(Richard Allen,) though now in obscurity and degradation, will
notwithstanding stand on the pages of history among the greatest
divines who have lived since the apostolic age, and among the
African's, Bishop Allen's will be entirely pre-eminent. My brethren,
search after the character and exploits of this godly man among his
ignorant and miserable brethren, to bring them to a knowledge of the
truth as it is in our Master. Consider upon the tyrants and false
christians against whom he had to contend in order to get access to
his brethren. See him and his ministers in the states of New York,
New Jersey, Penn. Delaware and Maryland, carrying the gladsome tidings
of free and full salvation to the colored people. Tyrants and false
christians however, would not allow him to penetrate far into the
South for fear that he would awaken some of his ignorant brethren,
whom they held in wretchedness and miseries--for fear, I say it, that
he would awaken and bring them to a knowledge of their Maker. O my
Master! my Master! I cannot but think upon Christian Americans!! What
kind of people can they be? Will not those who were burnt up in Sodom
and Gomorrah rise up in judgment against Christian Americans with the
Bible in their hands, and condemn them? Will not the Scribes and
Pharisees of Jerusalem, who had nothing but the laws of Moses and the
Prophets to go by, rise up in judgment against Christian Americans,
and condemn them[22] who in addition to these have a revelation from
Jesus Christ the son of the living God? In fine, will not the
Antediluvians, together with the whole heathen world of antiquity,
rise up in judgment against Christian Americans and condemn them? The
Christians of Europe and America go to Africa, bring us away, and
throw us into the seas, and in other ways murder us, as they would
wild beasts. The Antediluvians and heathens never dreamed of such
barbarities. Now the Christians believe because they have a name to
live, while they are dead, that God will overlook such things. But if