This is Not a Layman’s Day, but a Bishop’s Day: An Address Delivered in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 21, 1894
THIS IS NOT A LAYMAN’S DAY, BUT A BISHOP’S DAY: AN
ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND,
ON 21 MAY 1894
(Baltimore, 1894), 19-21. Other texts in Baltimore , 22 May
1894; Speech File, reel 16, frames 657-59, FD Papers, DLC.
In January 1894, a committee of members of the Baltimore conference of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church began collecting funds to erect a monu-
ment in Baltimore’s Laurel Cemetery in memory of the late Daniel A. Payne.
Bishop Alexander W. Wyman chose as the orators for the 21 May 1894
unveiling ceremony, persons “who stood in more than ordinary relation” to
Payne. Since Payne had been a warm admirer of Douglass, Wyman asked
Douglass to speak during the services which began at 3 P.M. After musical
selections and the unveiling of the eighteen-foot-high white marble monu-
ment, the Reverend James H. A. Johnson’, Douglass, and the Reverend
William B. Derrick delivered the major addresses. The Philadelphia praised Douglass’s speech and reported that “Douglass’ ma-
jestic presence, vast prestige and greatness of soul . . . was of itself an object
of thrilling eloquence. . . .” Philadelphia , 7 June 1894.
MR. PRESIDENT: I did not come here to deliver an oration or to make a
speech. I have made preparation for nothing of the kind. I had hoped to be
permitted to be a silent witness of the impressive ceremony of unveiling the
monument to the memory of the late Rev. Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne,
and listen to the appropriate addresses likely to be made on the occasion.
I do not now intend to occupy your attention for more than a very few
minutes. I am the more disposed to limit my time because of what has gone
before and what is to come after. I have nothing to add to the very able,
learned and comprehensive address of Rev. J. H. A. Johnson.1The Reverend James H. A. Johnson of the A.M.E. Church was a frequent correspondent with Douglass and a friend of his son, Frederick, Jr. Johnson had accompanied A. M. E. Bishop Daniel A. Payne to Charleston, S.C., in 1865 and, as a newly ordained minister, helped to organize churches among the freedmen. Poor health forced Johnson to return to Baltimore in 1870 where he remained except for brief pastoral assignments on the eastern shore of Virginia and at the Ebenezer A. M. E. Church in Georgetown, D.C. Although personal rivalries with Bishop James A. Handy prevented his election to the A. M. E. episcopate, he frequently represented his denomination as a delegate to conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the British Wesleyan Methodist Church. James H. A. Johnson to Douglass, 6 November 1890, 8 May 1891. 20 August 1892, General Correspondence File, reel 5, frames 9-10, 89-90, 619-20, FD Papers, DLC; , n.p. I am also the
more disinclined to occupy your time and attention at length, because I
know that the Rev. Dr. Derrick2William B. Derrick (1843-1913) had been born on the British island colony of Antigua in the West Indies. He left Antigua in his teens as a merchant seaman and later served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. Derrick joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church ministry in 1867 and supplied numerous churches in Virginia. His vocal support for the Republican party made it unsafe for him to remain in the South and he subsequently was an A. M. E. pastor in New Jersey and New York. A frequent delegate to A. M. E. general conferences, Derrick also held the post of secretary of missions from 1888 until his election as bishop in 1896. In the episcopate, Derrick devoted much of his energies to developing the A.M.E. Church in South Africa. Regarding the Boers as determined opponents of racial justice, Derrick persuaded the A.M.E. Church to endorse the expansion of British authority over the entire region. Detroit , 15 April 1892; Carol A. Page, “Colonial Reaction to A.M.E. Missionaries in South Africa, 1898-1910," in Sylvia M. Jacobs, ed., (Westport, Conn. , 1982), 177-96; Charles Spencer Smith, (Philadelphia, 1922), 85-86, 170, 200, 242, 305; , 12: 497. is to follow me.
Then, too, here is Bishop H. M. Turner,3Born to free black parents in Abbeville, South Carolina, Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915) received only a small amount of formal education before being licensed by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as an itinerant preacher. He quit that denomination in 1858 and affiliated with the A.M.E. Church. After studying at Trinity College in Baltimore, Turner became pastor of the A. M. E. Church's Israel Church in Washington, D.C., in 1862. The following year he received an appointment as chaplain of the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops. After the Civil War, Turner briefly worked as a Freedman’s Bureau agent and then served a term in the Georgia legislature (1868-70). He headed the A. M. E. Book Concern from 1876 to 1880 and then won election to the office of bishop. In the 1890s, Turner made several visits to Liberia and South Africa and organized conferences of the A. M. E. Church there. After the collapse of southern Reconstruction, Turner became a vocal advocate of black emigration to Africa and served as a vice president of the American Colonization Society. Detroit , 19 August 1892; Page, “A. M. E. Missionaries in South Africa,“ 177-96; Smith, , 47, 79, 84, 174-85; , 608-10; , 2: 206. a man whose voice is equal to
any auditorium, and is well fitted to be heard in the open air, whether the
overhanging sky is calm and blue, or black with cloud and storm. He
should be heard to-day. I shall not, therefore, presume to occupy your time,
as I have said, but for a few minutes.3Born to free black parents in Abbeville, South Carolina, Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915) received only a small amount of formal education before being licensed by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as an itinerant preacher. He quit that denomination in 1858 and affiliated with the A.M.E. Church. After studying at Trinity College in Baltimore, Turner became pastor of the A. M. E. Church's Israel Church in Washington, D.C., in 1862. The following year he received an appointment as chaplain of the First Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops. After the Civil War, Turner briefly worked as a Freedman’s Bureau agent and then served a term in the Georgia legislature (1868-70). He headed the A. M. E. Book Concern from 1876 to 1880 and then won election to the office of bishop. In the 1890s, Turner made several visits to Liberia and South Africa and organized conferences of the A. M. E. Church there. After the collapse of southern Reconstruction, Turner became a vocal advocate of black emigration to Africa and served as a vice president of the American Colonization Society. Detroit , 19 August 1892; Page, “A. M. E. Missionaries in South Africa,“ 177-96; Smith, , 47, 79, 84, 174-85; , 608-10; , 2: 206.
I think I know my place on this occasion. This is not my day nor my
hour. Daniel Alexander Payne was a bishop. I am only a layman. This is not
layman’s day, but Bishop’s day.
Bishop Payne was better known to his brother Bishops and Elders than
to me. They knew him as a Churchman. I knew him as a man. It is for these
gentlemen to speak of him in his superior calling as a Divine.
This, my friends, is no common occasion. It is important whether
viewed in relation to the living or the dead. Here is a noble effort to honor
and perpetuate the memory of a noble and good man.
I first saw the face and heard the voice of Bishop Daniel A. Payne fifty-
four years ago. I saw and heard him in the pulpit of the old and historic
Bethel Church, on Sixth street, Philadelphia.4Located on the comer of 6th and Addison streets in Philadelphia, “Mother Bethel" is the oldest black-owned church building in the United States and was the founding place of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816. When the Reverend Richard Allen and his followers seceded from St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in 1787, the new congregation relocated a blacksmith's shop to the site to house their worship services. The congregation dedicated a regular church building in 1794 and Douglass delivered abolitionist addresses there as early as 1847. The present greystone structure, the fourth Bethel A.M.E. Church on that site, was constructed in the 1890s. Carol V. R. George, (New York, 1973), 64-71, 89, 173-74; John Francis Marion, (Princeton, N.J., 1974). 30-31, 84. I was much impressed by the
sweetness of his spirit and the purity of his language; for, at that day the
speech of the colored pulpit was not always rhetorically or grammatically
faultless. There is great improvement in this respect in these latter days,
and I suppose no man has contributed more to this result than Bishop
Payne. It has been my good fortune to be nearer to Bishop Payne lately than
in those earlier years of his ministry. I have found in his atmosphere
exceeding gentleness, purity and peace. His conversation tended to foster
and strengthen whatever is noblest and best in human character. He was
fitted to make the weak man strong, and the strong man stronger. His
influence in raising the standard of intelligence, morality and education in
the African Methodist Episcopal Church is admitted by all. But in this
respect his influence reached a circle far beyond the limits of his church. He
carried the torchlight of education wherever he went. He was not only an
educated and enlightened gentleman, beyond the standard prevailing dur-
ing the earlier years of his church and pulpit, but he was relatively a great
leader and a great man. Human progress is due to three degrees of great-
ness. First, there is administrative. Second there is the organizing great-
ness. Third, there is the greatness of discovery.5Douglass once again summarizes Theodore Parker's classification of human greatness. Parker, , 204-12. I have often quoted the
sublime saying of the Rev. Theodore Parker: “That all the space between
man’s mind and God’s mind is crowded with truths that wait to be dis-
covered and organized into law for the better government of mankind.”
Bishop Payne was an able organizer. He was a good administrator, and
quick to discover the truth in all ethical matter. He not only knew the truth,
but had the ability to cling to it with unrelenting tenacity. Great was his love
for his friends and brethren, but his love of truth was greater.
I have spoken more and longer than I expected, and have transcended
the limits I set for myself. A good and great man has passed away, but he
has left behind a life that will influence the conduct of men for generations
to come.
Though this beautiful white marble column, erected here by the gener-
ous hands and loving hearts of his devoted friends shall at last fade and
vanish; though the cloud-capped towers, gorgeous palaces and solemn
temples, the great globe and all that it doth inherit shall dissolve, and like
the baseless fabric of a vision leave not a wreck behind,6Douglass adapts , act 4, sc. 1, lines 152-56. still the truth shall
remain. Yet it is good to remember that the great principles of justice,
liberty and humanity, for which Daniel Alexander Payne lived and strove,
are immortal, unchanged, unchangeable, and Can never pass away; and
while these shall remain, the memory of Bishop Payne shall be sacred.