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from Brown Corpus
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He was a loud-voiced man, once vigorous but for many years now declining in strength and ability.
He was stern and overbearing with his flock, but obsequious and conciliatory with the whites, especially the rich who partly supported the church.
The Deacon Board, headed by a black man named Carlson, had practically taken over as the pastor grew old, and had its way with the support of the Amen corner.
The characteristic thing about this church was its Amen corner and the weekly religious orgy.
A knot of old worshippers, chiefly women, listened weekly to a sermon.
It began invariably in low tones, almost conversational, and then gradually worked up to high, shrill appeals to God and man.
And then the Amen corner took hold, re-enacting a form of group participation in worship that stemmed from years before the Greek chorus, spreading down through the African forest, overseas to the West Indies, and then here in Alabama.
With shout and slow dance, with tears and song, with scream and contortion, the corner group was beset by hysteria and shivering, wailing, shouting, possession of something that seemed like an alien and outside force.
It spread to most of the audience and was often viewed by visiting whites who snickered behind handkerchief and afterward discussed Negro religion.
It sometimes ended in death-like trances with many lying exhausted and panting on chair and floor.
To most of those who composed the Amen corner it was a magnificent and beautiful experience, something for which they lived from week to week.
It was often re-enacted in less wild form at the Wednesday night prayer meeting.

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