And the bishop has worked himself
up the last three or four nights to where he has
been perdicting and prophesying, fur the spirit
has hit the meeting hard.
What he has been prophesying, Sam says, is
the coming of a Messiah fur the nigger race--a
new Elishyah, he says, as will lead them from
out'n their inequality and bring 'em up to white
standards right on the spot. The whites has had
their Messiah, the bishop says, but the niggers
ain't never had none of their SPECIAL OWN yet.
And they needs one bad, and one is sure a-coming.
It seems the whites don't know yet jest what the
bishop's been a-preaching. But every nigger fur
miles on every side of Big Bethel is a-listening and
a-looking fur signs and omens, and has been fur
two, three days now. This here half-crazy bishop
has got 'em worked up to where they is ready
to believe anything, or do anything.
So the night before when the word got out in
Cottonville that we had some scheme to make the
niggers white, the niggers there took up with the
idea that the doctor was mebby the feller the
bishop had been prophesying about, and for a sign
and a omen and a miracle of his grace and powers
was going out to Big Bethel to turn 'em white.
Poor devils, they didn't see but what being turned
white orter be a part of what they was to get from
the coming of that there Messiah.
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