Soulcatcher: And other stories

The Plague

JULY 5,1793

FRIDAY, 8:30 P.M.

I have kept this journal for a few months now, initially to document for posterity the early work I am doing to open — soon, I hope — the doors of a church I will call Bethel, hut as we now enter the second (or perhaps it is the third) month of deaths due to the yellow fever, I wonder if it might be more appropriate to title these pages The Plague Journal.

Death is all around us, like a biblical parable on (white) vanity. Should I make that the subject of my five o'clock sermon tomorrow morning? I wonder how it might be received? Perhaps well, insofar as my congregation is entirely Cainite — so white men call us — the colored outcasts violently driven from St. George's, one of Philadelphia's largest Methodist churches just last year. I know in the eyes of God, the behavior of this city's Abelites was scandalous. We, free men and women, came humbly to their church to pray to the Creator. Rev. Absalom Jones and I were a little late. Without causing any noise or commotion whatsoever, we quickly went up the stairs of St. George to the newly built gallery, which was just above the seats we'd occupied the week before. The strains of the first hymn were ending as we sat down, then the church elder told all those present to pray. Obediently, we got down on our knees. But hardly was I a minute into silent meditation when at my right I heard Absalom make a sound. Opening my eyes, I saw one of St. George's trustees hauling my companion to his feet, telling him Negroes were never, never, never to sit in this section of the gallery. Naturally, my friends and I left, turning our backs on all of Philadelphia's white churches. One Sabbath after the next we were subjected to humiliations it pains me to remember. Good Christians, for example, who refused to take the sacrament if it meant sipping from the same chalice that had touched the lips of their darker brethren. Oh yes, Absalom was compelled to organize St. Thomas Episcopal Church after that sad incident, and I dream of a ground-breaking ceremony someday at Bethel, that we might better separate ourselves from those who reject us, and all of this simply that we can worship our common Father in the spirit He intended. now, ironically, He has visited upon this city's whites a plague of medieval proportions. It is a swift disease. It can kill in a single day. Week by week, the death toll mounts. Frightened whites flee this capital city of Philadelphia by the thousands, abandoning their families and friends. Those who remain are helpless in the grip of this growing malignancy, for the country's government is paralyzed. The crisis is unparalleled in this country's history. But word has spread that Negroes are immune to the disease, which is not true, of course. Nonetheless, the Abelites believe we are protected, and so Dr. Benjamin Rush, knowing of the leadership position I occupy through God's grace among my own people, has appealed to me to plead with them to assist the city's remaining civic leaders in combating the curse that is laying them low.

I prayed — and prayed — on his proposal. And in the midst of my appeal to the Most High for guidance, I remembered the injunction, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). This crisis, the Lord let me see, is possibly our invitation as a people back from our exile east of Eden. If we help the Abelites in their hour of need, mightn't they be thankful to the Negroes of Philadelphia? Wouldn't their hatred be replaced by gratitude? Such has been my hope since I enlisted my people in the dangerous work of saving others who have long despised them.

JULY 21, 1793

SUNDAY, 6 P.M.

Preached four sermons today in the Commons, in Southwark, and Northern Liberties, and as always after such a day I feel a bit emotionally drained, yet also exhilarated, so I know it will be difficult to fall asleep at my usual hour of 9 P.M. But do I preach? It seems more fitting to say that when I stand before my people, the Book in my left hand, the words come flooding out of me, as if I were merely a conduit, an anonymous instrument through which the music of our Lord and Savior bursts forth. Afterwards, it's true, I cannot recall everything I said, though the laity always seem pleased and tell me that I am good. No, I've told them time again, not I but the Father within me doeth the works, and I ask them to read Matthew 19:17.

However, that glow that comes after a day of sermonizing lasted no longer than it took for me to step back onto the streets of Philadelphia and begin my walk home. The dead lie in ditches alongside the roads. I saw a white child who was crying, wandering about like a phantom because she has the plague and her parents turned her out into the street. They did not want her to infect the test of their family. Yellow fever is no respecter of age, color, sex, caste, or social position — the doctors are dying just as swiftly as their patients, which reminds me that I must look in on Dr. Benjamin Rush, a good and decent white man, and a true Abolitionist.

Note: My businesses need attention.

One other thing about this plague troubles me. God does nothing, we know, without having a purpose in mind. We cannot, of course, fathom His will entirely, though my hope, as I've written, is that this affliction will soften the hearts of whites to the Negroes laboring to help them. But is there a deeper message in this sickness that has befallen Philadelphia like the Flood, or locusts darkening the sky? I have taken this question each day into my mid-afternoon meditation, but as of yet I have no answer.

***

AUGUST 6, 1793

TUESDAY, 5:20 P.M.

Spent this morning digging a common grave outside the city for burying the dead, which we loaded onto wagons at 6 A.M. Three of my congregation and I rode slowly up one street, down another, shouting, "Bring out your dead." Which six people did, dragging the corpses from their homes, then pitching them onto our wagon. As we bore them out of town, I looked back at their bodies. They were heaped together like broken dolls. Their flesh was yellow. Already two of them had gone ripe. The other three were more recently dead, their limbs stiff as boards. In that pile of putrefying flesh I saw — or thought I saw — the trustee from St. George's, the one who'd expelled Absalom and myself. I believe it was him, but the decomposition of his face made a definite identification difficult.

He had not wanted me in his church, or touching him. As things turned out, once we had dug a hole six feet deep and wrapped the fetid corpses in sackcloth, my black hands were the last ones in this world to touch him. We shoveled dirt onto the bodies, and when I could no longer see the trustee's face — which, God forgive me, I hated — I said a brief prayer that all their souls might wing heavenward, though should that doubtful event happen, I'm sure the trustee would be standing at the gate when I arrived, telling Jesus that my black brethren and I should not be admitted.

But I prayed for him, yes. And for myself (11 Timothy 2:1–3), for the removal of my anger. For does not the Light of the World tell us that we must forgive seven times seventy, if need be?

AUGUST 12,1793

MONDAY, 8:45 P.M.

Just returned from making my rounds to the sick. Walked this morning at approximately 7 A.M. into the palatial home of a woman well known in Philadelphia for the lavish parties she holds in her ballroom. Everywhere my gaze fell I saw wealth. A chandelier, for example, that would pay for the building of ten Bethels. Furniture imported from France. I am certain this woman does not dwell often on Matthew 6:27, where it is written, "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" Her servant, a colored girl in my congregation, led me up the quarter-turn stairs to the woman's bedroom, where she lay semiconscious, emaciated as a skeleton. I could tell the disease was far along with her. Most likely, she was bleeding internally. Most of her golden hair — now stiff as straw — had fallen out onto her pillow. I began unpacking the apothecary case Dr. Rush had given me, laying out glass vials of various medicines, the little weighing scale, and instruments necessary for cupping. The old woman began to rouse. Seeing me, that I was a Negro — and one in her bedroom no less-she began to scream, shouting, "Get out! Get out!"

I repacked my case and promptly left. I did not plead with her or beg for the opportunity to save her life so that she could begin plans for her next party. Later in the day, through her servant girl, I was informed of her passing at 4 P.M. Perhaps God has sent this plague for the same reason His wrath destroyed Sodom. To cleanse our city of human corruption…

SEPTEMBER 1, 1793

SUNDAY, 7:00 P.M.

I have been ill, feverish for the last few weeks. Unable to write in addition to my other duties. It is not true that the plague bypasses people of color. For our numbers in Philadelphia, as many Negroes have perished as whites. What, then, heavenly Father, do you want us to learn from this unending devastation?

SEPTEMBER 12, 1793

THURSDAY, 4:18 P.M.

As I promised him, I again visited earlier this afternoon with Dr. Benjamin Rush, and as always our time together was uplifting. I cannot condemn white people precisely because I know someone like the good doctor. From the beginning he supported our black agents of mercy during this epidemic, and he could have fled Philadelphia along with the reportedly twenty thousand others who have abandoned the city, but being a true physician, and man of God, he remained during these months when his services were most needed.

I was discouraged to see, however, that the yellow pallor was upon his face this afternoon. He looked feverish, weakened by his own bout with the disease, and so I begged him not to stand, as he was struggling to do, when I entered his parlor. Slowly, he settled back against the cushions, perspiration beading along his brow, and tried to smile. He gave me the intelligence — blessed to hear — that across Philadelphia there were signs that the fever was beginning to abate. Fewer cases had been reported this week than the week previous. "Then we are winning?" I asked, too soon. "And when this is over, the citizens of this city will acknowledge the role played in its restoration by Negroes?" Dr. Rush looked down. His eyes narrowed. He gave a great, sad sigh, and said, "Would that were so, Richard, but already I am hearing the opposite of what we'd hoped. Rather than singing your people's praises, white men and women are saying blacks used the plague for their own profit. They tell me reports that Negroes stole when, in the guise of nurses, they entered white homes — and like vultures pilfered the bodies of the dead. Some have been accused of murdering, not saving, others. And even you, my friend, are being accused." I asked him of what, and he replied that many believed I was pocketing money because in the past week or two I was obliged to charge for some of the labors my people performed. I explained that it was true. We were asking for some remuneration, but only because we had exhausted all the volunteers who stepped forward to give freely of their time, and so I was forced to hire five men to assist me. The doctor nodded, "Oh, I believe you, and I will tell everyone what you have told me. But I doubt it will change many of their hearts. In that case of medicines I gave you, there are many potions and elixirs for curing the ailments of the flesh. I wish to God we could invent something for curing the sickness in the white soul."

So he spoke. I thanked him, then took my leave.

OCTOBER 16, 1793

WEDNESDAY, 9:50 P.M.

Unable to sleep, I walked the streets for long hours after dark this evening, and at every alleyway, park, and corner I came to, where the sick huddled round a fire, or wild dogs nibbled the flesh off a dead man's fingers, I saw a memento mori. A reminder that Dr. Rush and I had been foolish to believe the hearts of (white) men might ever change in the Earthly City. No, our salvation awaits only in that house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. Wandering tonight after another day of delivering five sermons, I did see signs that the yellow fever was lessening its grip upon the city. I mused that perhaps soon that plague would be gone. Things would be as they were before. I stepped through now-healing white neighborhoods, ones I'd delivered medicines to only a month ago; I saw lily-white faces glaring at me through the windows, twisted lips drawn down in disgust at my very presence, and I knew at last, and with the certainty of revelation, that the exoteric lesson the good Lord wanted me to see was that, despite the best efforts by men of goodwill, some plagues never end.