Stories · Faith that serves and transforms

When the city needed hands: Richard Allen and the faith that stayed

5 min read, approximately

My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.1 John 3:18 (Service) · WEB

One door after another

In September 1793, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones entered a Philadelphia house where a man was dying. His wife was already dead, leaving two children unable to manage the emergency. Allen and Jones offered what relief they could and sought burial assistance. They visited more than twenty families that day. The scene comes from their account published the following year. Allen and Jones, pages 3–4.

The city was not functioning normally. Yellow fever multiplied needs and fear. Those able to leave departed; those remaining needed care they could not always find. One house could hold illness, grief and unprotected children at once.

The men could not repair everything. Their first response was limited and concrete: enter, help and seek others to continue. Then came another door and family. Service began with real need, not certainty of sufficient resources.

The decision to approach

Allen and Jones wrote that they met other Black people after a public request for help appeared. They explained their decision biblically: trusting God, they considered doing whatever good they could a duty. The reference to God preserving people in a fiery furnace belonged to their own understanding. Their written motivation.

Faith did not remain at a meeting. The day after their first visits they approached Mayor Matthew Clarkson to coordinate. Caregivers had to be found and, as deaths increased, burials organized. The Free African Society joined a response serving neighbors of different races. Coordinating assistance.

Speaking of Allen must not obscure coworkers. Absalom Jones, William Gray and many less-remembered people made the response possible. A city in crisis cannot be sustained by one courageous figure alone. It needs hands, decisions, relief and shared responsibilities.

The falsehood that endangered lives

A false belief shadowed the work: people of African descent supposedly could not contract the disease. That assumption directed dangerous work toward them. The epidemic showed they had no such immunity. Providing care did not put them beyond death’s reach. The false belief and its consequences.

Allen and Jones explained firmly that when Black people became ill and died, some denied it was the same disease. Against such evasions they presented community burial records. Loss was not hypothetical: it involved families, names and consequences. Their documented response, pages 15–16.

The faith motivating help does not make that injustice acceptable. Nor should treatments from 1793 become present recommendations: the account belongs to limited medical knowledge. What we can recognize is willingness to care alongside the cost of exposing a community to risk others refused to admit. Honoring service does not require endorsing the assumptions under which it was requested.

Names that should not disappear

Their testimony preserves smaller stories within the larger one. Sampson went house to house helping without demanding payment and died after becoming ill. Sarah Bass, a widow, attended several families. Mary Scott’s work was acknowledged by a woman she accompanied during relatives’ illness and death. Remembered caregivers, pages 10–12.

These names keep help from becoming abstract. People grew exhausted, had sick loved ones and did not always receive support when their turn came. Allen and Jones described long shifts, insufficient rest and caregivers abandoned when ill. Not everyone was treated this way, but the injustice was serious enough to record.

Acknowledging devotion does not idealize abandonment. A community grateful to caregivers must also care for them. Sampson’s memory is not honored by praising his service while forgetting that, according to the account, his family was neglected after his death. Gratitude has practical responsibilities as well as words.

When truth also needed defending

After the epidemic’s worst phase, recognition was not all that followed. Accusations circulated against Black caregivers. Allen and Jones answered in a 1794 pamphlet, particularly disputing Mathew Carey’s portrayal. They did not deny all misconduct; they rejected its use to discredit a whole community. The authors’ response.

Their defense included accounts: coffins and wages, insufficient receipts and burials for which no payment was requested. They also described the difficulty of judging from outside people spending entire nights nursing without rest. Public gratitude could not rest on an account leaving so many workers under suspicion.

Here service also becomes dignity’s story. Allen and Jones helped, then demanded that help be described fairly. They did not consider faith an obligation to accept falsehood silently. Truth about a neighbor deserved defense too. Their response belongs to the same care as their work at the doors of sick households.

Love with hands and truth

First John joins loving in deed and in truth. Here we recognize both: care offered to vulnerable people and public words protecting those who offered it. Neither practical help nor truthful remembrance needs to exclude the other.

Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Romans 12:21 · WEB

Following Jesus Christ does not require calling abuse good or pretending discrimination disappears when we do good. We can serve while demanding fair treatment. We can forgive without erasing facts. Mercy needs no lie to remain mercy.

Not everyone will face an epidemic like 1793. But nearby may be someone with unanswered needs or someone supporting others without rest. The question is not whether we can save a whole city. It is what responsible help we can offer and with whom we can share it.

Allen and Jones left an account of hands working when hands were scarce. They also preserved names so those lives would not disappear behind prejudice. Remembering them invites faith that approaches, listens and continues recognizing everyone’s humanity. Such remembrance becomes meaningful when it also shapes how we treat the people caring for others today.

May God continue to bless you, and may you have a wonderful day in Jesus Christ!
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