424                 A.M.E. REVIEW.

Church and an Apostle of Education to the entire Negro
race. It is remarkable how many of them there were
nearly a hundred years ago; more than the scriptural
twelve. Benjamin Banneker, the "African astronomer,"
born at Ellicott's, Maryland, 80 years before Daniel A
Payne was born; Frederick Douglass, the orator and diplo-
mat, born in Maryland 4 or 5 years after Bishop Payne;
Robert Purvis born in Charleston, S. C., one year earlier
than Bishop Payne; William Still born in New Jersey, 10 or
12 years later; and also Profs. Freeman and Reason; Doc-
tors Bias and Delaney; the Reverends Adams of Louisville,
Ky., Anderson of Washington, D. C., and Crummell and
Holly, all of whom rank with the subject of this article in
age, and they all were apostles of education to the Negro.
  Daniel A. Payne was born in Charleston, South Carolina,
February 24, 1811.  His father, London Payne died when he
was four years old; his mother Martha, when he was nine.
His tendency to study books began in very early childhood;
he was aided by the Minor Moral Society, a body of free col-
ored people, and encouraged by several circumstances that
may be regarded as providential; at one time a craving for
an atlas was gratified by a passing slave woman offering him
for sale an atlas which she had found. He had an English
shilling, the extent of his purse which he freely gave her for
her book. At another time one number of the self-interpret-
ing Bible, or "Brown's Bible" fell into his hands. The biog-
raphy of its author, John Brown of Haddington, inspired
young Payne toward higher studies, as Greek, Latin and
Philosophy. At nineteen he became a school teacher with
three pupils; in a few weeks the number increased to six,
three of whom were slaves. The salary being but 50 cents per
pupil, he was obliged to close the school after a few months;
but after a short time the duty of teaching rested upon him
so heavily that he opened a school at another house, which
soon became large  and attractive.   When the school had
grown to higher importance, he was forced to close it on ac-
count of the merciless and selfish law of the State of South




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911