The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen

Summary

The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen is the autobiography of the founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, published in Philadelphia in 1833, two years after his death, together with several shorter writings. It is one of the earliest autobiographies by an African American and a key source for the history of independent Black churches in the United States. Allen recounts his birth into slavery, his conversion as a young man in Delaware, and his master's own conversion under Methodist preaching, after which Allen was permitted to buy his freedom. He describes years of manual work and travelling as a preacher through Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania, his acquaintance with early American Methodist leaders, and his arrival in Philadelphia in 1786, where he preached to Black worshippers at St. George's Methodist Church. The narrative's central episode is the day when trustees at St. George's tried to pull Black members, including Absalom Jones, from their knees during prayer because they were sitting in the wrong part of a new gallery. The Black members walked out together. Allen then tells how he bought a former blacksmith shop and moved it to a lot he owned to create Bethel Church, and how the congregation fought for years, including in the courts, to control its own property and pulpit against white Methodist elders. In 1816 delegates from several cities formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church and chose Allen as bishop. The volume also includes Acts of Faith, Hope and Love; the Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793, written with Absalom Jones in reply to charges made by the publisher Mathew Carey; and An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves, and Approve the Practice, with a message to people of colour. Throughout, Allen writes plainly and with steady faith, recording injustice without bitterness and attributing his success to God's help.

Top Lessons

• Dignity and self-determination

  Allen's community chose to build its own church rather than accept segregation in worship.

• Service in a crisis

  During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic Black Philadelphians nursed the sick and buried the dead, then defended themselves against accusations.

• Building institutions

  Allen and his colleagues created churches, a mutual aid society and a denomination.

• For the Christian reader

  Richard Allen was born enslaved, came to faith through Methodist preaching, bought his freedom, and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest Black denominations in America. His life shows the gospel's power to raise up leaders whom the world despised and his determination to worship God in dignity. During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic he and Absalom Jones led Black Philadelphians in caring for the sick and dying (Matthew 25:36).

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