IDOLATRY IN GEORGIA. '

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 34, 9 February 1881, Page 4

IDOLATRY IN GEORGIA.

A phase of hero worship has developed, or rather cropped out among the -ne-^ groes of a certain portion of Lee, county,, which is singularly peculiar and at the same rery suggestive of an interesting chain of ethnological 'points;-' LewisBarber, a coloured preacher, had in bisi charge a membership numbering, perhaps, 30,000, making ; up -his four ; j churches. He was a typical specimen of the negro clergy, and wielded an almost absolute power, body • and soul over his large congregation. " Brudder Barber's" word was law and gospel unto his followers and none dared to question his authority or his sway. Vehement, magnetic and powerful, one. swing from his long arms and a chant from his strangely musical voice w6uld seta hundred sisters swaying their bodies to and fro and as many brothers keeping time to the weird rhythm with beating feet ; in awful interest the sermon would grow a medley of declamation an<J recita.tive r until one wild deafening.cry brings 'to 1 a climax f the ecstatic joy, in shouts/ Frances; 1 and moahings/ Last summer 'the preacher died^ andhis friends and his followers refused to be comforted. He was honoured with burial rites without precedent, and s,uch a funeral was indeed i seldom seenj> The deeds and memory left T>y the good pastor were not sufficient for his 'mem 1 ;' bers, and, not comforted with these, they have set up a sort of graven imageyso:. to speak, of Barber, which is placed above the pulpit of his -principal church. The image itself is ! "a work of the crud-. est art, made of white and black cotton cloth stuffed with straw, 'arid' 1 p'ainibed'j with charcoal. To an unbiassed critic it looks more like a scarecrow- set up to frighten bawks than anything else j but a devout member informed the writer that it was a very striking likeness. . of deceased. We marvelled somewhat at*" the strange thing with another brother of this church, and asked him its object. He gave us to understand it was rl a remembrancer of the beloved deceased, and said "although brother' Barber is gone, wo still has de shapes of him wid us." — Americus, Ga., Recorder;' ,f r "It is said," warbles an Australian ! joiiri nal, ,'but whisper it not abroad^: ithat !a bather of the female persuasion .-was-, dis-, porting herself very recently in '.the '"sad, ,pea; waves at a certain popular c watering-place' seven miles from the metropolis,- Waving trvd' railways, an Institute, and a jetty, the .name:) of which watering-place must never be, ( di-: vul&ed or indicated, and she (thQ'biitfyer.).go,|;'. out; of her depth. In accordance 'with! a'timehonoured custom of the fair sex-, she !! fmhie i -' diately took the necessary ;;Bfeps not -toteave^ herself, but to faint. She w,as rescued* .and, laid out upon the beach insensible. AH; the known expedients for restoring drdwnitig persons — and a good many not'ktiowfr^Hy-ere* resorted to, but the lady remained obdurately" lifeless till some onesaid, ■^•Bring.aTipbbletof brandy." Immediately the lifeless lady opened her eyes, and. ;, faintly' whistiered,; " GieU fihilUDg's wprfcb J' r "TftWwhir