Cartwright and Allen

Cartwright
As a young boy Cartwright's family was poor and so they made the dangerous trip to Kentucky for a new life. When he was about 9 a preacher came to his father's home to preach, after that his mother continued to go to class every week to learn  more. Cartwright soon loved to gamble and dance and quickly lost himself in his gambling.  Time went on and the community became better and there was a meeting of the Presbyterian ministers.  Many families came to the meeting and hundreds accepted Jesus as their Savior.  When Cartwright was 16 he reflected on his life and quickly became ill, he prayed for forgiveness and help but to no avail he was still very ill.  Through many different encounters he was still unable to accept Jesus into his life fully.  Finally he heard "Thy sins are all forgiven thee" and he felt Jesus in his life, he then joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. The different churches came together once a year and had a gathering that affected thousands of peoples lives, some people began to lie by freezing for days at a time and saying they had been to hell and heaven and back.  When Cartwright took scripture and showed how these people weren't being truthful those people wished death onto him.  As Cartwright reflected on slavery he noted that it was not accepted by the Methodist church but said it might be taken seriously if some preachers didn't have slaves themselves.  He also spoke of how these unchristian people also had mixed children on their land.  Cartwright ends with speaking about how the church has grown so quickly.

Allen
Allen was born a slave and lived with his master for quite a few years.  Allen prayed for forgiveness and accepted Jesus  into his life.  His master was a relatively "good" master and believed that his slaves that were good and went to classes were better at telling the truth and obeying so he insisted on his slaves going to class every week.  When Allen gained his freedom he moved around doing many different jobs.  As he moved around preaching and working he met different families and he described them all as wonderful people who were willing to help him anyway they could.  In Philadelphia Allen and some others wanted to start a church but the Methodist church and some people in it didn't want them to.  After an incident during service Allen and the others decided to raise money so they could build their own church.  Once built, the Methodist church again tried to take away their label, when this didn't work and the church was built they got it incorporated.  This came back to be a poor decision because of how it was drafted but they were able to redraft it before any real harm came from it.  Allen ends the story talking about how many black churches had been having trouble and so they banded together and started the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Reaction
Reading these two side by side is very interesting to me.  The first and obvious subject that comes to mind is slavery.  Allen was a slave and was able to be free, and Cartwright wrote about how against slavery he was.  Cartwright noted how many of the Methodist preachers were slave owners but outwardly said how bad slavery was.  He then talked about how those same preachers began to think about how having slaves were necessary.  Seeing Allen's struggle to continue working after he was free and having so many people help him made me think about how lucky I am now.

Being able to practice the religion that you want to and not have other people persecute you or try to stop you is something very important in this country.  Seeing preachers trying to stop Allen and the people he was with from worshiping under a certain denomination not only goes against the beliefs of this country but also of God.  A lot of people originally came to America because of persecution for their beliefs, I wouldn't be surprised if the ancestors of the preachers who are trying to control where Allen worships didn't come over for a religious reason.  Also, the amount race plays into this is unavoidable.  If Allen and the people he was with were white there would be no problem in the first place.

Cartwright showing his addiction with gambling and dancing is very honest.  That was a very shameful thing for those who followed the Lord and the fact that he was able to talk about it openly shows how strong  his faith was.  However, I also see this testimony as something that people can relate to today.  Although this is not something generally thought about so much of what happened years ago still happens now and is still just the same.