FATHER HENSON'S STORY

One of the most amazing narratives of righteous African-American confessors is that of Josiah Henson. His autobiography entitled "Father Henson's Story of His Own Life" was one of the real life inspirations that Harriet Beecher Stowe used for Uncle Tom in the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

This remarkable life is fittingly called Father Henson's Story, for in many respects, as St. Paul said, "For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers." (1 Cor. 4:15) Such priestly, pastoral gifts were bestowed upon Josiah Henson so as to distinguish him as a true spiritual father to many, both black and white. His story betrays the most horrific and brutal aspects of the inhuman system of slavery as it was practiced in America, while at the same time revealing the Hand of the Most Merciful coming to the rescue of Joseph in Egypt. The theme of redemptive suffering is intertwined throughout his life. In his own words he said, "The sufferings of the past are now like a dream, and the enduring lessons left behind make me to praise God that my soul has been tempered by him in so fiery a furnace and under such heavy blows."

What heavy blows are these? Consider for instance his only memory of his earthly father:

"I was born June 15th, 1789, in Charles County, Maryland, on a farm belonging to Mr. Francis Newman, about a mile from Port Tobacco. My mother was a slave of Dr. Josiah McPherson, but hired to the Mr. Newman to whom my father belonged. The only incident I can remember which occurred while my mother continued on Mr. Newman's farm, was the appearance one day of my father with his head bloody and his back lacerated. He was beside himself with mingled rage and suffering. The explanation I picked up from the conversation of others only partially explained the matter to my mind; but as I grew older I understood it all. It seemed the overseer had sent my mother away from the other field hands to a retired place, and after trying persuasion in vain, had resorted to force to accomplish a brutal purpose. Her screams aroused my father at his distant work, and running up, he found his wife struggling with the man, Furious at the sight, he sprung upon him like a tiger. In a moment the overseer was down, and mastered by rage, my father would have killed him but for the entreaties of my mother, and the overseer's own promise that nothing should ever be said of the matter. The promise was kept 'most promises of the cowardly and debased' as long as the danger lasted.

The laws of slave states provide means and opportunities for revenge so ample, that miscreants like him never fail to improve them. "A nigger has struck a white man;" that is enough to set a whole county on fire; no question is asked about the provocation. The penalty followed: one hundred lashes on the bare back, and to have the right ear nailed to the whipping post, and then severed from the body. A powerful blacksmith named Hewes laid on the stripes. Fifty were given, during which the cries of my father might be heard a mile, and then a pause ensued. True, he had struck a white man, but as valuable property he must not be damaged. Judicious men felt his pulse. Oh! He could stand the whole. Again and again the thong fell on his lacerated back. His cries grew fainter and fainter, till a feeble groan was the only response to the final blows. His head was then thrust against the post, and his right ear fastened to it with a tack; a swift pass of a knife, and the bleeding member was left sticking to the place. Then came a hurrah from the degraded crowd, and the exclamation, "That's what he's got for striking a white man."

Previous to this affair my father, from all I can learn, had been a good-humored and light-hearted man, the ringleader in all fun at cornhuskings and Christmas buffoonery. His banjo was the life of the farm, and all night long at a merry making would he play on it while the other Negroes danced. But from this hour he became utterly changed. Sullen, morose, and dogged, nothing could be done with him. The milk of human kindness in his heart was turned to gall85So off he was sent to Alabama. What was his after fate neither my mother nor I have ever learned; the great day will reveal all."

The mother of Josiah Henson deserves a place among those mothers of the great holy men of the Church. As Solomon said long ago, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6) Here is account of his recollections of her teaching him to pray:

"For two or three years my mother and her young family of six children had resided on this estate [i.e. the kind Dr. McPherson]; and we had been in the main very happy. She was a good mother to us, a woman of deep piety, anxious above all things to touch our hearts with a sense of religion. How or where she acquired her knowledge of God, or her acquaintance with the Lord's Prayer, which she so frequently taught us to repeat, I am unable to say. I remember seeing her often on her knees trying to arrange her thoughts in prayer appropriate to the situation, but which amounted to little more than constant ejaculations, and the repetition of short phrases which were within my infant comprehension, and have remained in my memory to this hour."

Much of the prayer life of the ancient, Orthodox Church is exactly this - the constant remembrance of God through short, ejaculatory prayers, like Josiah's mother taught him. The most common such prayer of course is, of course, "Lord, have mercy!"

However, with the death of the kind slave owner, Dr. McPherson, another heavy blow was to befall young Josiah. Again in his own words:

"Our term of happy union as one family was now, alas, at an end. Mournful as was the Doctor's death to his friends it was a far greater calamity to us. The estate and the slaves must be sold and the proceeds divided among the heirs. We were but property; not a mother, and the children God had given her. Young as I was then, the iron entered into my soul. The remembrance of the breaking up of McPherson's estate is photographed in it's minutest features in my mind. The crowd collected round the stand, the huddling group of Negroes, the examination of muscle, teeth, the exhibition of agility, the look of the auctioneer, the agony of my mother - I can shut my eyes and see them all.

My brothers were bid off first, and one by one, while my mother, paralyzed by grief, held me by the hand. Her turn came, and she was bought by Isaac Riley of Montgomery County [Maryland]. Then I was offered to the assembled purchasers. My mother, half distracted with the thought of parting forever from all her children, pushed through the crowd, while the bidding for me was going on, to the spot where Riley was standing. She fell at his feet, and clung to his knees, entreating him in tones that a mother only could command, to buy her baby as well as herself, and spare to her one, at least, of her little ones. Will it, can it be believed that this man, thus appealed to, was capable of turning a deaf ear to her supplication, but of disengaging himself from her with such violent blows and kicks, as to reduce her to the necessity of creeping out of his reach, and mingling the groan of bodily suffering with the sob of a breaking heart? As she crawled away from the brutal man I heard her sob out, "Oh, Lord Jesus, how long, how long shall I suffer this way!" I must have been then between five and six years old."

In the merciful Providence of God, young Josiah, sold to a man named Robb, fell into deep despondency. Although he was among other slaves, no one cared for him or showed him sympathy. He soon fell sick and was nearly on death's door, when Robb met Riley, the slave owner of his mother, and offered to sell him - cheap! Riley was afraid he would die, but took the chance. And, thus, young Josiah was restored to his best friend on earth, his mother.

Quickly recovering his health, he grew into a very industrious, capable, joyful young man. Although he and his mother were placed in pitiful conditions, forced to work like animals, even in his youth, yet he managed to see the brighter and more positive aspects of life itself. He recollects:

"Slavery did its best to make me wretched; I feel on particular obligation to it; but nature, or the blessed God of youth and joy, was mightier than slavery. Along with the memory of miry cabins, frosted feet, weary toil under the blazing sun, curses and blows, there flock in others, of jolly Christmas times, dances before old massa's door for the first drink of egg-nog, extra meat at holiday times, midnight visits to apple orchards, broiling stray chickens, and first rate tricks to dodge work. The God who makes the pup to gambol, and the kitten play, and the bird sing, and the fish leap, was the author in me of many a light hearted hour. True it was, indeed, that the fun and freedom of Christmas, at which time my master relaxed his front, was generally followed up by a portentous back action, under which he drove and cursed worse than ever; still the fun and freedom were fixed facts; we had had them and could not help it."

During these growing years he also deeply touched by the sufferings of those around him, "for that he also is compassed with infirmity." (Heb. 5:2) Josiah remembered that, "the condition of the male slave is bad enough; but that of the female, compelled to perform unfit labor, sick, suffering, and bearing the peculiar burdens of her own sex unpitied and unaided, as well as the toils which belong to the other, is one that must arouse the spirit of sympathy in every heart not dead to all feeling. The miseries which I saw many of the women suffer often oppressed me with a load of sorrow." During this period of growing compassion, he writes: "It was my training in the luxury of doing good, in the divinity of a sympathetic heart, in the righteousness of indignation against the cruel and oppressive. There and then was my soul made conscious of its heavenly original."

As the alms of Cornelius led him to Peter, so the compassion of Josiah Henson were preparation for his meeting John McKenny, a preacher of Christ. It would turn out to be the most momentous day of his life.

"One Sunday when he was to officiate in this way, at a place three or four miles distant, my mother urged my to ask master's permission to go and hear him. I had so often been beaten for making such a request that I refused to make it. She still persisted, telling me that I could never become a Christian if I minded beatings - that I must take up my cross and bear it. She was so grieved at my refusal that she wept. To gratify her I concluded to try the experiment, and accordingly went to my master and asked permission to attend the meeting. Although such permission was not given freely or often, yet his favor to me was shown for this once by allowing me to go, without much scolding, but not without a pretty distinct intimation of what would befall me if I did not return immediately after the close of the service85.When I arrived at the place of meeting, the services were so far advanced that the speaker was just beginning his discourse, from the text, Hebrew 2:9: "That He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." This was the first text of the Bible to which I had ever listened, knowing it to be such. I have never forgotten it, and scarcely a day has passed since, in which I have not recalled it, and the sermon that was preached from it.

The Divine character of Jesus Christ, His tender love for mankind, His forgiving Spirit, His compassion for the outcast and despised, His cruel crucifixion and glorious ascension, were all depicted, and some of the points were dwelt on with great power. Again and again did the preacher reiterate the words "for every man." These glad tidings, this salvation, were not for the benefit of a select few only. They were for the slave as well as the rich, for the persecuted, the distressed, the heavy laden, the captive; for me among the rest, a poor, despised, abused creature, deemed of others fit for nothing but unrequited toil - but mental and bodily degradation. O, the blessedness and sweetness of feeling that I was loved! I would have died that moment, with joy, for the compassionate Savior about Whom I was hearing. "He loves me," "He looks down in compassion from Heaven on me," "He died to save my soul," "He'll welcome me to the skies, " I kept repeating to myself." I was transported with delicious joy. I seemed to see a Glorious Being, in a cloud of splendor, smiling down from on High. In sharp contrast with the experience of the contempt and brutality of my earthly master, I basked in the sunshine of the benignity of this Divine Being. "He'll be my dear refuge. He'll wipe away all tears from my eyes." "Now I can bear all things; nothing will seem hard after this." I felt sorry that "Massa Riley" didn't know Him, sorry that he should live such a coarse, wicked, cruel life. Swallowed up in the beauty of Divine love, I loved my enemies, and prayed for them that did despitefully use and entreat me."

As true faith is shown to be such by the tests that it endures, so was the faith of Josiah Henson. As he grew, his master Isaac Riley relied on him for more and more. Not only was he made the superintendent of the plantation where he was able to guide the others with wisdom and kindness, but he was also often the attendant of "Massa Riley" as he frequented drinking parties and taverns where he would often have to pull his master out of a brawl, put him back on his horse and guide him home. Once he had to shove Bryce Litton, the overseer of a nearby plantation, in one of these brawls to free his master. Later, this same overseer cornered him with several others and beat him with posts until he was full of wounds and his arm and shoulder blades were broken. In constant pain, he was never again able to lift his hands up to his head. Regarding his master, he writes, "I had no reason to think highly of his moral character; but it was my duty to be faithful to him in the position in which he placed me; and I can boldly declare, before God and man, that it was so. I forgave him the causeless blows an injuries he had inflicted on me in childhood and youth."

At 22 years of age, he married a slave girl, who was pious, kind, and also attended the same church meetings. Together they had twelve children. A few years later another extreme trial came upon Josiah. As a result of his loose living, Isaac Riley had wasted his money, broken his promises, gambled and drank his estate away. It came to the point where he heard that they might take his slaves. So he wanted Josiah to run away with eighteen of them, besides Josiah, his wife, and at the time, two children, and go to his brother Amos in Kentucky. It was February 1825. The threat of them all being separated and sold down south 'caused them all to unite and persevere together. All in all, they traveled nearly a thousand miles in mid-winter. They traveled through Maryland, Virginia, Ohio en route to Kentucky.

When they got to Ohio, however, a new temptation came. When they saw other former slaves there, they were all encouraged to run away. Yet something nagged at Josiah's conscience. He had given his word. He could clearly see the opportunity for freedom was there, yet he had always thought of purchasing it. He confessed also that not only conscience but pride partially motivated him. He loved to hear the praises of a job well done.

Although he realized that he acted according to the light that he had at the time, he later came to bitterly regret the decision that he had made on behalf of his brethren. "Those were days of ignorance. I knew not the glory of free manhood. I knew not that the title-deed of the slave owner is robbery and outrage." He confessed, "Often since that day has my soul been pierced with bitter anguish at the thought of having been thus instrumental in consigning to the infernal bondage of slavery so many of my fellow beings. I have wrestled in prayer with God for forgiveness. Having experienced myself the sweetness of liberty, and knowing too well the after misery of numbers of many of them, my infatuation has seemed to me the unpardonable sin."

After settling into life and work on the plantation of Amos Riley in Kentucky, the next several years were relatively peaceful. During this time, he became a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. As we remember that the early Apostles were untaught and educated men, so we must always remember that "God is no respecter of persons." (Acts 10:34) Regarding preaching and education, Josiah writes:20

"No great amount of theological knowledge is requisite for this purpose. If it had been, it is manifest enough that preaching never could have been my vocation; but I am persuaded that, speaking from the fullness of a heart deeply impressed with its own sinfulness and imperfection, and with the mercy of God, in Christ Jesus, my humble ministrations have not been entirely useless to those who have had less opportunity than myself to reflect upon these all important subjects."

However, in 1828, one of the tragic scenes of his early childhood was to be reenacted in front of him. Isaac Riley, unable to move to Kentucky, decided to sell all his slaves there, except for Josiah and his family. Once again, husbands and wives, parents and children were separated from one another, but this time they were sent to even more horrible conditions than before. Josiah and his family were kept simply so that he could come back and tend to "Massa Riley."

But even that later changed. Amos Riley, the brother of Isaac, decided to outwit his brother and later sell Josiah down in New Orleans. His son, also called Amos, about 21 years of age, was piloting the flat boat loaded with produce to New Orleans. Josiah had previously been given freedom papers by Isaac Riley in Maryland, who tried to cheat him out of them, which he carefully hid on his person. In deep misery he got on board.

After going downstream for some time, they stopped at Vicksburg where he was able to go visit some of his former companions that were sold. When he saw them, he was stunned. "Their cheeks were literally carved in with starvation and disease, and their bodies infested with vermin. No hell could equal the misery they described as their daily portion. Toiling half naked in malarious marshes, under a burning, maddening sun, and poisoned by swarms of mosquitoes and black gnats, they looked forward to death as their only deliverance. Some of them fairly cried at seeing me there, and at thought of the fate which they felt awaited me. Their worst fears of being sold down South had been more than realized. I went away sick at heart, and to this day the sight of that wretched group haunts me."

In such a state, Josiah's thoughts were filled with despair, horror, and hopelessness. As he thought about it he realized that in such a state he couldn't last for more than two years. Yet at least then he would find freedom. This was the compensation he received for all the many years of service he had bestowed upon the Riley's. It was at this time that he faced his biggest test. He resolved to kill the four companions on board, take the money and the boat and escape to the North. He relates the details:

"One dark, rainy night, within a few days' sail of New Orleans, my hour seemed to have come. I was alone on the deck; Master Amos and the hands were all asleep below, and I crept down noiselessly, got hold of an ax, entered the cabin, and looking by the aid of the dim light there for my victims, my eye fell upon Master Amos, who was nearest to me; my hand slid along the ax handle; I raised it to strike the fatal blow, when suddenly the thought came to me, "What! Commit murder! And you a Christian?" I had not called it murder before. It was self-defense, it was preventing others from murdering me, it was justifiable, it was even praiseworthy. But now, all at once, the truth burst upon me that it was a crime. I was going to kill a man who had done nothing to injure me, but was only obeying commands which he could not resist; I was about to lose the fruit of all my efforts at self-improvement, the character I had acquired, and the peace of mind that had never deserted me. All this came upon me instantly, and with a distinctness which almost made me think I heard it whispered in my ear; and I believe I even turned my head to listen. I shrunk back, laid down the ax, and thanked God, as I have done every day since, that I had done every day since, that I had not committed murder.

I remained on deck all night, instead of rousing one of the men to relieve; and nothing brought composure to my mind but the solemn resolution I then made, to resign myself to the will of God, and take with thankfulness, if I could, but with submission, at all events, whatever he might decide should be my lot. I reflected that if my life were reduced to a brief term, I should have less to suffer; and that it was better to die with a Christian's hope, and a quiet conscience, than to live with the incessant recollection of a crime that would destroy the value of life, and under the weight of a secret that would crush out the satisfaction that might be expected from freedom and every other blessing."

After such a vow, our Lord indeed responded to His servant. As they approached the harbor, in a muggy, humid, New Orleans June, the young master Amos grew increasingly and deathly ill! Feverish, prostrate, and filled with pain, he was now beseeching Josiah to forgive him and stay by his side. Would he please sell the goods, the boat and take him back to Kentucky as fast as possible on a steamboat! Josiah was elated. "O, my God! how my heart sang jubilees of praise to Thee, as the steamboat swung loose from the levee and breasted the mighty tide of the Mississippi! Away from this land of bondage and death! Away from misery and despair! Once more exulting hope possessed me. This time if I do not open my way to freedom, may God never give me chance again!"

Upon returning, initial thanks were given after Amos's recovery, and the kind of commendation to Josiah that indicated how increased his market value was! He saw his only hope was to find a way to escape. As soon as God allowed, he would take his family to the freedom he had already paid for and been cheated out of.

One weekend night, he left with his wife and children and traveled the Drinking Gourd,' that legendary name for the Big Dipper that pointed to the North Star. They traveled at night and hid by day until they arrived in Cincinnati. Once in Ohio, things were much easier, although they had to watch for the slave catchers that would come up from the South hunting fugitive slaves. Finally, they made it to Canada.

"It was the 28th of October, 1830, in the morning, when my feet first touched the Canada shore. I threw myself on the ground, rolled in the sand, seized handfuls of it and kissed them, and danced round till, in the eyes of several who were present, I passed for a madman. He's some crazy fellow,' said a Colonel Warren, who happened to be there. O, no, master! Don't you know? I'm free!'"

Once there, Josiah established a strong, inspiring fugitive community in Dawn, Canada. Some who knew him from the States as a preacher asked him to do so again. Reflecting on how a man illiterate and uneducated could preach, he commented, "Religion is not so much knowledge as wisdom; and observation upon what passes within a man's heart, will give him a larger growth in grace than is imagined by the confident followers of Christ, who call Him, Lord, Lord,' but do not the things which He says." However, his oldest son, Tom, began to learn how to read in school. When his father asked him to read to him from the Bible, he opened to the Psalms. When he asked Josiah who David was, he realized his father couldn't read. So, young Tom patiently, night after night, taught his father how to read.

After six or seven years of establishing things in Dawn, his heart began to yearn again for the brethren yet in bonds. As he met more and more of the fugitive slaves that were settling nearby, he knew that he must go and help some of their family members to freedom. Risking his life again and again, in all he led one hundred and eighteen human beings to freedom. One of the slaveholders, a Frank Taylor, fell ill after some of his slaves left, and actually became deranged. But after recovering, his friends persuaded him to free the rest of the family of those that had fled for refuge. In a short while he did, and they joined the others in Canada.

Once in attempting to cross the Miami River and cross into Cincinnati, they couldn't find a place to cross. For fear of being detected they couldn't hire anyone to loan them a boat. They kept going back and forth on the bank.

"After going about a mile we saw a cow coming out of a wood, and going to the river as though she intended to drink. Then said I, Boys, let us go and see what this cow is about, it may be that she will tell us some news.' I said this in order to cheer them up. One of them replied, in rather a peevish way, Oh that cow can't talk;' but I again urged them to come on. The cow remained until we approached her within a rod or two; she then walked into the river, and went straight across without swimming, which caused me to remark, The Lord sent that cow to show us where to cross the river!'

Back in Canada, Josiah inspired the formation of a manual labor school, where those that had come to freedom could be caught not only the basics of grammar school, but mechanical arts for the men and domestic arts for the women. They later built a very productive lumber mill. He later was able to go to England on behalf of his community to raise funds and exhibit the quality of craftsmanship at the World's Fair. Queen Victoria herself met Josiah and admired their work. During this same visit he was invited to have a long interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Impressed by his grasp of language, he asked Josiah, "At what university, Sir, did you graduate?" Josiah replied, "I graduated your grace at the university of adversity."

In the life of Father Josiah Henson, we see a soul acquiring through adversity, the essence of the ancient Orthodox faith. He passed it on to others. He passes it on to us. Josiah Henson was a Cross Bearer. This Confessor that was beaten for praying and seeking to go to hear Christ preached. This Righteous one lived to serve others and make them free. He stands out truly as one of the holy ones that shone upon this land. As Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote in her preface to one of the later editions of his autobiography, "They who suffer with Him shall also reign; and when the unwritten annals of slavery shall appear in the judgment, many Simons who have gone meekly bearing their cross after Jesus to unknown graves, shall rise to thrones and crowns! Verily a day shall come when He shall appear of these His hidden ones, and then many that are last shall be first, and the first shall be last.'"