Those who recollect the standing of Virginia in days gone by, will be disappointed in her at the present time. The people, both white and black, are poor and proud, all living on their reputation when the “Old Dominion” was considered the first State in the Union.

I viewed Richmond with much interest. The effect of the late Rebellion is still visible everywhere, and especially amongst those who were leaders in society thirty years ago. I walked through the market and observed several men with long, black cloth cloaks, beneath which was a basket. Into this they might be seen to deposit their marketing for the day.

I noticed an old black man bowing very gracefully to one of these individuals, and I inquired who he was. “Ah, massa,” said the negro, “dat is Major ----, he was berry rich before de war, but de war fotch him right down, and now he ain’t able to have servants, and he’s too proud to show his basket, so he covers it up in his cloak.” And then the black man smiled and shook his head significantly, and walked on. Standing here in the market place, one beholds many scenes which bring up the days of slavery as seen by the results. Here is a girl with a rich brown skin; after her comes one upon whose cheek a blush can just be distinguished; and I saw one or two young women whose cream-like complexion would have justly excited the envy of many a New York belle. The condition of the women of the latter class is most deplorable. Beautiful almost beyond description, many of them educated and refined, with the best white blood of the South in their veins, it is perhaps only natural that they should refuse to mate themselves with coarse and ignorant black men. Socially, they are not recognized by the whites; they are often without money enough to buy the barest necessaries of life; honorably they can never procure sufficient means to gratify their luxurious tastes; their mothers have taught them how to sin; their fathers they never knew; debauched white men are ever ready to take advantage of their destitution, and after living a short life of shame and dishonor they sink into early and unhallowed graves. Living, they were despised by whites and blacks alike; dead, they are mourned by none.

I went to hear the somewhat celebrated negro preacher, Rev. John Jasper. The occasion was one of considerable note, he having preached, and by request, a sermon to prove that the “Sun do move,” and now he was to give it at the solicitation of forty-five members of the Legislature, who were present as hearers.

Those who wanted the sermon repeated were all whites, a number of whom did it for the fun that they expected to enjoy, while quite a respectable portion, old fogy in opinion, felt that the preacher was right.

On reaching the church, I found twelve carriages and two omnibuses, besides a number of smaller vehicles, lining the street, half an hour before the opening of the doors. However, the whites who had come in these conveyances had been admitted by the side doors, while the streets were crowded with blacks and a poorer class of whites.

By special favor I was permitted to enter before the throng came rushing in. Members of the Legislature were assigned the best seats, indeed, the entire centre of the house was occupied by whites, who, I was informed, were from amongst the F. F. Vs. The church seats one thousand, but it is safe to say that twelve hundred were present at that time.

Rev. John Jasper is a deep black, tall, and slim, with long arms and somewhat round-shouldered, and sixty-five years old. He has preached in Richmond for the last forty-five years, and is considered a very good man. He is a fluent speaker, well versed in Scriptures, and possesses a large amount of wit. The members of Jasper’s church are mainly freedmen, a large number of whom are from the country, commonly called “corn-field niggers.”

The more educated class of the colored people, I found, did not patronize Jasper. They consider him behind the times, and called him “old fogy.” Jasper looked proudly upon his audience, and well he might, for he had before him some of the first men and women of Virginia’s capital. But these people had not come to be instructed, they had really come for a good laugh and were not disappointed.

Jasper had prepared for the occasion, and in his opening service saved himself by calling on “Brother Scogin” to offer prayer. This venerable Brother evidently felt the weight of responsibility laid upon him, and discharged the duty, at least to the entire satisfaction of those who were there to be amused. After making a very sensible prayer, Scogin concluded as follows:—“O Lord, we’s a mighty abused people, we’s had a hard time in slavery, we’s been all broken to pieces, we’s bow-legged, knock-kneed, bandy-shanked, cross-eyed, and a great many of us is hump-backed. Now, Lord, we wants to be mendid up, an’ we wants you to come an’ do it. Don’t send an angel, for dis is too big a job for an angel. You made us, O Lord, an’ you know our wants, an’ you can fix us up as nobody else can. Come right down yourself, and come quickly.” At this sentence Jasper gave a loud groan, and Scogin ceased. After service was over I was informed that when Jasper finds any of his members a little too long-winded in prayer, singing, or speaking, he gives that significant groan, which they all well understand. It means “enough.”

The church was now completely jammed, and it was said that two thousand people sought admission in vain. Jasper’s text was “God is a God of War.” The preacher, though wrong in his conclusions, was happy in his quotations, fresh in his memory, and eloquently impressed his views upon his hearers.

He said, “If the sun does not move, why did Joshua command it to ‘stand still?’ Was Joshua wrong? If so, I had rather be wrong with Joshua than to be right with the modern philosophers. If this earth moves, the chimneys would be falling, tumbling in upon the roofs of the houses, the mountains and hills would be changing and levelling down, the rivers would be emptying out. You and I would be standing on our heads. Look at that mountain standing out yonder; it stood there fifty years ago when I was a boy. Would it be standing there if the earth was running round as they tell us?”

“No, blessed God,” cried a Sister. Then the laugh came, and Jasper stood a moment with his arms folded. He continued: “The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; do you think any one can make me believe that the earth can run around the world in a single day so as to give the sun a chance to set in the west?”

“No, siree, that doctrine don’t go down with Jasper.”

At this point the preacher paused for breath, and I heard an elderly white in an adjoining pew, say, in a somewhat solemn tone—“Jasper is right, the sun moves.”

Taking up his bandanna, and wiping away the copious perspiration that flowed down his dusky cheeks, the preacher opened a note which had just been laid upon the desk, read it, and continued,—“A question is here asked me, and one that I am glad to answer, because a large number of my people, as well as others, can’t see how the children of Israel were able to cross the Red Sea in safety, while Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned. I have told you again and again that everything was possible with God. But that don’t seem to satisfy you.

“Those who doubt these things that you read in Holy Writ are like the infidel,—won’t believe unless you can see the cause. Well, let me tell you. The infidel says that when the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, it was in winter, and the sea was frozen over. This is a mistake, or an intentional misrepresentation.” Here the preacher gave vivid accounts of the sufferings and flight of the children of Israel, whose case he likened to the colored people of the South. The preacher wound up with an eloquent appeal to his congregation not to be led astray by “these new-fangled notions.”

Great excitement is just now taking hold of the people upon the seeming interest that the colored inhabitants are manifesting in the Catholic religion. The Cathedral in Richmond is thrown open every Sunday evening to the blacks, when the bishop himself preaches to them, and it is not strange that the eloquent and persuasive voice of Bishop Kean, who says to the negro, “My dear beloved brethren,” should captivate these despised people. I attended a meeting at the large African Baptist Church, where the Rev. Moses D. Hoge, D. D., was to preach to the colored people against Catholicism. Dr. Hoge, though noted for his eloquence, and terribly in earnest, could not rise higher in his appeals to the blacks than to say “men and women” to them.

The contrast was noticeable to all. After hearing Dr. Hoge through I asked an intelligent colored man how he liked his sermon. His reply was: “If Dr. Hoge is in earnest, why don’t he open his own church and invite us in and preach to us there? Before he can make any impression on us, he must go to the Catholic Church and learn the spirit of brotherly love.”

One Sunday, Bishop Kean said to the colored congregation, numbering twelve hundred, who had come to hear him: “There are distinctions in the business and in the social world, but there are no distinctions in the spiritual. A soul is a soul before God, may it be a black or a white man’s. God is no respecter of persons, the Christian Church cannot afford to be. The people who would not let you learn to read before the war, are the ones now that accuse me of trying to use you for political purposes.

“Now, my dear beloved brethren, when I attempt to tell you how to vote, you need not come to hear me preach any more.”

The blacks have been so badly treated in the past that kind words and social recognition will do much to win them in the future, for success will not depend so much upon their matter as upon their manner; not so much upon their faith as upon the more potent direct influence of their practice. In this the Catholics of the South have the inside track, for the prejudice of the Protestants seems in a fair way to let the negro go anywhere except to heaven, if they have to go the same way.