such an issue.”

“But, my boy, if McLeod and his negroes get control of this state for four years, they can so corrupt its laws and its electorate, they may hold it a quarter of a century. We must fight to the last ditch.”

“I draw the line at pumpkin leaves for money,” insisted Gaston.

It was but ten days to the meeting of the Democratic state convention, and they were coming together divided in opinion, and at sea as to their policy, with a united militant Farmers’ Alliance demanding the uprooting of the foundations of the economic world, and a hundred thousand negro voters grinning at this opportunity to strike their white foes, while McLeod stood in the background smiling over the certainty of his triumph.