Nellie did not awake the next morning till the sun had ascended high up into the heavens, and covered the earth with his golden light.

Amy, the chamber maid, had the room well warmed, and had been long waiting impatiently for the young sleeper to awake.

“Missus, time to git up, breafus' ready, been waiten long time for you.”

Nellie opened her eyes upon the Ethiopian maid, and beholding her bright countenance, her smiling face and ivory teeth, was reminded of the fact that she was in the land of slavery. When she stepped upon the thick warm carpet and advanced to the fire, and gazed around upon the many comforts that met her view, and became cognizant of the dusky Amy's attentions, having, for their object, her comfort, her convictions of Southern life and manners were materially modified. She had not yet discovered that blight she expected to behold imprinted by slavery upon everything, animate and inanimate, on manners, customs and habits. She had expected to see a cold remorseless tyranny, a grinding aristocracy; and a dumb, despairing, revengeful slave population. She had expected proud hauteur, overbearing and heartless despotism on the one hand, and cringing servility, composed of hopeless fear and smothered wrath, on the other. She had expected to see moss-grown decay, and evidences of an effeminate civilization, instead of warm, genial comfort, general satisfaction and happiness, and universal signs of confidence, love and prosperity.

Nellie had been accustomed to wait entirely on herself at home. Here she finds a chair placed by the fire for her, polite hands warm her shoes and stockings and hand them to her. Her garments are likewise warmed and handed to her. Nimble fingers aid in adjusting her attire, the water is poured into the bowl for her, and a towel is extended to her, and when the last touch of arrangement has been given to her hair, skilful hands slip her morning dress over her head, and with a few expert manipulations, complete her attire, and leave her ready to descend to the breakfast table.

“You looks, mighty nice dis mornin' Miss, I bound Mas' George 'praise you, and think you mighty sweet when he sees you. Dis dress mighty purty, I 'specks you gib it to me when you go home. Gwine to have big weddin' to-morrow night ma'am, Misses been busy 'bout it all de mornin'. Jacob and Phebe gwine to marry, and uncle Jesse gwine to 'form de sarimony, and me and Elsey gwine to be de tendunts wid Sam and Guss,” &c. Thus the jubilant girl ran on in a strain of intelligence to the surprise and pleasure of Nellie, till she descended to the dining room.

After breakfast, Nellie and her young cousin, Alice Thompson, walked to the front porch. The day was one of those rich, hazy autumnal days, all flooded with glorious sunshine, and mellowed by a soft Southern breeze so common to our Southern climate. They then walked to the back door, and gazed for a while on the magnificent live oaks, and majestic magnolias, that shaded the back yard.

On all sides, elegance, comfort and plenty were visible, accompanied with contentment, peace and happiness. Nellie's eye, with a delight bordering on rapture, took in the glories of the whole scene: its fields, its fences, its trees, its shrubs, its houses, its gardens, its evidences of solid prosperity and comfort; and she mentally contrasted it with her own prim, precise, economical home. She contrasted the cold calculating manners of the North, with the open, warm, genial habits of the South. She arrayed the hired indifferent services of “white helps,” with their frequent “warnings,” with the confiding filial obedience of Southern slaves, jumping with a smile to perform a behest. She could not help comparing the cold, selfish relations existing between mistress and servant in New England, and the open, warm, friendly, confiding feeling manifested between the slaves and their owners. Here was a master and mistress engaged in preparations at considerable trouble and expense, to furnish a sumptuous supper and appropriate dressing to gratify two slaves who were going to be married. Nellie was surprised, but could not be blind to these things.

She and Alice took a walk among the negro cabins, and the ebony damsels crowded around and followed them with the greatest glee imaginable, now and then one venturing a remark at which all the rest would giggle immoderately; and when Nellie thought proper to engage in some slight badinage, the universal merriment seemed to reach its utmost hight. Nellie had never seen such merry servants. Not one seemed borne down with that mighty incubus of care and oppression she had expected; but decked out in bright colors, and new shoes, and flaming “head handkerchers,” they followed her as entirely free from care and liberty-longing as school children upon any academy lawn.

“You Jim! aint you comin' along wid dem chips?” Thus resounded from the vicinage of her huge pot, the voice of “Aunt Fanny.” It was “Aunt Fanny's” business to cook for the “chilern,” and take care of them, the latter she did most effectually by ruling them with a rod of birch. Her large pot is filled with meat, greens and “dumplings,” and the “taters” are wrapped in the ashes. When at twelve o'clock, all are ready, she deals out to all according to her “resarved rights,” that is to say, she has a half dozen or more large trays and basins, filled with the contents of the pot, around which gather from three to five of the little Africans, and seating themselves, eat till they are all satisfied.

“You, Jim,” says Aunt Fanny, as she saw Nellie approaching, “aint you comin' long wid dem chips? I see you foolin' long dar, sir, never mind, I whip you for dat sho's you born; you see if I don't now.” While “Aunt Fanny” is very good naturedly explaining to Nellie how she cooks for and takes care of “de chilern,” and was very proud of being so honored by the attention of “young miss,” Jim approaches the pot with his basket of chips, wholly unobserved by “Aunt Fanny,” whose kind heart has already forgotten the threat, and getting on his knees, throws the chips somewhere near about the fire, while he gazes all the time, with open mouth, into the face of Nellie.

Twenty or thirty little darkies gather around her, all fat and saucy, jolly and lively, and not in the least disconcerted, they gaze into her face, and laugh and stare, with the whites of their eyes upturned and their mouths spread from—side to side.

“Do they get enough to eat, aunty?”

“God bless your soul, chile, plenty; I stuffs 'em, see how fat dey is.”

“Where do you get the food?”

“I gits it from de smoke-house every mornin'. Boss weighs it out, and I biles de middlin', and greens and dumplins for 'em in de pot, an cooks de taters in de ashes. Plenty, dey gets nuff, sho.”

Thus pleasantly and swiftly the time glided away with Nellie. Late in the afternoon Mr. Mortimer came over to take tea and make the acquaintance of Mrs. Norton and her daughter. He was the friend and neighbor, and intimate associate of Mr. Thompson, and was always a welcome guest in his family. He was of medium height, and very graceful, with an intellectual cast of features. He was intelligent and agreeable, commanding fine conversational powers, and a high-toned gentleman of unexceptional moral character. The elegance, courteousness and affability displayed by Mr. M. during the evening, made time pass in the family circle with unwonted celerity, and all seemed disappointed when the hour of eleven arrived and their young friend took his leave.

After his departure no remarks were made as to the young visitor. Mr. and Mrs. T. waited for their relatives to say how they were pleased, and Mrs. Norton waited for Nellie; she from choice, or design, was silent. To tell the whole truth, she was very favorably impressed, but would not commit herself till a better and more thorough acquaintance with his true character. “Make haste to be slow in forming your opinion of young men,” was her father's favorite proverb, and she believed it was correct and acted upon it.

Saturday, the wedding day, dawned upon the world in cloudless glory. It was a jubilant holiday for all the servants on the plantation of Mr. Thompson.

The bride-groom expectant was Jacob, now foreman of the plantation. He had been promoted to the important post of “driver” for his fidelity and honesty. He was about twenty-five, of a yellow complexion, and as dashing and good humored a fellow as you find in a day's drive. He devotedly loved his master and mistress, and would have died for Miss Alice. Phebe was about twenty-six, and was Mrs. T.'s house-maid, a quiet, respectful woman, who knew her duty and always did it well. Her complexion was dark.

They were about to consummate a long cherished attachment, and both the master and mistress thought fit to grace the occasion with their presence, and invited their guests also to enjoy this, to them, novel scene.

Mr. Mortimer, having come over by special invitation, joined the party, who proceeded to the neat double cabin whose larger room had been cleanly swept and neatly arranged, and on whose wide hearth a bright fire was blazing.

Negro weddings are more stately and solemn than one would naturally suppose. Negroes are impressible creatures, and are easily affected by aught of the august.

The whites stopped in front of the door, rather than crowd through the anxious mass of lookers-on, but they enjoyed a tolerable view, and heard all that was said.

The door of the little room was thrown open, and one couple elegantly dressed, entered, ranging themselves on the right; then another couple, ranging themselves towards the left; these were followed by Jacob and Phebe. Each female attendant wore a white muslin dress, with white flowers in their hair, all tidily arranged by Mrs. Thompson, Alice and Nellie. Each male was dressed in broadcloth, with shining boots, ruffled shirts, standing collars and white gloves, with their pocket handkerchiefs but half concealed in their breast pockets. Phebe was tastefully dressed in white, with slippers and a long white veil; altogether she presented an elegant appearance. Jacob was done up in a new suit of broad cloth, a present, for the occasion from his master; he wore a white vest, gloves and cravat, and with a fair personal appearance, was the ne plus ultra of negro elegance.

Not a sound was heard, all were silent and still as the grave. “Uncle Jesse” advanced, with book in hand; there was a solemnity of appearance about his face and demeanor highly instructive and impressive. After a moment's pause, to collect his thoughts and appear dignified, he began:

“God made Adam fust, be staid long time in the garden 'thout a wife, but he wan't satisfied and happy, though he have every other thing he want. Then God say, it no good for the man that he be alone, I make a help meet for him, to comfort him in sickness and nus him in trouble, and to talk to him when he lonesome. So God make Eve outen Adam's rib, and say, she bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, and for this cause a man shall quit he father and mother, and stay with his wife. Any body present got any objections to this lady and gentleman bein' married into holy matrimony, so they now make it known or hold their peace forevermore. Once, twice, thrice—no objection.

“Jacob, take Phebe by the hand. Do you brother Jacob take Phebe to be your lovin' and true wife? Will you love her like Abraham loved Sarah, treat her kind like Isaac did Rebecca, be faithful to her like Zacharias was to Elizabeth, and not cleave to no other woman but her, till she die—do you?” A graceful bow and a scrape of the foot, was the affirmative response.

“Do you, sister Phebe, take brother Jacob to be your lone husband. To honor him as Sarah did Abraham, and obey him as Rebecca did Isaac, and nus him, and comfort him as Elizabeth did Zacharias, and always cleave to no other man till be dead—do you?” A quick courtesy was the response. “Then I pronounce you husband and wife, with the blessing of God to live together forever. Amen.”

Great confusion followed as each one pressed forward to wish the newly married couple “much joy.” Many efforts at wit were made, and a general scene of hilarity ensued, which was kept up till supper was announced. The repast was not less sumptuous than elegant. The “bride's cake” was exquisitely beautiful.

“Uncle Jssse” asked a blessing at the table, at the conclusion of which each bowed his head and scraped his foot. It was interesting to see the young “gen'men,” waiting on the “ladies,” as they handed round the table first one dish and then another.

But the scene after supper, far surpassed anything which had preceded it. The “playing songs,” and kissing, the joyous peels of laughter, the continuous gleeful mirth, the “uproarious” outbursts of merriment, beggar all description, I therefore lay down my pen, and leave the reader to imagine, what must have been the impressions on the mind of Miss Nellie Norton, just from New England.

If you have never witnessed one of these scenes, be assured, kind reader, it is good for dyspepsia, a certain cure for the “blues,” and will make a preacher laugh.

But we leave the negroes to play and sing what they please, and as long as they please, to fiddle, “pat Juba,” and dance and have a merry time generally, if they like. The hour is late and we must prepare for the Sabbath, when we are again to meet some of these happy Ethiopians, but under different circumstances.

On arriving at the house, Mr. Thompson opened his mail, which pressing engagements since its arrival at sun down, had prevented.

“A letter for Nellie,” he exclaimed. She came bounding to his side, and opened and read with great eagerness, the following note:

“O Mother, it's from Mr. Pratt, and be is in Savannah, come because his health failed, and wants to come out and see us. Uncle, can't you send for him in the morning, and let him come out to-morrow?”

“Shall I send for him on Sabbath, Nellie?”

“O yes, uncle, it's no harm under the circumstances to send for a poor sick preacher to get out and enjoy a little fresh country air, is it?”

“Well, just as you say. I don't think you would survive till Monday, so I will have the carriage off early. Write him a note, that we will expect him early to dinner; a cold dinner, enjoyed by warm hearted friends.” Nellie tripped away to pen the note, while Mr. Thompson went to inform Jack that he must go up to the city early in the morning, with the carriage, to bring out a gentleman who was at the Pulaski House.

At one o'clock, on Sabbath, Dr. Pratt arrived. He was met at the carriage by Nellie, and her mother, and Mr. Thompson. Mr. T. extended to him a cordial welcome, and invited him to make his house his home while at the South. In this invitation, Mrs. T., after being introduced to the Doctor, cordially united. Dr. Pratt was surprised at the open hearted frankness and generosity of his new friend. It was his first trip South, and he was not prepared to believe there was anywhere to be found such whole souled generosity, much less among the slaveocracy.

If the reader desires a description of Daniel B. Pratt, D. D., they can just imagine a short, stout man, with large blue eyes, a bald head, a fair skin, and a large roman nose, with a polite and easy address, and a real “down Easter's” brogue, compressed lips, erect head, rather inclined to throw it back, with a large natural protuberance on the top of the head. He was phronologically a man of self-will, self-esteem, and great firmness, amounting to stubbornness.

At three o'clock Mr. Thompson asked Dr. Pratt if he would accompany him and Nellie to the negro church to witness a negro Sunday School and Prayer meeting. He readily consented. A walk of near a half mile brought them to a neat little painted house with glass windows, and a bell. On entering they found about thirty negro children, all in clean clothes, some with hats and some with bonnets, and some bare headed, seated on the front benches.

A white lady was sitting near. She was a worthy young lady, and I must honor my readers with an introduction to her.

Miss Kate Nelson was the governess in the family of Mr. Thompson. She was “to the manor born,” a true Georgian lady. She was thoroughly educated, graceful, dignified and intelligent, modest and retiring, but not bashful. She knew her duty, and as a conscientious christian, was always found laboring to discharge it. It was her custom, at Mr. T.'s request, to teach his young negroes, orally, every Sabbath afternoon, and learn them to sing. In catechising them, she asked the question and then answered it, and made all the pupils repeat it after her two or three times till they could remember it. They displayed an accurate knowledge of the creation, flood, calling of Abraham, the ten commandments, &c. In learning them to sing, it was her custom to read the first line of the verse, then have them all repeat it, then read the other in like manner, then repeat both together, and so through the song, singing each verse as soon as they could repeat it. I observed that Miss Nelson seemed partial to those songs which had a chorous, and the school seemed to sing them with greater zeal.

The little ones all sang with open mouths and extended voices. It was really refreshing to see and hear them. They were always delighted with the exercises, and engaged in them with their whole soul and mind. They felt complimented when honored with the presence of “Mas' George,” which was not unfrequent.

The New England clergyman was surprised, but was evidently reluctant to believe that any “good thing could come out of Nazareth.” He expressed no approbation, for the sin of slavery could not be atoned for, in his estimation, by anything which the master could do. Nellie was delighted, “enthused,” carried away with the scene. She was extravagant in her praise, and her generous young heart the impulses she so eloquently expressed.

Before the exercises closed, the house was moderately filled with adult people, who had come in to attend the prayer meeting.

As soon as the Sabbath School exercises were concluded, the children were dismissed, to go home or remain as they pleased. Many of them moved to seats a little in the rear, and soon all was still and quiet.

Dick, the chorister, lined out and led in singing—

Mrs. Norton and Nellie were delighted to see their pastor. It was really refreshing to see a Northern face in their temporary Southern home, and to meet one congenial spirit, who could enter into all their feelings, and with whom they could converse freely on the subject of slavery. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, too, were glad to receive and entertain the pastor of their relatives, and finding him an educated gentleman of extensive and varied information, he was a most welcome guest.

He frequently rode with Mr. T. over his farm and saw his negroes at their work. He saw their toil and sweat, and heard their cheerful songs and merry laughter. He asked a great number of questions as to their dispositions, contentment, subordination, morals, &c.

Turning to Mr. Thompson, one day, as they rode along, he said, “I am surprised to find a man of Northern birth and education holding men, women and children in involuntary servitude.” “Why?” said Mr. T. “Because Solomon said, ‘train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,’ and I know you were trained differently from your present practice?” “True,” said Mr. T., “but Solomon did not say, train up a child in the way he should not go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. If he is trained rightly he will not depart from it, but if wrongly, he may be led by a kind Providence to discover his error and abandon it. My early education on the subject of slavery was all wrong. I have by the goodness of an all-wise Providence been led to discover and abandon the error.”

“You do not pretend to defend slavery as right, do you?”

“If I did not, I should abandon it before another day.”

“Well, I suppose I need not be surprised, for there is no telling what an influence prejudice, or cupidity, may exert in forming the conclusions of the human mind.”

“Nor early education and fanaticism,”said Mr. T. They had both arrived at the gate, and alighting from their horses, the conversation ceased.

After a moment's absence in his room, Mr. Pratt took his seat in the parlor. Nellie was just finishing a very difficult piece of music on the piano, and was soon seated near her pastor.

“You have had a pleasant ride this morning, I hope,” she said as she drew near him.

“The ride was pleasant, but I have brought all my sympathy for the poor suffering negro with me, and find it is going to be a ‘thorn in the flesh,’ a ‘body of death,’ clining to me. It will greatly mar, if not entirely destroy, the pleasure of my visit South.”

“Do you think the negroes here are as unhappy as you expected to find them, before you came?” said Nellie.

“They do not seem to be so, but it may be they are too well trained to show their discontent before strangers. They seem as cheerful as laborers in wheat harvest. They talk, and laugh, and sing, and pat, and dance, and appear not to feel their bondage, but this cannot be possible. The bare idea that they are slaves fills me with horror.”

“But do you think them capable of doing as well for themselves, if they were free, as they are now doing in a state of slavery? To test the matter, how do they compare, in prosperity and happiness, with the free negroes in New England?”

“Very favorably, I must confess. No doubt but they are better fed and clothed, and are less liable to temptation and vicious habits. But they are slaves and have no rights. The system of bondage has taken away from them the heritage bequeathed to them by their Creator. All men are born free and equal, and no one should dare infringe upon the universal rights of man.”

“But”, said Nellie, “as yow seem to think the infringement of these rights ‘feeds and clothes’ them better than freedom does, and that ‘they are less liable to temptation and vicious habits’—in a word, makes their condition better than it otherwise could be, is it not a mercy, rather than an injustice, to hold them in such servitude?”

“What do you mean, Nellie?” Has your short stay already poisoned your mind with abominable pro-slavery sentiments? You talk like a Southern slaveholder.”

“O, no,” said Nellie, “these were impressions made upon my mind by observing uncle's servants, and I wanted an answer to the argument. I have observed them in their domestic duties, in their festivals, in their sports and past times, and in their religious devotions, and I am sure I never saw a laboring class at the North so happy, so uniformly cheerful, or more ‘fervent in spirit, serving the Lord,’ and the suggestion has occurred to me, that after all, bondage may be the condition assigned them by Providence.”

“You astonish me, Nellie! God is a holy, just and merciful being, and could never, either by His word or providence, sanction so unholy a thing as slavery. The Bible teaches no such thing, and if it did—well I think I should have to appeal to the higher law of conscience.”

Nellie looked thoughtfully at him for a moment, and then asked with much seriousness, “Mr. Pratt, is the authority of conscience superior to the authority of the Bible?”

“That is a theologico-metaphysical question, the discussion of which we will defer to another time,” was Mr. P.'s reply.

Nellie manifested no further surprise at this ignoring of the word of God as supreme authority on all moral subjects. She had heard it often before, and had been pretty well educated in the same views; but the struggles she had recently experienced had made too deep an impression on her mind to be soon forgotten. She thought it best to give a slight turn to the conversation, and so remarked, “Uncle and I have agreed to investigate the subject of slavery from the Bible; we have had one evening's conversation, and I must confess some surprise at the plausibility of his arguments. The truth is, I am unable to meet the question upon scriptural grounds, though I am certainly not so well versed in the Bible as I ought to be. As you are to spend several days with us, by your permission, I will turn over my part of the discussion to you. I am sure you are a whole hearted abolitionist, and certainly will be an overmatch for my pro-slavery uncle. Will you thus relieve me, and permit me to sit by as an interested listener?”

“Certainly, if your uncle has no objection. And who knows but I may be sent here by Providence to convince a christian slave holder of his error; and that he, by liberating his slaves may rebuke this “sum of villainies,” and set his neighbors a worthy example. If he is not lost to all reason, I shall be able to convince him, I am sure. Argument, sarcasm and ridicule, have great power. Then he can not stand before such men as Wayland, and against the moral rebuke of the civilized world. I am ready at once, to enter upon the discussion.”

Mr. Thompson entered just as the clergyman ceased speaking.

Nellie lost no time in introducing the subject. “Well, uncle, I have engaged Mr. Pratt as my representative in our Bible discussions on slavery. He has consented to take my place, if you have objection, and as you are so confident of your ability to justify very from the Bible, I feel sure you will consent to the arrangement. Your Southern chivalry will naturally desire a foeman worthy of your steel.”

“Thank you, Nellie. I am pleased with the arrangement. I shall have a double advantage in Mr. Pratt. A scholar fully able to understand the meaning of the Divine word, and a christian with moral honesty enough always to concede a point when fairly established from the infallible source of truth. I can only express surprise that a student of the Bible should not already have so far satisfied himself on the subject as to admit without further investigation, that slavery is a divine institution, that it is of God.”

“So far from this, sir,” said Mr. Pratt, “I believe it is the institution of Satan, and only permitted to exist for a short time, like other sins which are forbidden, as a scourge to our race, as a trial to us, to prove man, and see what are the depths of depravity which exist in his heart. I am only surprised to see a man of your intelligence and professed piety, holding slaves. To see you guilty of such injustice to your fellow beings as to hold them in bondage, forging chains and riveting them upon them, and crushing out their manhood with the “weight of servitude.”

“Do you believe,” said Mr. T., “that the negro is less a man in his southern bondage, than he is in his African idolatry and superstition? Do you believe his contact with the social and religious elements of southern society, though restricted by slavery, has degraded him beneath the Bushman, the Hottentot, the Cannibal, or even below the somewhat more elevated Central Africans, who bow down daily to their household gods, and who in their superstition, lay on the funeral pile, the surviving widow to be consumed with the body of her deceased husband? Do you think the enlightened and christian slave, is less happy, less contented, less elevated in the scale of moral existence, than his ancestors were in the dark land of Ham? Your familiarity with ethmology, has long since taught you that southern slaves are the happiest of all their race, and approximate more nearly the great object for which God has created man. This being undeniably true, then where is the injustice of which you speak? Is it doing a man injustice to enlighten his ignorance, to teach him how to enjoy the social relations of life, to deliver him out of barbarism and introduce him into civilized life, to break the fetters of idolatry and superstition, and teach him the knowledge of the true God, to take his being and fill it with all those holier purposes, desires and aspirations, which have been so long exiled by the reigning demon of darkness? If this be injustice, then sir, do we plead guilty to the charge, not otherwise.”

“Injustice is done a man,” said Mr. Pratt, “when his natural or acquired rights are taken from him, no matter what these rights are, or whether he uses them or abuses them; if he should misuse them, the wrong is to himself.”

“I suppose then,” said Mr. Thompson, “if a man purchase a gun to shoot himself, and I knowing that fact, take it away, I do him an act of injustice, by taking away from him the power to commit suicide. If a man threatens the life of another, the officer who arrests and imprisons him, thereby preventing murder, does injustice by stopping the abuse of physical liberty; or if a woman, in a violent passion is about to beat her child to death, and I seize hold of her, and by constraint dispossess her of the freedom to kill her child, I do her injustice. Or to put a very plain case, when a man becomes so depraved that he is not restrained from the violation of law, and a court imprisons him as a felon, it does him injustice. Or if an individual refuses to pay his just debts, and his creditors by due process of law, imprison him, they do him an act of legal injustice. Sir, is this your sense of justice? You cannot deny that these are legitimate deductions from your premises.”

“O, that is not what he meant, uncle,” said Nellie, rather impatiently, as she saw her representative had committed himself too far, and that her uncle was making him appear the advocate of a most licentious and wicked freedom, and taking from society all lawful means of self-protection.

“I mean, sir, that God has made ‘all men free and equal,’ and any infringement of this freedom and equality, except for the maintenance of law and order, is an act of injustice, and one at which a pious man should shudder.”

“You take for granted the very point in issue, and quote from the Declaration of Independence instead of the Bible. God did not make all men free and equal. He has enslaved some by placing them in bondage to others. Ham manifested the wicked traits which afterwards developed themselves in his descendants, and on this account Heaven forged the chains of slavery and placed them upon him, using his father, Noah, as His agent. Hear Him: ‘Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant’ Thus when there was but one family on earth, a portion of it was doomed to servitude. A ‘servant of servants,’ the menial, the slave of servants. Now, was this slavery? If so, was it of Satan or of God? If of God, has he made all men free and equal? Were Ham and Japhet made equal, when one was placed over the other? Were both made free when one was put under slavery to the other? There is a great deal of prating nonsense in the world claiming very high and respectable paternity.”

“But let us take a step further, and see how the Divine institution of slavery was afterwards regulated under ‘father Abraham,’ who owned perhaps a thousand slaves. When the covenant of circumcision was instituted, God told him ‘He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised.’ Here was a recognition and a ceremonial regulation of the institution. One of the servants of this ‘father of the faithful,’ afterwards recognized slavery as the ordination of God, although himself being in bondage under the divine decree. He said, ‘And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, he is become great; and He hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and man servants and maid servants.’ They were not hired servants, for they were born in his house and bought with his money, just as Southerners hold slaves. This honored slave of Abraham did not look upon the institution which held him in bondage as an evil, but a blessing, ‘the Lord hath blessed my Master greatly.’ But again look at the light in which the law recognized it. In Exodus it is said, ‘If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.‘ Now if such a law as this were found upon a Southern statute book, the world would be filled with holy horror, at its inhumanity; yet such is the enactment of Him who doeth all things well. Here too is a recognition by the divine law, of the property of one man in another, one man is the money, the chattel of another. Again the sickly sensibilities of erring man, are shocked at the revealed will of the King of all the earth. Uzza feared to trust the tottering ark to the Lord, and put forth his hand to save it, but his presumption was punished by instant death. Let us take timely warning. What God gives we will receive, what he commands, we will obey, what he withholds we will not covet. We are always safe under the guidance of unerring wisdom. ‘It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth good unto him.’”

Nellie took her seat at the piano and played Home, Sweet Home, with the variations, in exquisite style. Mr. Pratt then requested her to sing one of their favorite congregational hymns, which she did quite to the taste and satisfaction of all present. Her mother took silent pleasure in the scientific performance of her accomplished daughter, while the uncle and aunt freely expressed their admiration for the accomplishments of their loved relative.

The two matrons, the mother and aunt of Nellie, would have been pleased to lead the conversation of the evening, and engage the attention of those present on the various styles of music, and the new improvements which had been made in singing, &c., since their day. They would have greatly enjoyed a suspension of the discussion of slavery, and given themselves up to a social converse. Neither saw any probability of an early termination of the engagement, or that either was open to conviction by the other. But they did not feel that it would be very polite in them to assume the prominence of leading the conversation of the evening.

Mrs. Norton wanted her brother convinced of his error, if he were in one. She had always heard that slavery was wrong, and had taken it for granted, as she had never before heard it denied, but she had never investigated it. Her pastor, she supposed, had done so, and she believed he had talents enough to understand the subject, and honesty sufficient to tell the truth, and she therefore believed what he had always preached on the subject, without giving herself any further trouble. If he were wrong, the sin was upon him. He was paid to teach, and it was his business to know that all he taught was true; her business was to listen, receive and practice. On moral and religious subjects he was employed to do her thinking, and it was not her business to call in question whether it was correctly done or not. Thus have many good souls been led into a thousand snares by the ignorance, prejudice or bigotry of others. If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

Mrs. Thompson having been raised to slavery, and being a conscientious, intelligent woman, felt no doubt whatever that her husband would be able to vindicate slavery from the Bible, against all attacks that could be made on it. She had gone through all the scriptural proofs with her husband years before, and as new abolition arguments were brought out it was their custom to carry them to the Bible and see if they would stand before its light. She therefore felt sure that her husband would be able to justify slavery before any one whose eyes were not blinded, and whose heart was not hardened against the holy revelation of the King of heaven on this subject. But as she saw no prospect of convincing Mr. Pratt that slavery was right, she could conceive of no real good that would come of the discussion; but as a good wife she held her peace. Nellie, however, was anxious for the discussion to continue. She began to doubt whether slavery was a “sin of such appalling magnitude.” She did not see from her stand-point of observation that it “crushed the moral and intellectual natures” of the negroes: but she believed the reverse to be true. It elevated, it lifted up, it expanded the intellect and refined the moral sensibilities of these children of Canaan. She had seen some very intelligent and sensible ones among them, and bright exemplars of the principles of our holy religion, and she could not devise how an evil tree could bear such good fruit, how a bitter fountain could send forth such sweet waters, how an institution cursed of God and man, could prove such a blessing. Besides, in her struggles of conscience, she had determined to commit her faith to the Bible and cleave to it as the only anchor of safety, and unfailing and immutable source of truth. She still sympathized with her pastor, and could not yet say that slavery was right. Her early education had made such strong impressions on her mind that they clung to her with wonderful tenacity, and she entertained an undefined hope that her pastor would find some scriptural escape from those texts referred to by her uncle.

“Moses, the great Jewish law-giver, was an abolitionist,” said Mr. Pratt.

All present were startled at the announcement, and looked the surprise they felt. He continued: “If he had not have intended to abolish it, he would not have enunciated this law, which is found in Deut. xxiii: 15,16—‘Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee; he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose, in one of the gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him.’ How could slavery long exist where escapes were frequent and recovery by the master forbidden by law, and that law strictly enforced by the people as their law-giver required? This, sir, is not the language of a pro-slavery man. You Southerners never use it; you hate the men that do. This is an anti-fugitive law, enacted for the gradual and peaceable extirpation of slavery. Here, also, is a Divine justification for the Northern States, which have enacted laws against the return of fugitive slaves to their Southern masters. Then call us no more a lawless horde, a mobocratic people, for resisting laws which contravene the enactments of heaven. It is a violation of the revealed will of God, to return a fugitive slave; and a constitution and laws which require it are iniquitous and ought to be resisted. It is demanded by humanity, by religion, by all that is holy, that they should be resisted. A government which enforces by law a violation of the Divine will, has forfeited its right to national existence. An institution which requires for its perpetuity a conflict with the revealed law of God, should never for one moment be tolerated among an enlightened and civilized, much less a christian people. The institution is unjust, ungodly, diabolical, and deserves the perpetual anathemas of every philanthropist upon the face of the earth. Why does God stay his vengeance from the implacable and unmitigated oppressions and iniquities of the South?”

Mr. T. smiled at the ardor of the parson, and felt that he had often heard at the North as high sounding words with as little truth, and had frequently before listened, unmoved, to as eloquent nonsense.

Such exhibitions of “zeal without knowledge” were common occurrences “beyond the line.” As Mr. P. seemed to have exhausted his vocabulary, Nellie turned to her uncle to see if he was not overwhelmed with the argument. He replied:

“God has either enacted slavery, or He has not. He either countenances the institution, or He does not. He is not on both sides of the question, as you seem to think. He has not said and unsaid, done and undone. He has not given slavery to his people and then ordered its abolition. He is not so changeable, so fickle as that. ‘I am God, and I change not.’

“Let us, however, consider this celebrated text, upon which you base your triumphant vindication of the fanaticism of the North. Of whom was it spoken, and to whom?

“Evidently of the heathen, and to the Israelites. God was giving them a diversity of rules of conduct for their government, in their social and national relations to the tribes who were the original inhabitants of Canaan. Hence his instructions to the Hebrews not to return a fugitive slave to his heathen master. The Israelites could not have been commanded to detain a slave who had run away from themselves; to withhold their own property from their own use. This would seem unreasonable; indeed, it would be preposterous. But if a slave ran away from his heathen master for cruel treatment, he being innocent, and having sought refuge among the Israelites, from an unjust and cruel master, whose right it was by the custom of heathen nations at that time, to maim or murder him, then were the humane and merciful Hebrews to offer him such protection as justice and mercy required.

“This you will find, upon investigation, to be the opinion of our oldest and best commentators upon this subject. But to say that the Hebrews must detain the property of the Hebrews, that the Israelites must be a refuge for the slaves of the Israelites, is simply nonsense.

“Every man would draw his sword against his neighbor, and, instead of obeying the paternal injunction of Joseph: ‘See that ye fall not out by the way,’ there would have been endless civil wars; they would have been like the wicked, to whom ‘there is no peace.’

“There may have been three reasons for this law against the return of fugitive slaves. 1. The heathen had no divine right for holding slaves, as the Hebrews did. They had made slaves of prisoners taken in war; ‘might was right’ with them. 2. They were a wicked and cruel people; slavery with them was connected with, and subject to the very worst developments of cruelty and inhumanity, and the masters being in the ‘deep, dark, death-damps’ of heathenism, there was no possibility of any knowledge of the true God being imparted to them. 3. As the Hebrews understood the rights of masters over their slaves, they would never have interfered, even with this cruel form of vassalage, without a divine injunction, specially given, requiring it. Even to this day, you find no abolitionists among the more learned and intelligent Hebrews. Now, if we admit your interpretation to be correct, we are required to believe that one passage of Scripture authorizes us to hold slaves, and another takes it away; that the Divine Being who authorizes his people in one statute to purchase and hold bondmen ‘forever,’ in another place denies the existence of any such right. Indeed, that Moses intended in the same code of laws to establish and abolish slavery; with one hand to set up, and with the other to strike down the institution; to say and unsay; to enact and repeal; to enforce and revoke; to grant rights and then destroy them. Now it is easy enough to see how Sumner or Channing, Parker or Beecher, would dispose of this difficulty, by an appeal to the higher law of conscience, or by a total rejection of the Bible and its great Author, on account of abolition sentiments and precepts, but you take the Bible, the whole Bible, as true, and as consistent with itself, you do not believe it is self-contradictory. How you can dispose of it, I am at a loss to know, if you attempt to harmonize your construction with the Scriptures I have quoted, and with your own and Dr. Wayland's admissions. If your construction is right, why did the angel say, ‘Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence comest thou, and whither wilt thou go?’ And when she said, ‘I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai,’ why did he say ‘Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands?’ Had he who had been in the presence of the Holy and Just One, taught by infinite wisdom, sent on a mission of love, mercy and justice, been kept ignorant of the fact that slavery was iniquitous, and that fugitives should be detained from their master's? Or did he commit a blunder and do his errand badly? Or was he unfaithful to his Divine Master? Or must you not admit that he was sent for the very purpose of reclaiming this runaway slave, and sending her back to her lawful mistress. The latter alone can be true.

“Then if an angel of God, a messenger of heaven, did right in returning one, you would do wrong in retaining the other, unless, indeed, you of the North are the Israelites, and we of the South the heathens—you alone possessing the knowledge of the true God, and we in the ‘death of damps’ of idolatry—you the merciful, and we the unjust, iniquitous murderers of our slaves. Perhaps abolitionists ‘are the people, and wisdom will die with them.’ Perhaps they are the christians, and the only humane and philanthropic people in the universe. If one should listen at their unmeasured denunciations against us, their unsparing abuse, and consummate dictation, he would hardly conclude otherwise than that they thought themselves infallible in judgment, unerring in their conclusions, without sin in their lives, and surrounded by a heaven of purity at home where no more righteousness was needed; that slavery was indeed ‘the sum of all villainies,’ the sin of the age and the crime of the earth, and they were responsible, physically, morally and politically, for its extinction, and that nothing else was to be done until this was accomplished. This great revolution is to be brought about, not by the power of moral suasion, not by the melting appeals of the Gospel of love, not by the ‘spirit of meekness,’ not by any of the means used by the great Redeemer to reclaim man from his errors, but rather as Rehoboam would enforce the subjection of the tribes of Israel, with a whip of scorpions.”

Arriving at Mr. Thompson's as the sun went down, the party proceeded up the gravelly walk, ornamented with a variety of beautiful shrubbery tastefully arranged, while here and there still lingered on the parent stem an autumnal rose whose fragrance was not less fresh, and whose odor was not less sweet than when the first bland May morn was ushered in by the melody of the forest songsters.

Promising to call again soon to enjoy some new pieces of music of which Nellie had been speaking, Mr. Mortimer bid them good evening at the door, and retired.

The merits of Uncle Jesse's sermon and the scenes at the funeral were freely discussed at the tea table. Mr. Pratt said he had heard many sermons from ministers of finished education, which would compare unfavorably for strength of argument, scriptural illustrations and gospel purity with this, and he was convinced under such a system of religious instruction the colored people would not suffer for the bread of life. He added, “if all slaveholders were like ‘mine hosts,’ the institution would be much less objectionable to my mind. I would to God every slave of the South had such a master.”

“I have found another such,” said Nellie, “in the person of Mr. Mortimer; and am prepared to believe there are many more.”

“I assure you,” said Mr. Thompson, “my neighbors' servants, as a general thing, fare as well as mine, and such is public sentiment, that if a man treats his servants with inhumanity he is ruled out of society, and if that does not effect a reformation we apply the “weightier matter of the law” to him. Servants have their rights as well as masters, and we are scrupulously particular not to infringe upon them. The interests and rights of masters and servants do not conflict, but harmonize; they are different, it is true, and yet in some sense they are identical. It is like the relation of the subject and the sovereign. It is for the welfare of the subject that he should be subordinate and virtuous, honest and loyal; he thereby promotes the strength and perpetuity of the government which protects him in the enjoyment of his rights, and it gives him favor with his sovereign, whose good will is not to be lightly esteemed. On the other hand, it is the interest of the sovereign to regard the rights of his subjects, and, as far as possible, promote their welfare, for thereby he contributes to the strength and perpetuity of his throne, by obtaining a place in the hearts of his subjects. He makes it their interest to support him, by fostereing their own individual welfare.”

“I have often heard men at the North,” said Mr. Pratt, “speak of the rights of slaves, but never expected to hear it from a Southern slaveholder. I did not know you recognized the existence of any such fact. Pray tell me what you consider to be their rights.”

“There are many clever things at the South,” said Mr. T., “of which you at the North know nothing, and for the supposed absence of which much odium is heaped upon us. But to the subject of your questions. The slaves have many rights. The right of life and limb, the right to be fed and clothed, to be nursed when sick, and cared for in old age when they become helplessly infirm. They are rightfully entitled to protection from ill treatment. They have the right to the uninterrupted possession of whatever they may accumulate by labor in their own time, or by honest trade, and this is universally awarded to them, although the amounts thus accumulated are considerable. They are entitled to protection from the pernicious sentiments of abolitionists which discontent them with their present condition by untruthful representations, but which do not afford them any relief. But again, servants have a right to the “tree of life,” through faith in our common Savior. They have a right to our sympathy, esteem and confidence, and this right they enjoy at the South, but no where else in christendom. It is true that the rights of the negro are recognized nowhere on earth but in the South, and by no persons but slaveholders. Not that there is not a great deal of prating about “freedom, emancipation, inherent and inalienable rights,” and a long catalogue of unmeaning jargon in its application to the slave; but they are despised and contemned and driven hungry and naked away from the doors of those whose professions of sympathy are loudest. Their Northern friends (?) will contribute money to free them from slavery, but not from hunger, cold and nakedness. How many refugees now at the North turn with longing eyes back to the comforts and privileges they enjoyed while in slavery. But their friends will neither help them back, nor relieve them there.”

When seated in the parlor, after tea, Mr. Thompson referred to the conversation of the previous afternoon, and said: “I did not reply to all the objections you urged against slavery. I will now finish what I then began. Your proposition was, that slavery annuls the religious rights of the enslaved, and denies them the privileges of moral and intellectual culture.”

“I will withdraw the first part of that proposition,” said Mr. Pratt. “What I have witnessed of their religious and moral culture this day is more convincing than any argument you could produce. I am convinced that on this particular point the South has been misunderstood. I hold to the proposition that it denies them the right of intellectual culture, and I apprehend you will admit the fact.”

“I think,” said Mr. T., “I might well hold you to the proof that such right exists. If it does, from what source is it derived?”

“From their common brotherhood to the human family,” said Mr. P. “God has endowed all men with intellectual powers, and holds them responsible for their improvement. Then it follows that there must be freedom to do that, for the doing or neglecting of which they will be held accountable.”

“I hold,” said Mr. Thompson, “they have no rights on this subject which are not in entire accordance with the obligations imposed by slavery, since in this particular God made them exceptions to the common brotherhood, entailing on them slavery with all its legitimate consequences. What rights to intellectual culture has their Creator bestowed on them? Go to the land of their fathers and ascertain. They have no written language, no schools, no teachers, no means for the increase of knowledge. God has withheld these privileges from them up to the present time. They are, as you know, an ignorant, degraded, indolent people. They have lain in ignorance for thousands of years without either the ability or inclination for improvement. More than two-thirds of the population of Africa are in the most servile bondage to the other one-third. The masters and slaves alike in the most stupid ignorance. This state of universal ignorance in Africa cannot be attributed to the moral and religious darkness that has settled as a pall of blackness upon the hearts of that people. Greece and Rome and Egypt in ancient days, and the Chinese at the present time, with their learning, their poetry, history, oratory, arts and sciences, and yet all having no knowledge of the living God, prove most conclusively that intellectual improvement may be wholly disconnected from moral and religious culture. As this is the only nation of people who have not advanced intellectually, there is much reason to believe they are providentially an exception to the general rule.”

“You do not pretend”, said Mr. P., “to deny the glorious principle asserted in the Declaration of Independence: that “all men are born free and equal.” This would be a denial of a fundamental principle of republican government. This truth has thrilled the hearts of millions, and called forth the loudest plaudits from enthusiastic republicans. This part of our noble declaration is so eminently true, that he who denies it should deny the unity of our race. I hope, therefore, that my honorable host will not be guilty of such rashness.”

“I suppose, then,” said Mr. T., “you hold this declaration to be true without any restrictions or qualifications. The negro is as free as the American citizen, and is therefore his equal; he is consequently entitled to the elective franchise, and even more, to hold any office to which a white man is eligible. A negro, therefore, may one day be President of these United States—his beautiful thick-lipped spouse doing the honors of the White House, and graciously condescending to receive an introduction to, and entertain your wife and daughters. Under these circumstances, the wives and daughters of your Congressmen would have to receive the attention of the President and his sons, if he had any, and treat them with all deference as equals or superiors. But again, if a negro is thus equal, and therefore eligible to this high office, he has the right to choose his cabinet, and would, as we have invariably done, select them of his own color. Now, my dear sir, would this not be a beautiful illustration of the doctrine of equality. America ruled by Africa—white men ruled by negroes—the enslaved of the Lord dictating to those whom He made free. Verily your dogma would turn the world “upside down,” annul the Divine order and reverse the decrees of nature. Nor can you deny that this is the inevitable result of the doctrine, that all men are born free and equal. We have always held the theory abstractly, but put it into practice and yet avoid these results if you can.”

“What extremists you Southern people are,” said. Mr. Pratt, “I did not mean political freedom and equality, but social, religious and mental.”

“Then,” said Mr. T., “you believe in social equality with the negro, do you? You would be pleased to have them visit your wife and daughters upon a social equality: intermarry with them, have them for your sons and daughters, amalgamate the two races, to one of which God has given a white skin and straight hair, and to the other of which he has given a black skin and woolly hair. Thus, what God has joined together you would put asunder, and what he has put so far asunder you would join together. But pardon me, sir, if I say you abolitionists do believe in the political freedom of the negro, and for its accomplishment all your abolition societies have been organized, and all your speeches, sermons and petitions to Congress made. Why this perpetual cry against slavery, if it is not that you want them freed in the political sense. Then, if you believe in universal freedom and equality, it must include political as well as social freedom. However, sir, I accept your limitation, and am glad that you do not believe in the political freedom of the negro, that you are content to leave him in political bondage, because he has no such right as freedom. He has rights, but the elective franchise is not one of them, as you have very properly concluded. Then what are his rights? Dr. Channing says the slave ‘is subject to the community, and the community has the right, and is bound to continue all such restraints, as its own safety and the well-being of the slave demand.’ Then what becomes of the equal rights of the slave according to this celebrated abolitionist? He is not to be owned by an individual nor controlled by one master, but by many, poor follow, by the ‘community.’ The community are not to free him, not to restore to him his lost but inalienable rights. Oh, no, it is to ‘restrain’ him. The negroes, generally, are not fond of such prominence, nor has experience taught them that they fare better in a community who holds no property in them, and whose sole duty it is to restrain them, than they do in the hands of a man whose money they are, and who therefore is the vigilant guardian of their best interests. But again Dr. Channing says, ‘If he (the slave) cannot be induced to work by rational and natural motives, he should be obliged to labor on the same principle on which the vagrant in other communities is confined and compelled to earn his bread.’ Poor fellow, what a foot ball he would become out of the hands of his Southern master and sympathiser. Has the ‘vagrant who is confined and compelled to labor to earn his bread,’ any right to intellectual culture? Who confers it, and how is it available? These rights of the slave ‘grow small by degrees and beautifully less’ as they get further north. Now, sir, to admit the doctrine of equal rights without any restrictions, is to admit that every man has an equal right to the Presidency of these United States, be he wise or ignorant, virtuous or vicious, white or black. But these conclusions you very wisely and prudently repudiate, and in doing so, you virtually deny the premise from which the conclusion is drawn. ‘The well-being of the slave’ demands certain restraints. What these may be, are best known to those to whom providence has committed him. The Southerners alone, of all the world, understand negro character and capacity.

God never designed them for an intellectual race. China, isolated from the world and degraded in idolatry, has a history and a literature. She has her philosophers, her poets, her teachers, her graduates, her temples. But Africa, doomed to slavery, has neither. Ignorance, stupidity, imbecility, are characteristics of her people. Incapable of self-government and self-support, a gracious providence has sent them here to find governors and protectors, who will feed and clothe them, and lead their hearts and minds to the knowledge of the living God; while they pay less for the benefit than any other set of learners on earth.

The last thought you gleaned from Dr. Wayland is that “slavery restrains them from the employment of their own time for their own benefit.” In reply to this, it is only necessary to say, that all experience and observation prove, that the welfare of the negro is best promoted when he is under the restraints of slavery. No doubt your knowledge of the condition of the free negroes at the North confirms this assertion. Most of our slaves (and it is so with negroes everywhere) work only under the pressure of necessity, then they do it cheerfully; they are only kept from vice, when too busy to go into temptation; they are only kept from sinking back into barbarism by contact with civilization and christianity among their masters. They are better fed, better clothed and more contented when in slavery. To prove the truth of what I have said, we have only to refer to the short history of the emancipated slaves in the West Indies. They were left in the possession of a most fertile soil, with all the appliances of husbandry, and the country in a high state of prosperity. What is it now? Dr. King says, “the marks of decay abound. Neglected fields, crumbling houses, fragmentary fences, noiseless machinery—these are common sights, and soon become familiar to observation. I sometimes rode for miles in succession over fertile ground which used to be cultivated, and which is now lying waste. So rapidly has cultivation retrograded, and the wild luxuriance of nature replaced the conveniences of art, that parties still inhabiting these desolated districts, have sometimes, in the strong language of a speaker in Kingston ‘to seek about the bush to find the entrance into their houses.’ The towns present a spectacle not less gloomy. A great part of Kingston was destroyed some years ago, by an extensive conflagration; yet multitudes of the houses which escaped that visitation are standing empty, though the population is little, if at all diminished. The explanation is obvious. Persons who have nothing, and can no longer keep their domestic establishments, take refuge in the abodes of others, where some means of subsistence are still left, and in the absence of any discernable trade or occupation, the lives of crowded thousands appear to be preserved from day to day by a species of miracle. The most busy thoroughfares of former times have now almost the quietude of a Sabbath.”

The following is a report signed by several Missionaries and made in 1849:

“Missionary efforts in Jamaica are beset at the present time with many and great discouragements. Societies at home have withdrawn or diminished the amount of assistance afforded by them to chapels and schools throughout this island. The prostrate condition of its agriculture and commerce disables its own population from doing as much as formerly for maintaining the worship of God and the tuition of the young, and induces numbers of negro laborers to retire from estates which have been thrown up, to seek the means of subsistence in the mountains, where they are removed in general from moral training and superintendence. The consequences of this state of matters are very disastrous. Not a few Missionaries and teachers, after struggling with difficulties which they could not overcome, have returned to Europe, and others are preparing to follow them. Chapels and schools are abandoned, or they have passed into the hands of very incompetent instructors. H. C. Cary says, ‘population gradually diminishes, furnishing another evidence that the tendency of everything is adverse to the progress of civilization. In 1841 the island contained a little short of 400,000 persons. In 1844 the census returns gave about 380,000.’”

The history of emancipation in South Africa is accompanied by the same sad results. While there is no population on earth, the rates of whose increase is greater than our slaves, yet in those localities where they have been deprived of the fostering care of masters and the blessing of slavery, they deteriorate in character and decrease in numbers with fearful rapidity. There can be no reasonable doubt but that slaves are the most intelligent of the negro race; and the reasons are obvious. As a rule they have not intellects susceptible of much cultivation—very seldom, if ever, do you find a really striking character—they must necessarily learn by contact and observation, and these means of information must be available constantly. Their contact and association with the superior minds of the Anglo Saxon race, throws upon their darkened minds a flood of light, some of the rays of which they cannot but retain. But take them away from these influences and let them associate only with their own race, and all the history of the past—the history of Africans for all past time, prove there is no progress, either in minds or morals. Theories are sometimes very beautiful, and no doubt but to the mind of an enthusiastic abolitionist, the theory of emancipation presents nothing for the slave but a bright progressive future, the development of a great and religious race which shall bless the world in some future age. But “facts are stubborn things,” and often destroy the most beautiful and plausable theory. From the facts to which we have referred, we may justly conclude, that what freed slaves have done in Jamaica and South Africa they will do everywhere under the same circumstances. I therefore conclude that God never designed they should enjoy the rights of freemen; indeed unless they should be remodeled mentally and morally it would be the greatest curse that could befall them. How many promising boys have been ruined by being freed from parental restraints at too early an age. Just so it would be, because it always has been, with the negro. God gave the parent authority over the child, because it was for the child's good, and so He gave the master authority over the slave for his good. No man has a right to freedom when its exercise is injurious to the community, or if he has, there is a right vested in the community to restrain that freedom within such limits as will insure benefits to enure to the individual or the public or both. Negro freedom here would engender vice, degradation, vagrancy, penury, starvation, theft, murder, mobocracy, and every form of evil which could possibly be imagined, and would ultimately terminate in the extermination of the blacks by the whites or by starvation. Nominal slavery cannot exist here, because it would be unprofitable to the owner, and therefore reduce the slave to want. Nothing is practicable but absolute slavery, modified by christianity and the laws of the land. This results in a mutual interest and affection between the master and the slave. The master's interest demands kind and humane treatment to his slave, who in his turn claims the gratitude and wins the love of the dependent.”

“You do not think that a slave has really any affection for a man who holds him in bondage, do you?” said Mr. Pratt.

“I can answer that question for you,” said Nellie. “I tried to get uncle's carriage driver to go back home with mother and myself on our return north, but he said he would not, unless his master and mistress would go too, and stated as a reason that he loved them too well to leave them. I have talked to several others in the same way, and invariably received the same answer. I am convinced that they do not feel slavery to be a bondage, but are satisfied and happy, and instead of feeling that their masters are their oppressors, they look upon them as benefactors. The tears that are shed over slavery and the prayers offered for its bonds to be broken, are not by the enslaved, but by us, their misguided and less informed friends at the north.”

“I will give you this permission,” said Mr. Thompson to Mr. Pratt, “you may go among my negroes, and represent facts and fiction to them, and if you find one who will go with you home, I will defray all the expense of going, and you shall support him at the north until you get him into a business where he can support himself, and when he has tried freedom for one year, if he desires to return to slavery, you shall see that his desire is granted at my expense. The latter item I would incur from sympathy and humanity, knowing he would be unhappy where he met with neither friends nor sympathisers.”

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Thompson, “if you gentlemen will never get off your stilts. You really don't recognize our presence, much less address us a social word, nor has either of us been able to get in a word edgewise to night. Can't you play the agreeable for a little while—just a little while? We would feel complimented, honored, even flattered by a little notice from gentlemen so cultivated and intellectual. Come gentlemen, do give us a short opportunity to express ourselves. You have certainly forgotten that the ladies esteem it quite a deprivation to sit a whole evening in silence— such a thing is intolerable. You lords of creation must be a little more condescending: won't you?”

“Excuse us ladies,” said Mr. Pratt, “it is not often I meet a slaveholder, or my friend an abolitionist, and we only wished to interchange views on the subject. I was endeavoring to teach Mr. T., and he trying to prove to me that he knew more than I, who proposed to become teacher. I desired to convince him that slavery was an evil, but he has convinced—Nellie, at least, that it is religiously right. But to your theme: did you ever hear of the lady that was so fond of talking that she held a conversation with a snake, out in the orchard?”

“No indeed,” said Mrs. T., “I regret that one of my sex has so far lost her dignity as thus to condescend; or perhaps I ought not to condemn her, for she may have been some unfortunate widow who had lost her husband, or some old maid who never had one, and in either event, one might be excused for talking to almost anything, rather than to be forever silent. An apple orchard was indeed a poor place, and a snake a very unpromising subject, but ‘necessity knows no law.’”

“I suppose,” said Nellie, “Mother Eve was the lady, Satan the snake, and the garden of Eden the apple orchard.”

“What a wit you are,” said Mr. P., “you had better set yourself up as a candidate for tutor in astrology, conundrums, enigmas, &c., and have us elect you as general expounder of abstruse science.”

“Thank you sir, I covet no such distinction,” said Nellie, “and when our wiseacres learn to state their problems a little more clearly, the office you propose to create may well be dispensed with.”

The conversation became general and social; but Nellie's mind being absorbed with other thoughts, she excused herself and retired to the room. Her cousin Alice, a miss of thirteen years, had just mastered her lesson for the next day, and laid down her books as Nellie entered.

“Alice,” said Nellie, “I wish you had spent one summer north before I came south.”

“Why, cousin?” said Alice.

“Because,” said Nellie, “I want to talk with you about the difference in society and manners there and here.”

“As I am only a learner anyhow,” said Alice, “I will be very glad to hear you talk about your society at home. It will be very interesting to me. Do tell me all about it, my dear cousin. I will listen to every word, and not get sleepy.”

“I don't care to talk so much about northern society, as to tell you how much I am disappointed in southern society,” said Nellie. I thought southern slave-holders were an ignorant, rude, bigoted, uncultivated and cruel people, who delighted in oppressing and tyrannizing over their slaves, and treating them as brutes. I thought they took pleasure in punishing them and at witnessing their sufferings; that they were destitute of the common feelings of humanity, and never sympathised with the sufferings of their slaves. I conceived them to be a proud, haughty, illiterate people generally; too ignorant to know their own deficiencies. But I am happily disappointed. I find slave-holders intelligent, many highly cultivated and intellectual—men of superior general intelligence, refined, polite, genteel. I find them to be men of highly refined sensibilities and tender sympathies—patterns of unselfishness. I have often been surprised that uncle could obtain his consent to make it his permanent home and rear his children among semi-barbarians, as you all have been represented to be by our abolition speakers and writers. But to my surprise, I find southern character superior, absolutely superior to northern character. I make this confession with unfeigned mortification, and would not do it elsewhere, and yet one should not be ashamed or afraid of the truth. There is a greatness of soul, an independence of character, a dignity of mien, a purity of thought, a manliness of carriage, an unselfishness of heart, so happily blended with unostentation and softness of deportment, so manly and yet so modest, so intelligent, and yet so free from pedantry, I must say that southern character claims my most profound admiration. There is no petty tyranny here—no brutality—no such oppression as I have been taught to believe universally prevailed among slave-holders. The line which marks the distinction between master and servant is most apparent, and yet the master does not lord it over his servant as I supposed. He does not abuse his power, but it is exerted in a kind, generous, condescending manner. He is a kind and amiable prince, who loves his subjects and is interested in the happiness and welfare of each one, not only because they are his property, but he really takes pleasure in their happiness.

“I am reminded of Jacob, whose paternal care extended to the remotest and smallest member of the family. I tell you, cousin, such an interest in the welfare of laborers at the north, if it exists at all, is the exception, not the rule. When a man there is well and does his work faithfully, his wages are paid regularly, but when he gets sick, or grows old and helpless, he is turned off without a thought as to his necessities. He has no more claims on his master. And even while at labor, the intercourse between the employer and laborer is not half so free and unrestrained, as here between the negro and his master. There is a total absence generally of that kind feeling so universally observed here. I attribute this to the much hated and slandered institution of slavery. There is something about, it don't know what, it is a mystery to me, that exerts a most favorable influence over your southern society. I have been highly gratified to find an absence of that little picayunish disposition and that low sensualism so distressingly prevalent in northern society, and the rapid growth of which threatens the overthrow of all good. Father has often spoken of that dreadful tendency in our society at home, and thinks it portends much evil in the future. I do wish he would come south and live, I am so fascinated with southern society and manners.”

Nellie happened to cast her eye towards the side table, and saw “Treasured Moments, by Sawtell.” She took it up, and it opened at the first letter on slavery. Finding he was a New Englander, she concluded to see what he had written. She read aloud to Alice:

“The object of this letter is simply to correct some erroneous impressions as to the real character of slavery in this country. The prevailing impression at the north is, that the cruel treatment of the slave, and his consequent sufferings, are such as to demand his immediate and unconditional emancipation. This is one of the most cogent reasons urged why we should take no time to consult the future good and interests, either of the master or of the slave. And to deepen the impression, the most frightful pictures of sufferings and cruelty have been drawn, and held up to the imagination till the heart has become sick, and the very name slave is associated in the mind with all the horrors of the “middle passage” and the racks and tortures of the inquisition. Now, with all due respect to the opinions of others, I do know that such impressions are not in accordance with facts. On this subject southern character is either not understood, or grossly, though I would hope, unintentionally misrepresented. Bold and chivalrous as is a southern man in contest with his equals, nothing is more despicable in his eyes than a petty tyrant, who exhibits his powers only in inflicting wrongs and injuries upon the helpless and unprotected. Naturally high-minded, noble and generous in feelings and sentiments, he is found magnanimous and kind in spirit towards his dependents.”

As a general fact, I doubt whether there can be found a class of people in the world that suffer less, mentally or physically, than the colored population of the South. None who have fewer cares and troubles, who wear happier faces, are more jovial and merry, and who sing louder and sweeter than they. For the truth of this, I appeal to every man who has visited the South, and examined this subject for himself with an unprejudiced and impartial mind. Exceptions I know there are, but these no more prove the general truth on this subject, than do the convicts in the penitentiaries of New England prove that all the old Puritans of that land of steady habits are grinding in the prison house. Hence, when a Northern man enters the Southern States for the first time, and witnesses the familiarity and kindness between master and servant, he exclaims with wonder, ‘where are the long whips, the scourges, the groans and tears of which I have heard so much?’ And often have I seen the tear start in the stranger's eye at beholding the ecstacy of joy with which the dependents gather around their master on his return from long absence, seizing his hand and seeming to vie with each other in manifesting their love and attachment to him.”

“Enough,” said Nellie, as she threw down the book, “how singularly coincident are the results of his and my observation. Henceforth I shall refuse to join in the abolition cry against the South. Indeed, I will frown upon it as a wicked and malicious slander. It is really provoking to think how I have always been deceived—how gullible we poor Northern dupes are. Our politicians, editors and preachers take us by the nose and lead us where they please. Henceforth I will think for myself, always taking the Bible for my guide.”

“I tell you, cousin, the negroes at the North are a down-trodden race; they are ignorant, mean, degraded, vicious, abandoned. Every man's hand is against them; no one respects or esteems them, if they can avoid it. They profess great love for the poor slave, but they are a nation of negro haters; and you have only to be there and see for yourself to know that I speak the truth. I do think you Southerners have much more reason to pity the free negroes at the North, than we have to sympathize with your slaves. I would ten thousand times prefer to be a slave in Georgia, than a free negro in Massachusetts. They are more respected, better cared for, and almost infinitely happier here than there.”

Nellie discovering her young cousin's eyes were growing rather heavy, suggested they had better retire, to which Alice most cheerfully assented, and was soon lost in refreshing sleep. But Nellie's mind was full of ideas, and her heart of impressions. She thought of the elevated Christian character, the manly dignity, the superior intelligence, and the amiable, affectionate disposition of her new friend, with whom she had spent the afternoon so pleasantly. “I wonder if he is a genuine, true man. Yes, he must be; I cannot be deceived in him: he is too transparent, too guileless, there is no assumacy about him, he is certainly a gentleman of unusual moral worth. He seems timid, and yet very graceful; he is dignified, and yet has the suaviter in modo, as though he had been the pupil of Chesterfield. He is not at all pharisaical, and yet it is evident he is a true Christian. There is no religious cant about him, and yet he speaks as a man familiar with holy subjects. He has none of the pedant about him, yet he is certainly a finely educated and well read man. His mind is well stored with useful knowledge, and yet he claims no superiority over any one. He is certainly a model character— wish I had such a man for a—hush, foolish heart—but how I would esteem and love him. Oh, I would be so happy! I intend to study his beautiful and exalted character—I think the study will be quite as fascinating to me as was that of Botany, especially if I come in as frequent contact with him as I did with flowers.” Sweet girl! there were visions flitting along her future path, “the beauty of which, like jewels, too rich to be exported, were not conveyable by expression to mortal fancy.”

The next morning the gentlemen rode over the farm. When on approaching the “cotton-pickers” Mr. Thompson suggested to Mr. P. “that now was his time to make the experiment of a slave's anxiety to throw off the shackles of bondage and accompany him to the land of freedom.” Mr. T. therefore rode another way to where some hands were ploughing in wheat, while Mr. Pratt rode up to the foremost cotton picker, and alighting from his horse and walking up very near, the following colloquy took place:

“Howdy, uncle. What is your name?”

“Jerry, your sarbant, sa.”

“Well, Jerry, your master has agreed to give you your freedom if you will go home with me. As I know you want to be free, I am glad of being the bearer of such happy intelligence. There is no mistake about it, you are free to go home with me, and we have no slaves at the North, all are free alike there. You will be as free as I or any one else. Now, as your master has consented, you must not refuse, but be ready in a few weeks.”

“Who say so? Mas George say I must go wid you? Dis nigga, hab de considerashun ob de objection.”

“Why, don't you want to be free? You can then work for yourself and have all you make.”

“Eh, hab all he make. How he gwine to make any ting?”

“Work for it, to be sure. ‘Ye shall earn your bread by the sweat of your brow,’ is the Bible rule since the fall.”

“You make nigga free, and den make him work too. Plenty work here widout gwine home wid you.”

“Yes, but then you can be free and do as you please. You all ought to be free. God made you so, and you would be better off in many respects. You could then go to church when you wanted to, have your own property around you, and send your children to school, and give them an education. You don't know how much happier you would be if you were free. Now you must not refuse to go home with me, since I have been so kind as to get your master's consent.”

THE next day was spent by Nellie in writing letters to her New England friends. But “a change had come over the spirit of her dream” on the subject of slavery, and doubtless her sentiments sounded strangely to her New England friends, as coming from a descendant of the Puritans. She whispered in strict confidence to a special friend, the name “Mortimer,” and spoke of the pleasure she enjoyed the day previous in his society. Completing the last letter, she entered the parlor, and finding her aunt alone, sat down near her. After a short pause, she said, “Aunt, why has Mr. Mortimer remained a bachelor so long? Is he a misanthrope, or is he waiting for his dulcinea to complete her education?”

“Neither, I presume,” said her aunt. “He will never marry simply to escape the odium of being a bachelor. He is a man of taste and judgment, and will only marry when he thinks he has found a true woman. He is not a shallow-brained exquisite, to whom life is a dream and marrying a frolic, and the future a path of perennial flowers. He desires intelligence, refinement, neatness, good sense, economy and a pure heart, all combined. He is only waiting to find such a one, and he will offer her a home, which he will render most attractive and happy, and a heart as pure, noble, true and generous as ever throbbed in man's bosom. But why do you ask about him, my sweet neice, has he touched a cord in your heart?”

“O, you know, aunt, it is natural for young ladies to want to know all about those with whom they associate. I agree with you, however, that he is a very sensible gentleman, very graceful in his manners, and fluent in conversation. I know of no man who has more power to charm and fascinate than he, and yet he seems all unconscious of his merit.”

“I shall be pleased to have him for a nephew,” said Mrs. T. “Nellie Mortimer; why it would be really a romantic name.”

Nellie blushed and left the room.

After tea the family again being assembled in the parlor, Mr. Pratt took up the Bible and remarked: “You have said during our conversations that not one word was said by Prophets, Apostles, or by the Great Redeemer against slavery, and challenged the world to disprove it. Now I am a very small part of the world, but I accept your banter. I will prove that the Prophet Isaiah enjoins the emancipation of slaves, as a prerequisite to an acceptable fast, to a successful approach to an offended Deity. I will read from chapter 58: 6—“Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” Now, sir, here are three expressions which apply to slavery: 1. “Undo the heavy burdens;” 2. “Let the oppressed go free;” 3. “Break every yoke.” What burden is heavier than slavery? Who are oppressed if not the slave? Where is a yoke, if it is not found upon the necks of slaves? Until you undo those burdens, liberate these oppressed, and break these yokes, all efforts at an approach to God in confession and reverence are unacceptable. But you have not done so; therefore your fasts have been an abomination in His sight. “Ye exact all your labors.” Now as you have not broken the yoke and let the oppressed go free, you are still in rebellion against the high and, holy authority of heaven which commands it. Now, sir, as an honest man, and a christian, confess your sin, forsake your way, and obey the Almighty, that you may obtain pardon for this great iniquity, for I perceive wrath is coming upon you.”

“I thank you for the exhortation and kind interest for our deliverance from Divine wrath, which you manifest,” said Mr. T. “If I find your exegesis of the Divine word correct, I will endeavor to profit by it, for I desire to be not only a hearer, but a doer of the word. You dogmatize very flippantly, I must confess, but invariably fail in moral demonstration. You assert in a very positive and solemn manner, but never prove what you assert, and I must again repeat, that you possess the most remarkable tact of any polemic whom I have met, for taking as granted the very point that must be proved. I fear it is an infirmity with you Northern theologians to take superficial views of solemn subjects. You assert that three expressions in the text quoted apply to slavery, and in proof thereof you reassert it. The onus probandi rests upon you; but I waive all rights in the premises, and I will attempt at least to show what this Scripture means. Let us go back a little.

The laws of Moses abounded in commandments embodying the spirit of love. Mercy, kindness, compassion and beneficence were duties enjoined by that model code. These were given, not alone as evidences of the Divine character of the Great Law Giver, but also as rules of life to be observed by all the people. For the disobedience to these and other Divine injunctions, the prophet was sent to rebuke and reform the people. The hand of God had inflicted severe chastisements upon them, and they were exhorted by Isaiah to repentance, fasting and prayer. They seem to say in reply to him, “we have repented, and we have fasted and mourned and worn sack cloth, and yet the punishment has not been withdrawn; we have afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge of it.” Then the holy man of God shows them their error. Repentance was not of the lips, nor was mourning in the wail of the voice. “Be hold in the day of your fast, ye find pleasure and exact all your labor, behold ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness; ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast as I have chosen?—a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day unto the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him; and, that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” In the preceding chapter, which is the context, the prophet had rebuked the people for idolatry, and promised mercy to the penitent. Here he answers the objection which they had made—that is not a fast which simply abstains from food, and puts sackcloth and ashes on the body. A true fast implies genuine repentance, and genuine repentance includes reformation. While the Israelites fasted, they continued the very sins for which God was chastising them. The laws of God were forgotten, and when His strong hand was upon them they asked for mercy, but showed none; they prayed to be delivered from oppression, but continued to oppress; they felt the evil, but did not forsake it; they sought a blessing for themselves, but were unwilling to confer it upon others; they sighed for the favor which belonged to the obedient, while they were unwilling to forsake their disobedience. The prophet taught them that when they abstained from food, they must have the spirit of the fast, and repent and reform. Now you have before you a true exposition of the prophet's meaning.

At early twilight everything was astir at Mr. Thompson's. The city which he and Dr. Pratt were to visit that day was several miles distant, and they purposed an early start.

As the sun arose the carriage was at the door, and Jack announced himself ready. The two gentlemen took their seats, and promising to return that evening, were driven rapidly away.

With considerable impatience, Nellie awaited the arrival of Mr. Mortimer, to accompany her to Bonaventure. The gentlemen had been gone a full hour before he arrived. But here we must leave Nellie and her escort for a time, and listen to the conversation of the two gentlemen.

“Laying the injustice and inhumanity of slavery aside,” said Dr. Pratt, “it is to the moral, social and educational interest of the South to abolish it.”

“Why,” said Mr. T., “do you believe we are inferior to those nations where African slavery does not exist?”

“I certainly do. And I can demonstrate to you by facts, perfectly cognizant to yourself and every other intelligent man, that the North, and every other free civilized country, is superior to the South.”

“Proceed, sir, with your demonstration.”

“Well, to begin,” said the Doctor, “you get most of your teachers from the North. You send your sons and daughters there to complete their education, when you wish it thorough. Hundreds of your preachers are Northern men. Your authors live beyond the Potomac, and your books are all printed by our northern presses. Now, sir, deny these facts if you can. If not, tell me if stronger proofs of our superiority are required?”

“I admit,” said Mr. Thompson, “many of the facts you have stated. Many northern men and women are teaching at the South. But the reasons are not as you suppose. It is not because we have not persons among us fully qualified for the work. You have just admitted that we have educated many of our sons and daughters at the same schools at which yours are educated, therefore, they must be their equals. A sufficient number perhaps have thus been educated to supply the demand for teachers all over the South. Many of our best educated young ladies are the daughters of wealthy men, who would not consent for them to teach. Your northern young ladies are generally poor, and obliged to do something for a living. They must become servants to the rich at home, or teachers at the South—they prefer the latter. We have generally given them employment, and when they have become independent and returned home, many of them have treated us like Æsop's serpent, which, when warmed into life by his benefactor, bit him in return. In many instances they have shown a heartlessness and want of veracity unworthy of a highly civilized people. Now, if this is what you mean by superiority, why I grant it to you. I can inform you of a fact which you may not have learned: that Yankee teachers are at a discount among us. Many have resolved never to employ one again; so many have proved to be nothing but treacherous abolition spies, that they have seriously affected the standing of the honest and true ones among them.

“But many send their sons and daughters North to complete their education. Many, like myself, are of northern birth and education, and you know how natural it is for a man or woman to think that their educators are superior to any others, and on this account many send North. But there are many Southerners ‘to the manor born,’ who do the same thing:

“It is for this reason that the American ladies obtain their fashions from Paris. Do they admit thereby that French ladies are superior to them? They would be insulted at such an allusion. I have always considered it a great mistake, as well as a useless expenditure of money, to send boys and girls North to educate them. It has made, as is obvious now, a false impression at the North, as to our educational facilities, while it has proved a serious injury to the South, by withholding much of the patronage from our own institutions, which was necessary to give them the position they justly deserve. We have four male universities in Georgia, not inferior to your best in New England—the standard of scholarship is the same generally, and we have as thoroughly educated and efficient faculties as are to be found, as the fruits of their labors most abundantly attest. Female schools of a superior character abound all over the State, and in every other Southern State, and their privileges are within the reach of all who desire to enjoy them. I may safely say, that the education of the young has become a contagion, which has seized hold of the masses of our people, and will no doubt soon become universal. So that now, southern patronage to northern schools will grow small by degrees and beautifully less.

“You are greatly mistaken when you assert that our books are all written beyond the Potomac. We have many southern authors, not inferior to any in the world; the list is too long to mention, and I would make no invidious distinctions. But, sir, we have our poets, our novelists, our scientific authors, our theological writers. In a word, every class of writers that you will find among a sober-minded, practical literary people, anywhere in the world. In contrasting authors North and South, my observation is, that there is a strength, energy, and simplicity of style, an elevated, ingenuous method of expression, a purpose at once palpable and commendable, that I do not find in northern authors. It is true however, that we have but few authors whose trade it is to make books. Our people never write, unless they have something which they conceive is of importance to the public. At the North your people make a trade of any and everything. They make a trade of preaching, of freeloveism, of abolitionism, of making wooden nutmegs and hams. We freely confess our inferiority in these respects, for we have no such humbuggery among us. When you speak of our inferiority, you forget the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Monroes, Madisons, Calhouns, Clays, and a host of others too numerous to mention—all born and reared in the slave States. You forget that the greatest orators of which this continent has ever boasted were southern men. You forget that the giant intellects of this government, which have commanded the admiration of the civilized world, were southern men. You forget that ‘the Mother of States and Statesmen,’ is at the South. Inferior indeed! Where do you find, at the North, or any where else, such an array of statesmen, patriots, orators and military captains. The South, sir, is the greatest land upon earth, considering it is now but in its infancy. Considering its brief career, it has given birth to the greatest number of remarkable statesmen, orators, heroes and theologians of any nation upon earth. Why, sir, did you know that a fourth of the pulpits in Philadelphia are occupied by southern men, and that they greatly prefer them to northern men, and the Presidential chair has been occupied for forty-four, out of fifty-six years, by slaveholders.

“But you are of the opinion that our social elevation is retarded by slavery. This is a common opinion at the North, especially among those who have never mingled with southerners at their homes. As this class is totally ignorant of social life at the South, their opinions are not to be trusted. Far otherwise has it been with those who have sojourned among us long enough to understand southern life and character. The Rev. Mr. Sawtell, an eminent methodist divine, who spent several years in the South, thinks that socially, slavery has been of no disadvantage to us. Mr. Van Evrie, a New Yorker, thinks it has greatly promoted our social elevation. The Hon. Miss Murray, Maid of Honor to the Queen of England, after making the tour of the United States, gives it as her opinion that we are quite in advance of the anti-slavery portion of the union. Her testimony is valuable, as coming from one who began the tour with all the strong prejudices of an English abolitionist, against slavery and slaveholders. But in her letters home she wrote a most able vindication of slavery, which lost her the position of honor she had so long and gracefully occupied. But how can slavery retard the successful advances to that highest point of civil and social elevation towards which a great people should always aspire? Distress and pauperism, are the great obstacles; the fruitful progeny of these: ‘vice and misery, wretchedness, suffering, ignorance, degradation, discontent, depravity, drunkenness, and the increase of crime,’ form one mighty incubus, which hangs like a pall upon the public mind and forbids any commendable progress. But these evils are scarcely visible at the South—they do not accompany slavery, but flee before it, like the darkness does before the light. There is no such competition of labor here as to reduce any man to pauperism. There cannot be. But at the North and in England, you never have a financial reverse but what thousands of your poor are thrown out of employment, and reduced to extreme want. This engenders vice, misery, despondency, and degradation. The poor among us are never thus tempted, as a class. They are generally a contented, virtuous, happy, prosperous people, and are as perfect exemplars of virtuous principles as any in our land. Civilization advances in proportion to the virtue of the people. Where the standard of morality and intelligence is good among the private citizens of a country, it may be said to be in a high state of civilization. No better state of morals exists in any country than at the South. Indeed, while I would not boast nor appear egotistical, I would give my adopted land the praise of being in advance of any country, where slavery does not exist. What section of this country gave birth to mormonism and freeloveism? not the South. What section elevates the law of conscience above the law of God? not the South. What country has dethroned Deity to make a place for reason? not a slaveholding people. Who deny many portions of Divine Revelation, or torture their plain and palpable meaning to prove the reverse of what the scriptures say? not slaveholders, but abolitionists. Where is the Bible declared to be not of God, because it is a pro-slavery book? not at the South. What people are prepared to give up the Word of Life, rather than part with their own private opinions on slavery? You at the North. You are now verging towards the most fatal forms of infidelity that ever cursed any people. Dangerous, because it comes in the guise of religion; it is in the church, in the pulpit, in your theology, in your religious convocations; in everything that is to go before the public mind, or impress the early convictions of the young. When carried out to its full development, it will not only make infidels of you all, but it will terminate in anarchy. Thus far we have been, in the main, delivered from these errors. We are in danger of contracting this contagion from you, and I sometimes tremble at the thought. A dark future awaits you at the North, unless Divine Providence interposes to arrest this increasing tide of infidel sentiment. ‘Come and let us reason together’ Our Maker has established four cardinal relations in life—the strict observance of each is essential to the political and moral welfare of the people: 1. That between the ruler and the governed. 2. Between husband and wife. 3. Between parents and children. 4. Between master and servant. These all claimed in the Bible the same divine origin, and no one but an infidel can or will deny it. But the North denies the latter relation. To do so effectually, they have so far shaken the others, that two of them are now meeting with disfavor, and the other is in danger. Already have several northern States rebelled against the national law on slavery, thus most effectually denying the first relation. Already, too, have free-love societies been established in northern cities, thus again denying the relation to be divine between husband and wife. With such a state of society as this ultimately develop, the spirit of rebellion against parental authority must necessarily be instilled at a very early age. Then will come anarchy. All these are to be the mature fruits from the tree of abolitionism, for ‘an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit,’ and those who cultivate the tree must eat of its products.

“Now, sir, wait till there is a manifestation of our want of civilization, before you charge it upon us. None of these evils have as yet made their appearance among us; if they had, the civilized world would have become vocal with the noise you would have made about it. As it is, you charge us with the want of civilization, without offering a word of testimony in proof of the fact.

“Now, if slavery is right, morally and religiously, as I have already proved to you, but which I intend to demonstrate more fully before this discussion closes, then it cannot give rise to the evils of which you speak. ‘A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.’ It is not opposed, as facts have shown, to the highest developments of national greatness. There is no branch of industry necessary to this end that it discourages, no moral culture that it hinders, no literary, intellectual or scientific attainments that it does not foster.

“The South abolish slavery! no, sir, never. We have too much regard for the welfare of our slaves. We know too well what is for their good, and we feel too deep an interest in them to throw them off, uncared for and unprotected; and devoutly reverencing God's institution, we will perpetuate it.

“Slavery is the normal condition of the negro, as much as freedom is of the Caucasian. He has always and everywhere been a slave; he always will be. Free him from his master, and he is a slave to the baser appetites of his nature. He becomes an indolent vagabond, a prowling thief, a midnight rogue, a brawling drunkard or an indifferent, filthy sloth, and dies of hunger. He is more virtuous, more prosperous and prolific, and much happier in a state of bondage. He lapses into physical, mental and moral degradation in a state of freedom, as the history of emancipation abundantly proves.”

“Do you not believe,” said the Doctor, “that there are thousands of slaves in the South that would be glad to be free?”

“No doubt of it,” said Mr. T., “just as there are thousands of children who have loving and indulgent parents, yet would rejoice to be free from parental restraints. But it is best for the children, as you know, that those desires cannot be realized. It is no less true that the negro would be injured by his freedom. Simply, then, as a philanthropist, I am in favor of slavery.”

“You have strange views of philanthropy,” said the Doctor.

“The moral and religious sense of the world is against you, and yet you stand out ‘solitary and alone.’ Why, sir, did you know that the interest the amount invested by England for the emancipation and moral elevation of the negroes of the West Indies, amounts to five millions of dollars annually? Here, sir, is a philanthropy which speaks for itself.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. T., “I knew the fact. I also know that when Parliament voted forty thousand pounds to educate England's poor, it voted eighty thousand pounds to repair the queen's stables; thus making the comfort of her horses double the importance of the moral well-being of her poor! This, too, is speaking philanthropy from the same source. And further, I know that while England taxes her people five millions to elevate the negro, she does not allow her own people but one hundred thousand, or about one-fiftieth of the amount, for the elevation of her own oppressed serfs. The truth is, negro slavery is democratic—it is opposed to monarchism—it is a death blow to it, and England was wise enough to find it out. Serfdom disappears at its approach; the two cannot live together in the same government. The whites will be free, where the negroes are slaves. England intended to keep her poor whites in slavery, and to do this effectually and peaceably it was necessary to emancipate the slaves in her colonies.” Hear what Mr. Van Evrie, a Northern man, says on this subject: “To hold in check the tendency of democratic ideas, to sustain and prolong its sway over the masses, European monarchisms, and especially the British portion of it, originated the ‘idea’ of ‘free negroism’ and a crusade in favor of inferior races. Its design was two-fold: as an antagonism for holding in check the progress of American democracy; and, in the second place, as a false issue to its own oppressed masses. It began with Johnson, Wilberforce, Pitt, and others of the most bigoted school of British tories. As a general thing, both in Europe and America, those most bigoted and most hostile to the freedom and equality of their own race have been its special advocates. The time, perhaps, has not yet arrived to estimate this negro movement at its true valuable; but it will come, and, when it does, British philanthropy and ‘humanity,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘emancipation,’ ‘abolition,’ or whatever it may be termed, will be known, as it is, in fact, the widest spread imposture and the vilest fraud ever practised on human credulity.” Now, sir, I would not charge a love of monarchism upon all the Northern abolitionists. They have strong imitative powers, and with all are exceedingly vain. Love of applause is a controlling element of character with them. They are frequently thrown with the English people, commercially and socially. They have thereby caught the spirit and desire to ape the motherland. Besides, you Northern people have been taunted by the English in a manner, it would seem, well calculated to disgust and insult you. But a fawning sycophant is willing to pay dearly for his privileges. They assert that slavery has demoralized the Northern States. To prove to them it is a mistake, you are goaded on in your opposition to slavery, till you have outstripped them in your denunciations of it. They charge to it all the violations of good order, even the “Mormon murders,” the “Philadelphia riots, and the exterminating wars against the Indians.” Your leading abolitionists, doubtless, say amen to all this, and then your orators and writers say “the half has not been told.” So, Jehu like, you say to them, “Come and behold my zeal for human Freedom;” and so you far outstrip them in your efforts to destroy this Pandora's box of evils.

“The statesmen of England are far-seeing; those of the North are not. The latter are willing to be led by the greater minds across the water. Lords and nobles will do anything to sustain the crown, but the crown can only be sustained by the perpetuity of monarchism, and this cannot long be done where negro slavery exists. Monarchies are opposed to Republics, and would like to see the last one crumble into dust, or be drowned in blood. But this can never be done in America till slavery is abolished. It is, therefore, to the interest of the monarchies of Europe to foster abolitionism here. No doubt the sagacious statesmen of England are chuckling at the increase of abolition sentiments on this continent, and see in it the precursor of a strong government, and think they hear in the emancipation clamor of the North the death knell of republicanism. I fear the sequel will vindicate their wisdom. But the blind abolitionists of the North have been dazzled and led on until the “things that make for their peace are hidden from them.” They do not see the tricks of English diplomatists, nor will they until they are involved in ruin.”

“What a desponding man you are,” said the Doctor, “to see danger where none exists, to apprehend evil where it cannot by any possibility arise!”

“The wise man said ‘The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished,’” replied Mr. T. “But again, sir, permit me to call your attention to the inconsistencies of English philanthropists. They denounce slavery and slaveholders in unmeasured terms. They protest against the institution as a system of robbery and fraud. Yet they are eager for the purchase of the products of slave labor. They grow rich upon them—they are the staple commodities of their commerce. Indeed, if they were to refuse our cotton, many of these zealous denouncers of slavery would have to go to bed supperless. Their pliant consciences are at rest when slave labor brings money into their pockets. They forget, then, the ‘tears and sweat and blood’ of the poor slave. And may I say, sir, that the consciences of Northern abolitionists are not less pliant, and their philanthropy is not less selfish. They write, and speak, and legislate, and pray, and preach against slavery; but, when they can make a dollar on cotton, their objections to the hated institution evaporate into thin air. Well has Inspiration said: ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’ None but a Yankee brain could have invented the phrase, ‘Almighty Dollar;’ for none have ever felt the mighty influence of the dollar so sensibly as they. With them it is stronger than patriotism, philanthropy or local attachments. If what I have said is not true, if English and Northern abolitionists really desire the freedom of our slaves, why do they not reject the products of their labor? By purchasing them from us they only encourage us in multiplying our slave force. They rivet the chains of slavery upon our bondmen—they perpetuate the institution—they foster slave labor. If slavery is wrong, they are particeps criminis. Nor are they blind to this fact. It has undergone extensive discussions, both at the North and in England. It is really amusing to see the subterfuges to which the moralists (?) who opposed slavery have resorted, to justify the purchase of its products. The following may serve as a specimen; ‘The master owns the land, gives his skill and intelligence to direct the labor, and feeds and clothes the slaves. The slaves, therefore, are entitled to only a part of the proceeds of their labor, while the master is also justly entitled to a part of the crop. When brought into market, the purchaser cannot know what part belongs rightfully to the master, and what to the slaves, as the whole is offered in bulk. He may, therefore, purchase the whole innocently, and throw the sinfulness of the transaction upon the master, who sells what belongs to others.’ Now, how revolting to an honest mind, and how preposterous in a legal view, is such a proposition! Suppose two men to farm in co-partnership, one is entitled to one-tenth, the other to nine-tenths of what is made. How much each is entitled to is not known to the public, but simply that each has a share, the quantity of which is known only to the parties. Now, I am a produce merchant, and the man entitled to one-ninth brings in all the corn in his own name, and I, knowing the fact, purchase it. Have I done so innocently? If I have, then no one is guilty who purchases stolen goods. But if slavery is wrong in itself, then the master's claim to its products is at the expense of the rights of the original producer, or slave, then to the purchaser, with a knowledge of these facts, they are stolen goods. In the eye of the law, the master is guilty of a fraud in ’confusing‘ the goods. But to purchase them from him, paying him for all, is to give him the advantage of his own fraudulent act; this the law never does knowingly. Now, if slavery is wrong in itself, as abolitionists say it is, then to obtain its products from the master, and yet justify themselves in so doing, requires the Jesuitical argument, ‘the end justifies the means,’ i. e., so we got the money it does not matter how—it is none of our business whether this planter came by his cotton or sugar honestly or not; we will not go back to see, that is his business. Such a course shows the fallacy, (to use the very softest word possible,) of English and Northern philanthropy, and it shows the elasticity of the consciences of these characters, who would set themselves up as public instructors of good morals.”

But Nellie and Mr. Mortimer are passing us just now, and the curious reader may desire to hear the subject matter of conversation between them.

“How are you pleased with our climate and people, so far as your observation has extended to the latter?” asked Mr. M.

“Delighted with both. But why do you ask such a question? I am sure you could not think a lady of taste would be otherwise than pleased. This must be an approximation to the beautiful and delightful home of our first parents, before it was polluted by the appearance of the tempter. Nature, wild and untamed by the hand of art, is always attractive to me. Compared with my own frigid home, you have perennial spring and flowers. The birds sing the season round, the air is soft and mild as May. I have formed but few new acquaintances since my arrival, but have been much pleased with those. Society at the South is very different from what I expected to find it. I concur in the opinion expressed by Miss Murray, when she says of a Southern city: “I met I there several pretty Southern ladies; their voices and way of speaking struck me as more refined and graceful than those of the other States I have visited. I find society here most agreeable.”

“I am glad you are so highly pleased with the South and Southerners. So many visit us and return with prejudices against us, either because they do not stay long enough to form correct ideas, or from early education they are blinded to our virtues. The South is not appreciated generally by Northerners or by foreigners, and I suspect that it is on account of slavery. The whole world is in arms against us; but, after all, we are right. By the way, how does the controversy between your uncle and Dr. Pratt progress?”

“I have been very much interested in it,” said Nellie. “Last night they closed the old Testament argument, and on their return are to enter upon the new.”

“How did it terminate? Who had the better of the argument, you being judge?”

“Well, sir, I must confess to great disappointment. I never, for one moment, questioned the ability of our people at home to prove the sinfulness of slavery, to show that it was a palpable violation of the teachings of the Bible. I have so often heard it denounced, by our best and ablest men, not only as wrong, and sinful, but as villainous: I have heard every epithet applied to it which human ingenuity and eloquence could invent; till I had no idea that an intelligent and pious man, such as I know uncle to be, would ever attempt a defense of it. Slave-holders have been accused of such manifest injustice, oppression and cruelty to their slaves, that my feelings of humanity have often shuddered at the thought. I believed all was true, and true of all masters, for universal cruelty has been asserted, and I had no means of disproving it, even if I had possessed the disposition, but even that was wanting. I really believed that Southerners were as bad as untutored, idolatrous barbarians. Nor was I alone in this opinion; the masses of the people have no means of information as to the character of you Southerners, except what they read in our popular newspapers, nine-tenths of which are abolition sheets, and their editors as ignorant as those whom they would enlighten, or else they are wickedly deceiving the people. Occasionally we in the villages have a lecturer, but they are under the employ of societies which send them out to raise funds for the ‘amelioration of the colored people.’ They usually draw horrid pictures of Southern oppression and brutality, all of which is received as gospel truth. I assure you, if our Northern people could see slavery, as presented in its practical workings, and as taught in the Bible, I verily believe there would be a radical revolution in public sentiment.”

“I think it doubtful,” said Mr. M. “The masses are always controlled by the greater minds. At the North, these greater minds are designing politicians, and whatever will effect political capital for them, will be the last from which they will be willing to part. They can never be convinced. Then you have a class of religionists, with whom humanity is the supreme law of right; the word of the Divine Being is of inferior authority. They would abandon the Bible if they thought it a pro-slavery book. These two classes include the leading politicians and many of the most prominent among the clergy. These exert an irresistible influence upon the people, and they can lead them anywhere, even to ruin: towards which they are now rapidly tending.”

“I had very honestly thought,” said Nellie, “that negro slaves were the most ignorant, debased, oppressed and miserable people in the world; that the serfs of the veriest despot upon earth enjoyed a paradise of happiness compared with them: but I am happily disappointed in finding them the most cheerful, virtuous, pious and contented dependents I have ever seen. I can say of every plantation I have seen, as Miss Murray did of one in this portion of Georgia: “A happy attached negro population surrounds this abode; I never saw servants in an old English family more comfortable, or more devoted; it is quite a relief to see anything so patriarchal, after the apparently uncomfortable relations of masters and servants in the Northern States. I should much prefer being a ‘slave’ here, to a grumbling, saucy ‘help’ there.” Miss M. asks a question which I presume none of our Northern or English Abolitionists can answer in the affirmative: ‘Is there any part of Africa, the West Indies, or South America, where three millions of negroes are to be found as comfortable, intelligent and religious, or as happy as in the Southern States?’ She says, also, ‘The system of slavery has been blamed for the ignorance and vices of the Africans: are they less ignorant or more virtuous where slavery does not exist? It has pleased Providence to make them barbarian, and as barbarian they must be governed, however Christian may be the feelings and principles of their masters.’ These are sensible views, if they did come from a woman Mr. Mortimer.”

“Certainly, madam,” said Mr. Mortimer, smiling, “the ladies are the only connecting link that binds us to the angels, and they are constant remembrancers of purity and perfection. I have often wished I was a lady, but recently I have concluded to be content, if I can only obtain one for my better self. But to return to our subject. I wonder that the refined sympathies of Northern and English philanthropists are not more excited by the oppressed of other lands. Their objections to slavery seem to grow out of the abstract idea of slavery, rather than from the physical and moral condition; or else it feeds upon envy of the wealth and prosperity of the South. They seem not to be moved by the sufferings of those who are nominally free. There is tenfold more sufferings in some portions of the world among the Caucasian, than in the South among the African race. Indeed, there are many in every land, whose physical, moral and intellectual condition is unspeakably inferior to our slaves. Yet these poor sufferers of other lands excite no sympathy in their behalf. I will give you one instance of labor and suffering, ignorance and degradation. It exists in the Brampton coal pits in England, ‘where if their own citizens were blessed with the liberty and ease of our slaves, it would be a most glorious act of emancipation.’”

“Boys from eight to twelve years old are forced to pass through narrow pits, where each has a space of two feet headway; they go half-bent, because they cannot straighten; the mud through which they pass is one or two inches deep; they draw their barrows with one hundred weight of coal, sixty yards, sixty times a day. That is four miles a day through mud and water, half-bent or on their knees, and half that distance with a rolling load of one hundred pounds.”

Were slavery to impose such labor, a cry of holy horror would go up from every nation.

“Robert North, one of the miners, says: ‘I went into the pit at seven years of age to fill skips. I drew about twelve mouths. When I drew by the girdle and chain, my skin was broken, and the blood ran down. I durst not say anything. If we said anything, the butty, and the reeve who works under him, would take a stick and beat us.’

“Here was a boy harnessed as a beast, and worked and treated as a brute. No parallel to this inhumanity can be found on slave plantations in the South. But hundreds such occur in the Brampton coal mines.

The wages paid to these degraded, ignorant serfs, is from $2 50 to $7 50 per month, according to age and ability, and out of this they must support themselves. They work twelve hours each day.

“The destitution and suffering in England is fearful. In a report made to Parliament by its commissioners, it is stated that forty thousand persons in Liverpool, and fifteen thousand in Manchester, live in cellars, while twenty thousand in England pass the night in barns, tents, or the open air. ‘There have been found such occurrences as seven, eight, or ten persons in one cottage, I cannot say for one day, but for whole days, without one morsel of food. They have remained on their beds of straw for two successive days, under the impression that in a recumbent posture the pangs of hunger were less felt.’ No such destitution as this is known in the South, either among the whites or blacks.

“The morals of this wretched class just alluded to, if indeed they can be said to have any, are of the lowest grade. ‘A lower condition of morals,’ says an eye-witness, ‘in the fullest sense of the term, could not, I think, be found. They have no morals. Their appearance, manners and morals, so far as the word morals can be applied to them, are in accordance with their half-civilized conditions. Their ignorance is not less astounding.’ Robert Crucilow, aged 16 years, when catechised, answered: ‘I don't know anything of Moses. Never heard of France. I don't know what America is. Never heard of Scotland or Ireland. Can't tell how many weeks in a year.’ Ann Eggly, aged 18, said: ‘I never go to church or chapel. I never heard of Christ at all.’ Others said: ‘The Lord sent Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners. I don't know who made the world. I never heard about God. I don't know Jesus Christ. I never saw him, but I have seen Foster, who prays about him.’ The employer said to the catechiser, ‘You seem surprised at Thomas Mitchel's not hearing of God. I judge there are few colliers hereabout who have.’ Slavery could not be worse than this, were it all that its worst enemies have represented it to be. But all this hard labor, vice, poverty, and ignorance, is in glorious Old England, our father-land, whose very air is perfumed with the incense of liberty. Of whom Cowper says:

“Yes, free, indeed. Free to live in ignorance of God, free to bear a heavier yoke of bondage than ever galled the neck of slave in Southerland. Free to starve for bread, free to go naked, free to go houseless, homeless, friendless. If this be freedom, give me slavery. Would it not be interesting to see one of the poor straw-ridden skeletons of Liverpool or Manchester, or of Lowel in your own New England, for there are hundreds such there, totter to their door, and feebly thrusting out their pale wan faces, cry out, “O Liberty,Parent of happiness.” And then hear in hollow tones from a spectral object across the street, echo back the sentiment, “Tis liberty alone that gives the flowerOf fleeting life its lustre and perfume,And we are weeds without it.” Then let some slave from the South, pampered on the fat of the land, as they generally are, respond in the fullness of his heart, “So let them ease their hearts with prateOf equal rights, which man ne'er knew,I love a freedom too”—A freedom from the cares of state,A freedom which is known by few—Contentment, plenty, peace.

“Where did you obtain the facts to which you have just referred, about the poor miners?” said Nellie.

“From the report of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament. I have referred to only a few of the facts contained in that report. Some things are said about their moral condition, and also the poor alluded to, that so shocks our moral sense, that I have not mentioned them. The truth is, Miss Norton, negro slavery is infinitely to be preferred before the pauper freedom and serf-vagrancy and degradation of England and the North. Negro freedom would be no better. Indeed, it cannot exist; it never has in the past, it never will in the future, in that enlightened and virtuous sense, with which it should alone be connected. Break the chains of involuntary servitude, and they will reconstruct them by entering into voluntary slavery, or what is worse, become nuisances to society, and perhaps starve at last. God has united slavery and negroes, and no man can put them asunder. Nominally he may, but really be cannot. It is their natural condition; their whole organism, mental, moral and physical, proves their providential adaptation to it. They are vastly our inferiors, and of this they themselves have a most feeling consciousness. Even in Africa, a white man is looked up to as some superior personage, as we are told by Rev. Mr. Bowen, who was for many years a missionary among them. Their faculties are developed, in a state of slavery, more successfully and to a higher degree than can be effected in any other condition. This has been demonstrated by the emancipation experiment made in Hayti. Our slaves are vastly superior, morally and intellectually, to the Africans of that island. Not because they are naturally superior, for they are not, but simply for the reason that they are where providence placed them. They are more honest, more virtuous, better contented, and freer from the temptations which will surely lead this imbecile and plastic people into error. I can say, without the fear of successful contradiction, that there is less crime in the South, to the population, than anywhere else, even among your own citizens, who consider us but one grade above the barbarian. This being true, England would contribute largely to the cause of morality, virtue, religion, and more especially to human happiness, were it again to enslave its West India negroes.”

“How do you prove that there is less crime at the South, to the population, than anywhere else? I do not acquiesce in your opinion. Our people may be deceived about slavery, and therefore oppose that which is right, but we are a law-abiding, virtuous and christian people.”

“I establish my assertion by statistical facts, published by yourselves, and therefore ought to be correct, for a people are not apt to make themselves appear worse than they really are:

“The population of Massachusetts in 1850 was nine hundred and ninety-four thousand five hundred and fourteen. Out of that number there were seven thousand two hundred and fifty convictions for crime. In Virginia, in the same year, there was a population of one million four hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixty-one, and out of this number, there were only one hundred and seven convictions for crime. In Boston, one male out of fourteen, and one female out of twenty-eight, was arraigned for crime. The records of our criminal courts show no such alarming state of demoralization any where in the South.”

“O! is this Bonaventure? How beautiful, how picturesque. These spreading oaks, with their long arms reaching up towards heaven as if they would embrace their Maker. That beautiful moss, so exquisite, that hangs like long drawn veils, as if to half conceal their natural loveliness, but which really adds so many charms to this unique mausoleum of the dead. Eden was made for the living, it therefore had its flowers, its fruits, its songsters; but Bonaventure was made for the dead, it therefore has neither. Still as night, somber as the tomb, sweetly sad, with a melancholy visible every where, so well suited for the last resting place of the noble dead.

“And so am I,” said the Doctor, its if he really thought Mr. Thompson desired to avoid the issue.

“And so am I,” said Mr. Thompson.

“But,” interposed Mrs. Thompson, “I hope you do not intend to sit up all night. Be temperate in all things, is in the Bible, as well as slavery. I think you had better sleep on the subject, and rest till to-morrow night, and then we all will listen to you with deeper interest.”

“I always submit to whatever the ladies say,” said Dr. P. “But I wish a word with my little truant pet about her visit to Bonaventure, before we retire.”

“I suppose, Nellie, the real pleasure was as great as anticipated, and you had a delightful time with your excellent young friend. Did you find him all your heart desired—all you could wish for?”

“He is a perfect Adonis in person, as you perceive,” replied Nellie. “He is not so wise as Solomon, I presume, but certainly much more interesting to me. Bonaventure is an exquisitely beautiful place, but if I had been with you or uncle I should have appreciated and enjoyed the scene much more, for I should then have been able to give it my whole attention—my undivided observation. But the greater attraction was at my side, instead of in the prospect. Would you wish any further information on the subject?”

“I do not wish to be considered impertinent, and therefore fear to push my inquiries further.”

“I am glad you are so chary of your reputation. It might be well for pastors not to ask their young lady members too many questions about their young gentlemen associates. They might thereby ‘lead them into temptation,’ from which they should always endeavor to deliver them. So good night.” Nellie arose and ascended the flight of stairs leading to her room, repeating mentally from Spencer:

“Ah,” said she, as she entered her room, and found Alice was soundly sleeping, “I would not have had that old bald-headed abolitionist—my dear good pastor, I mean—to have seen deep down in my heart for a world. I am afraid my tell-tale face betrayed me. What a pity I was'nt made of brass—no, it is'nt either, for then I would'nt enjoy loving as I do. Why it is a real pleasure, I do declare. Who would have believed that I, a Massachusetts girl of eighteen summers, holding the South in such unmitigated contempt, and looking upon its people as but half civilized, should have fallen so violently in l—; pshaw, what am I talking about. But he is really the first and only young gentleman I ever saw, to whom I could think of surrendering my heart. And to think he is the only young man whose acquaintance I have formed in Georgia—wonder if there are any more Mortimers here—but surely, I am a very silly girl. Well, wonder who could help it? I can't. Mrs. Tighe is right:

But perhaps my reader is a staid old bachelor, or a sceptical old maid, whose heart was never touched with the sentimental, who conceives all such feelings as sickly and childish, and who would rather hear, “From Greenland's icy mountain,” than to spend one moment in sympathy with this sweet girl who is enjoying the happy impulses of her first love. Or perhaps some noble specimen of a true man, who wishes the highest success to this first essay of my unpracticed pen, may, prefer Bible facts to love's sweet dreams of fancied bliss. Then from deference to what may be the wishes of my readers, I will leave Nellie's happy thoughts to herself. She would doubtless take it as an unkindness in me to spread them before a curious public. So, wishing sweet dreams, and a happy realization of these bright anticipations at an early day, to our young heroine, we bid her good night, and enter the room of Dr. Pratt and look in on him for a moment. He is reading Miss Murray's travels. Her correspondent, which Dr. P. is reading says:

“The phenomenon of African slavery, as it is sometimes called, is in truth no phenomenon at all. Where is the country or the period of history wherein slavery did not exist in some shape or other? Slavery has always existed, and will continue so long as there is a disparity in the intellect or energy of men. I do not enter into the question of the Unity of Races, which is supposed to be derived from the authority of the Bible: it will be sufficient to assert that this race, known as the African, is inferior to the Caucasian. As a people, the blacks are sensual and stupid, lazy, improvident and vicious; unless under guidance, they have no idea of cherishing those virtues which elevate our common nature; they have an alacrity for sinking, nothing more. In their own country they are either savages or slaves,” (both savages and slaves.) There is at this time, and there has been for long periods, a large number of free colored people in the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States of the Union; but even constant attrition against Yankee sharpness and shrewdness has failed to elicit one scintillation of talent or genius from this race. When they pass from bondage, it is only to swell the volume of insignificance or vice which has characterized their past history. But besides this, I would remark that we should reflect upon the fact of slavery more than upon the manner of its regulation. The Virginia negro, who is held by law as a slave, is really little more a slave (not half so much) than the man who works in the mines and manufactories of England. The first is held in subjection by a well-devised system of police; the other by a necessity stronger than any police. It is no answer to say that the Englishman can, if he chooses, leave his employer—that power only exists in theory, as the penalty for severing his bonds is starvation. His real master is capital, which, being in its nature greedy, grasping and selfish, doles out to human labor the smallest possible amount which will sustain life, and keep the working machine in order. There are three millions of slaves in the United States, and they constitute the only black people who are progressing in civilization and christianity, who are orderly, quiet, contented and industrious. They are well fed, well clad, and in physical comforts will compare advantageously with the same number of operatives in any part of Europe. The only favorable results yet marked out for the African race are due to the American system of slavery.”

“There is some truth in this,” said the Doctor as he closed the book and sat musingly. “So far as the happiness of the negro is to be considered, I have never seen free negroes at the North so happy, so well fed, so neatly clad as Mr. Thompson's are. They are more virtuous and religious, too, than those North; indeed, they have better religious privileges, and a deeper sympathy is felt for them here than there. We have not done justice to our free colored people. We look down upon them, we frown on them, we will not associate with them. The truth is, they are such a mean and despicable race that we cannot treat them otherwise without contamination. I have been surprised at the liberties which Mr. Thompson and his slaves take with each other, and yet they are perfectly subordinate, and really seem to love him. Well, there is something strange, mysterious, about all this; but I will keep my thoughts to myself. It will never do for me to change my sentiments— never! But really Thompson gets the advantage of me at every turn; but he shall never know that I feel so. I may be wrong in this concealment, but I cannot help it. I never will yield to a slaveholder.

“This evening,” said Mr. Thompson, “we are to enter into the discussion of slavery as taught in the New Testament. Where shall we begin?”

“I have some idea,” said Dr. Pratt, “of pleading an estoppel, as the lawyers would say.”

“How?” said Nellie. “I hope you are not opposed to proceeding with the discussion. You said last evening you were anxious to proceed. I hope no change has come over the spirit of your dream, unless it be that you announce yourself with us, convinced that you have been on the wrong side all the time. If this is what you mean we will give you the right hand of fellowship, and then proceed with the investigation. For that we must have, for my benefit, if for nothing else.”

“Well, you need not be in a hurry to offer your hand just yet. I might not be willing to take it. I meant I would give your uncle a poser at the start, from which he will not recover in time to proceed with the argument during life, I propose to give him a Bible argument against slavery, which he will never be able to answer.”

“Do, Mr. Pratt, if you can,” said Nellie, “for I think so far you have utterly failed; but then you have come to the dispensation of light, and we way be more able to see the darkness by contrast.”

“I am anxious to hear your poser from the Scriptures,” said Mr. Mortimer. “If there be one verse or sentiment in the Divine Word against slavery, it is time we slaveholders knew it, for we have been accustomed to believe it was taught, not denounced, by heaven.”

“So I have ascertained,” said the Doctor, “but interest, you know, greatly blinds the mental as well as the moral vision sometimes, and this may be the reason you have never seen it. All the rest of the world have long since discovered it in the Bible. ‘A reward perverteth the judgment,’ says Solomon. Perhaps you would see clearer if you had no slaves. But to my argument. It is found in Matt. 7: 12, among the holy sentiments contained in the Sermon on the Mount. It is, therefore, from Christ himself, and demands the most devout and immediate obedience. Here it is: ‘Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.’ You, gentlemen, are masters—you would not desire to be held in bondage by your slaves; therefore, if you hold your slaves in bondage, you violate this precept. You are bound by this law to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If this does not extirpate slavery's terrible hold upon your hearts and consciences, I shall think that the things which make for your peace and welfare are hidden from you. There is no excuse for a misinterpretation of this precept, every one knows what he wishes others to do for him, and this must be the rule of his conduct to them, at all times and under all circumstances.”

“We are all very familiar with your test,” said Mr. Thompson. “It is one by which we endeavor to be governed, even as masters. We call it ‘the golden rule,’ on account of its unselfishness and freedom from the counterfeit morality of the mercenary age in which we live. But, Doctor, is your construction of this passage of Scripture the correct one? If so, and I owe you a thousand dollars, and you, in thinking over the sacrifices it will cost me to pay it, conclude that, were our positions reversed, you would prefer me to release you from the payment, then you are bound to give me the debt. Let us see further what will be the results of your interpretation. In his moral science, Dr. Dagg says: ‘The Sheriff, who is about to hang a murderer, may argue, were I in the murderer's place, I would not desire to be hung; therefore I must not hang him. The jailor who is about to turn the key of the prison door may argue, were I in the place of the prisoner, I would desire the prison door to be left open.’ Therefore the murderer and the felon must be turned loose upon an innocent community, after they are justly condemned by the court, and that, too, in obedience to the best and most unselfish rule ever given by heaven to erring man. The result would be, that obedience to the Divine law, given to restrain evil and foster good, would bind the hands of retributive justice, and turn loose upon the world those wicked spirits against which there would be no protection. That cannot be a correct application of the Scripture precept, which would make these officers neglect duties so important to society. And equally wrong is its application to slavery. The murderer, the imprisoned felon, and the discontented slave, may all desire that liberty should be proclaimed throughout the land; but the Scripture precept does not require that therefore they should be turned loose on society. It requires that we divest ourselves of selfishness in deciding how we should act towards others. It limits our wishes on the one hand, and our actions on the other, to what is right and reasonable, ACCORDING TO SUBSISTING CIRCUMSTANCES. In view of the mischiefs which would result, I ought not to desire that the murderer, the felon and the slave should be turned loose on society, even if I myself were the person, and therefore it is not my duty to turn such person loose, if society has entrusted them to my charge.” Now take one more case, akin to those I have quoted from Dr. Dagg. Suppose the keeper of a penitentiary were to look in on the degraded and suffering inmates till the deepest and tenderest sympathy of his nature was moved in their behalf. He says to himself, “I would greatly dislike to be in their places; this must be a very miserable life. If I were they I should desire that the keeper would, either by accident or purposely, leave the gate open that I might make my escape. In that event, Doctor, you hold that, according to this Scripture precept, the keeper is bound to do as he would be done by, and therefore turn them all out. From selfish motives he would desire the keeper to betray his trust, to violate the law, and turn loose upon society a band of murderers, robbers and felons, and because he would desire another to do wrong he must do wrong himself. If this construction were correct, no humane sheriff would ever arrest a lawless offender, no jury would ever convict a guilty criminal, no judge could ever pass sentence of execution against the convicted murderer; therefore all penal law would be suspended, and the wicked would run riot, while the innocent would have no protection against them. Can that be a legitimate construction of the word of God, which would lead to so many wicked consequences? Surely you will not persist in maintaining your position. But if Jesus intended this Scripture to apply to slavery, it is very singular indeed he did not allude to it in the many instances in which he came in contact with the institution. But instead of that, he enjoined upon the slave obedience to the master, and on the master justice and kindness, (not emancipation,) towards the slave. Its application to slavery may be correct this far. I am bound to treat my slave as such with that justice and humanity which christianity enjoins. But that it demands of the master to liberate his slaves was never once contemplated by Christ or His Apostles, or they would certainly have said so.”

“Uncle,” said Nellie, “I wish you would repeat again the meaning of the ‘golden rule,’ as given by Dr. Dagg; it strikes me as being very excellent and undeniably correct. I desire to remember it for a time.”

“I will do so with pleasure, for I think it the clearest and most correct interpretation I have ever seen. ‘It limits our wishes on the one hand, and our actions on the other, to what is right and reasonable according to subsisting relations.’ Dr. Pratt would place no limit to the desire; he would make nothing to depend on ‘subsisting relations.’ Indeed, he would revolutionize society, revoke the Divine laws for public safety and protection; he would break down all barriers between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and give the freest scope to the wildest licentiousness; indeed, he would break every yoke, political, social, marital, parental; in a word, totally disorganize society, enthrone socialism, the modern pet idea of Northern vice and libertinism. I do not mean that you would desire to do all this, Doctor; but such would be the legitimate consequences of your interpretation of the golden rule, when applied to all these relations. Such a state of things would subvert, instead of foster, the Divine purpose.”

“Then it follows,” said Nellie, “that if slavery is taught in the Bible this rule does not interfere with it. Slaves being lawfully in bondage, the law does not require a reversal of its own decree. They being scripturally bound, cannot be scripturally set free, for this would make the Bible contradict itself, which cannot be true of its infinitely wise and perfect Author.”

“And I suppose,” said Mr. Mortimer, “the scriptural proofs on this subject will accumulate as the discussion advances, so that the Doctor will have a clearer view of ‘subsisting relations.’”

“But,” said the Doctor, “you have not removed the injunction from the rule, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ There it stands out in frowning aspect upon you selfish slaveholders. There it is, look at it, listen to its rebuking voice, as you drive your slaves against their wills to the field of toil.”

“Listen to it!” said Mr. Thompson, “as you drive your reluctant child to the school room. Listen to it as the judge pronounces sentence of condemnation against a guilty criminal, who reluctantly yields to the judicial behest. Listen to it as the jailor drives the prisoner into the dungeon against his will and bolts the heavy doors. Listen to it as the member of society reluctantly bears the burdens which his relations thereto necessarily impose upon him. Aye, listen to it as you urge a man whose heart is evil, and only evil, and that continually, to cease to do evil and learn to do well. You urge him against his will, and would, for his good and that of society, force him if you could. Every member of society must yield certain privileges and preferences for the general good, and, if he refuses to do so, society must have coercive power to enforce it. This is the conservative element of social well being. Under this, the slave must labor. His own welfare and happiness, as well as that of society, demand it.”

“Diakonos. Says Trench: ‘The difference between diakonos on one side and doulos and therapon on the other, is that diakonos represents the servant in his activity for the work, not in his relation either of servitude as that of the doulos, or more voluntary as in the case of therapon to a person. The attendants at a feast, and these with no respect to their condition as one of freedom or servitude, are as such diakanos. What has just been said of the importance of maintaining the distinction between doulos and diakonos, may be illustrated from the parable of the marriage supper, (Matt. xxii: 2-14): “With us the king's ‘servants’ bring in the invited guests, (vs. 3, 4, 8-10,) and his ‘servants’ are bidden to cast out him that had not on a wedding garment (v. 13); but in Greek, those, the bringers-in of the guests are douloi; these, the fulfillers of the king's sentence are diakonoi—this distinction being a most real one, and belonging to the essentials of the parables.”

“In this long quotation from Mr. Trench, you have clearly drawn the distinction between the words so often confounded in our version. My interpretations of the scriptures, to which I may hereafter refer, will be founded on these distinctions. Wherever I find doulos, or douloi, I shall be sure to call it slave and slaves, and to know I am right, Dr. Barnes to the contrary notwithstanding.”

“Let me see if I comprehend these distinctions,” said Nellie, ‘for I suppose my understanding of the scriptures to which reference may be made, will depend upon my retention of them. Therapon is the performer of present services, without reference to the fact whether as a freeman or as a slave. Diakonos represents the servant in his activity for the work, not in his relation either of voluntary or involuntary servitude. Neither of these words can be relied on to prove slavery, though in our Bible they are rendered servant.

“Doulos means: ‘One in a permanent relation of servitude to another;’ a bondman, a slave. This last, then, you rely upon to prove slavery. It ‘always and everywhere’ means slavery. Now I ready for you to proceed.”

“Dr. Pratt,” said Mr. Thompson, “I have proved by a number of the best witnesses I could produce, and those, too, whose scholarship the learned world has acknowledged, that doulos means slave and nothing else. As a lawyer would say ‘I close for the present.’ If you have any further testimony, produce it, ‘or forever after hold your peace.’ Dr. Barnes is your only witness so far; and as interest, prejudice, and a want of information destroy the credibility of his testimony, I await the introduction of others. If you have no other witnesses, I shall claim a confession.”

“I never confess,” said the Doctor, “without an imperative necessity. I always go before the jury, to carry out your own a figure. You can proceed.”

“Then, in the first place, I shall proceed to discredit your only witness. You look surprised. I do it, not for the sake of the argument, but for the honor I would pay to Greek literature. As Greek scholars, Dr. Barnes would have us believe that doulos may mean a ‘hired servant,’ just as well as a slave, not that he would urge the usage of Greek writers as proof of his assertion, but upon his own unsupported word. We look for evidence to sustain the Doctor, but find none, not a single witness, save Dr. Pratt, Dr. B. says: ‘It is often used in these senses in the New Testament, just as it is elsewhere’; but he gives no single instance in which it is thus used, nor can he. ‘If the term doulos signifies ‘hired servant’ or ‘an apprentice,’ it is certainly strange, that out of the long list of learned lexicographers, not a single one ever found it out. Stephens, in his Thesaurus Ling. Grace. Art. doulos, was equally ignorant of any such use of the term. Now, is it not to be regretted, that as Dr. Barnes is the only man who has ever made this discovery, he did not give us some insight into the sources from which he derived his information, but he has not condescended to adduce a single example in which his definition is applicable. ‘The Greek word, doulos,’ says Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, ‘like the Latin serus, corresponds to the usual meaning of our word slave.’ Aristotle, whom we may suppose to have understood Greek as well as any one else, (save Dr. Barnes,) defines a slave (doulos ) to be a living working tool, a possession, to be not a servant of any kind, but a slave. Dr. MacKnight renders the word doulos slave. But I will not weary you with these proofs. ‘In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.‘ The scholarship of the world has passed judgment against you and Dr. B., and you must suffer the penalty.”

“You remind me very much,” said the Doctor, “of one of our good preachers at the North, who, when he establishes a point, is so proud he stops to crow over it. Your crowing is rather more noisy than one would expect of a staid, prim, scholarly Christian like yourself. Better do as the blacksmith, who, when he has driven the nail, only stops long enough to clinch it, and—”

“That is just what he has done,” said Nellie, with a glance of triumph towards Mr. Mortimer. “His proofs are certainly conclusive. But, uncle, you need not think we would grow weary of additional testimony, for while you have certainly afforded enough, yet, if you have more, you can ‘make assurance doubly sure.’”

“Well, then,” said her uncle, “one or two more witnesses. Donnegan says: ‘Doulos a slave, a servant, as opposed to despotes, a master.’ But he never applies it to hired servants.

“Conybeare and Howson; ‘Doulos a bondsman.’ They say of Paul's letter to Philemon ‘This letter is not only a beautiful illustration of the character of St. Paul, but also a practical commentary upon the precepts concerning the mutual relations of slaves and masters, given in his contemporary epistles.’

“Dr. Kendrick, of Rochester, New York, in a few articles written for the New York Examiner, a few years ago, gives the meaning of doulos to be slave. He argued the question with his Abolition brethren with a scholarly ability that quite put them to the blush. I am sorry I did not preserve his articles, that you might see how he puts the question forever at rest. I remember his articles created quite a fluttering among the Abolition theologians at the time, and they put on a doleful face, and sighed through their papers, and expressed many regrets that brother Kendrick should have spoken at all, if such were his views; but they did not, so far as I now remember, attempt to controvert his positions.

“Dr. Hacket, of New England, in his revision of Philemon, states in a foot-note that doulos means slave. In the body of the letter he says servant, to please, perhaps, the Abolitionists; but he was afraid to risk his reputation as a scholar, and therefore adds the marginal note.

“Mr. Sumner makes a great ado about slavery and the Bible, and declares that slavery cannot be proved from the New Testament, but that the very opposite can. But Senator Sumner has no reputation as a scholar, so far as I know; certainly none as a theologian, and if he has any for veracity, it has not made its way thus far from his home. Like many of his class, be asserts a fact, and when asked for the proof, re-asserts it with vehemence. But, this is quite enough to satisfy the Northern mind; they never ask for proof from an Abolitionist—they want none; the wildest and most reckless assertions are received as true beyond all question.

“But, sir, I have done with the philological part of my argument, and am prepared to show, that according to the definition given by the learned world to doulos, slavery existed in the apostolic age; that it was known and understood by Christ and his apostles; that they recognized it as one of the social relations of life, and endorsed it; that they commanded slaves to be obedient to their masters; that they commended the faith of slaveholders and received them into their churches.

Mr. Mortimer, will you turn to Ephesians vi: 9 and see if the word translated servants is not douloi.”

“It is, sir,” said Mr. Mortimer, “but I would suggest that Dr. Pratt have the Greek Testament, so as to place all imposition out of the question, so I will hand it to him.”

“Mas George, Miss Penny mighty sick, sir; she want to see you,” said Phebe, entering, and interrupting the conversation.

Mr. Thompson hastened to his wife's room and found her very ill with incipient pneumonia. He immediately sent Jack for the doctor. Returning for a moment to the parlor be excused himself for the evening, and stated that from present indications the discussion would have to be suspended till a change was effected in his wife's health, which might be several days, for she was violently attacked.

Mr. Mortimer took his hat, and bidding them good evening, retired. Nellie ran into the room of her aunt, whom she loved most dearly, to see if she could afford any assistance. Dr. Pratt, after sitting for a full half hour in a brown study, went to his room, where he found a warm fire brightly blazing. Looking to his left, on a centre table, he discovered a small book, but finding it was entitled “South Side view of Slavery,” he was tempted to put it down again, but finding no other book in the room but the Bible, and not feeling in a very devotional frame of mind, he opened the book at chapter seventh, and seeing in large letters “Revolting features of Slavery,” he read:

“Passing up the steps of a court house in a Southern town, with some gentlemen, I saw a man sitting on the steps with a colored infant wrapped in a coverlet, its face visible and the child asleep.

“It is difficult for some who have young children not to bestow a passing look or salutation upon a child; but besides this, the sight before me seemed out of place and strange. ‘Is this child sick,’ said I to the man, as I was going up the steps.

‘No, master, she is going to be sold.’

‘Sold! where is her mother?’

‘At home, master.’

‘How old is the child?’

‘She is about a year, master.’

‘You are not selling the child, of course. How comes she here?’

After Mr. Thompson had dispatched a servant for his family physician, he applied such remedies as he hoped would afford Mrs. Thompson temporary relief. On the arrival of the Doctor he pronounced the disease pneumonia, and informed Mr. T. that the attack was one of unusual violence, and would require prompt treatment and the most vigilant care in nursing. He was well known to the family as a skillful physician, and as a man who never gave needless alarm. Mr. T. felt the most painful anxiety for his wife, upon whom he had always looked as one of God's best gifts to him. Nellie proposed to watch by her aunt's bedside with her uncle during the night. It was with unfeigned reluctance that she retired when informed by her uncle that he might need her more at another time.

For several days Mrs. Thompson grew worse. Every effort of the physician was ineffectual; till at length her life was despaired of. Mrs. Norton had been all attention and tenderness. She loved her sister; and then she felt so deep a sympathy for her brother and his interesting family of children. Nellie, too, who had found a congenial spirit in her accomplished aunt, felt a distress at her condition almost beyond endurance. She had looked forward to so many happy, joyous days in the society of her whose spirit now seemed vibrating between two worlds, and sighing to “depart and be at peace.” Even Dr. Pratt was moved to earnest prayers for her recovery. But all seemed unavailing. The hand of the destroyer was, it seemed, upon her, and his terrible hold none could break.

“Uncle Jesse,” said Phebe, when at twilight the good old servant came up to inquire how his mistress was; “Uncle Jesse, Miss Penny mighty low; the doctor says she's gwine to die. You been prayin' for her, Uncle Jesse?”

“Don't you know I been prayin' for dear Miss Penny. I pray most all night last night. I couldn't sleep. I been on my knees twenty times, I speck. Poor Miss Penny, God bless her and spare her to us a long time yet, I pray, if it be thy blessed will.”

“Uncle Jesse, can't you and Uncle Dick and Gabriel and the rest of you, go and hold a prayer meeting for Miss Penny? I 'member Mas George read in the Testament that Jesus cure sick people when he here on earth. He can cure Miss Penny but the doctor can't.”

“Yes, I go now and see the brothers, and we will pray for her. The Bible say ‘the prayer of faith shall save the sick.’ O Lord, increase our faith. Sister Phebe, you pray too.”

“I have been prayin' all the time,” said Phebe, as she burst into tears and turned away, wiping her eyes with her apron.

Uncle Jesse went out to hunt up “the brothers.” Very soon they all assembled in the house of pious Dick, the ostler. Uncle Jesse arose and stated the object of the meeting as follows:

“My brothers, God been good to us, to give us a kind mistis like Miss Penny always been to us. She always speak good to us; she treat us well all the time. She nuss us when we sick; she kind to our wives and chilens. Nobody got good mistis like we is. God send sickness on her. The doctor can't do her no good; he say she gwine to die. I call you here, my brothers, to pray for our dear good mistis, that Jesus, the Great Physician, come and cure her, like he did when he was here on earth, if it be his holy will. He say, the prayer of faith shall save the sick. He say wheresomever two or three are gathered together, there I am in the very midst. Now, brothers, Jesus is here to-night with us. I feel in my heart he is here. He will help us to pray, and he'll hear our prayers and break off the monia from Miss Penny. Only believe, brothers, when you pray, for Jesus says all things are possible to them that believe. Jesus Master, help us to believe! Brother Dick, you pray first.” All knelt, and Dick lifted up his heart in fervent supplications, while his lips gave utterance in broken accents, with sobs and tears, to the following prayer: “O dear Master God, for Jesus sake, help this poor servant to pray for his poor sick mistis. He would not ask for a form, nor for a fashion, but for de lone sake of Master Jesus, dy dear Son. O, for his sake drop dy frown behind de mountain, and come over de hill of our transgreshums and hear de prayer of dese dy poor servants. O Daniel's God, help dy poor creature to pray aright'fore de dis afternoon. Be dou de good Physican to stand by de bedside of my dear mistis and buke de fever and de monia, and give her to us once more, if it be dy holy will. Take her by de hand and raise her right up, and put dy strong arm under her to make her strong. She been kind to dy poor servants, she been good to all de people. O Master Jesus, cure Miss Penny. She got little chilens too; what will dey do widout her! O spare her for dey's sake. And Mas George; he too mighty good—what will he do? His heart be broken! O Master Jesus, don't take Miss Penny away from him, our dear master. O please, if it be dy will, break off her sickness and make her well. She teaches us dy blessed word; she read it to us ebry Sunday; she tell us about blessed Master Jesus. O for his sake give us Miss Penny, our dear, good mistis; don't take her away now, if it be dy holy will. O, broders, pray for our dear Miss Penny, dat de Lord may give her to us, for dy dear Son's sake. O Lord, please, dear Master God, don't send my dear mistis down to de cold grave dis time, if it be dy most holy will. We all begs for Christ's sake. Amen.”

The meeting was continued till about eleven o'clock, when it was resolved to go to the house and “Mas George” to let them see Miss Penny and pray with her. About twenty, male and female, went up to the door and halted, while Uncle Jesse softly approached the door of the sick chamber, and while looking in on the pale, wan face of his emaciated mistress, the big tears chased each other in rapid succession down his black cheeks. He beckoned to his master, who came to the door. Taking him a little out, so as not to disturb the sick, he informed him that about twenty of the servants were at the outer door and in the yard, and wanted to see Miss Penny, and if he would let them, pray with her. Mr. Thompson beckoned to the doctor, who came to see what was wanting. When informed of the mission of Uncle Jesse, the doctor entered his protest, and said it must not be done—they must not come in to see her, much less to make a noise; it would must excite Mrs. T., and she might sink immediately under the excitement. “Do you think she will live through the night, doctor?” asked Mr. Thompson, as his lip quivered and his voice became tremulous with emotion.

“I think it possible she may, but there is no certainty about it.”

“Then,” said Mr. Thompson, “if my negroes do not see her tonight, they may never look upon her living form again. Unless you are very positive in your opposition to it, doctor, I am disposed to grant the request of my servants, at least so far to let them come in and see her. Can't I leave it to her, doctor?”

“It may hasten her death, Mr. Thompson, but you can do as you please. But don't ask her if she is willing to see them, but if she desires to; don't let her know they are here.”

This conversation was carried on in a low whisper just outside of the sick chamber. Mr. T. approached the bedside of his sick wife, on one side of which Nellie was sitting, with a countenance that indicated deep mental pain and anxiety; her face was pale and her eyes were wet with weeping. Her mother reclined on a soft couch near by, with her eyes fixed upon the face of her invalid sister. Phebe stood at the foot of the bed with her hands resting on the back of a chair, ready to go at the behest of any one who commanded her for her mistress. Dr. Pratt had come in an hour before, and was sitting in an easy chair near the fire. Deep sadness was visible on every face, and a death-like stillness reigned through the room. Mrs. Thompson lay with her eyes closed, her hair brushed neatly back from her forehead, with a brow as colorless as marble and a slight flush upon her cheek. She had been fully conscious of her critical state all the time; but was resigned to the Divine Will, whatever that might be. She loved her husband devotedly, and her children with a fondness which none but a mother ever feels. For a few days after she was attacked, she did not feel that she could give them up and leave them. But she was now content. God, her Father and Friend, would take care of them. He would guide and comfort them, and bring them all at last to the scenes of bliss which her faith portrayed in the near prospect. But Mr. T's heart was wrung with bitterest anguish. A dark and lonely future was before him. His prospects for this life he felt were to be forever blighted; his precious little children soon to be bereft of a mother. With such a mother but few were ever blessed. Though a man of great faith and fortitude in trials, generally, now they seemed to fail him. God was just, he knew, he felt it, but was there love, was there mercy and goodness in a providence so sad? Could love tear asunder hearts so lovingly united? Could love bereave five young children of the best, most tender and faithful mother that ever blessed a family by her example and influence? Could love tear away from an affectionate and devoted husband the wife of his bosom, the only object that made life sweet, and without whom existence itself would scarcely be tolerable. Could love do all this? But then he would cry for help from Him who is his people's Strength, and his faith would increase, till, by Divine assistance, he could say “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

The whole family, white and colored, were in great distress. The servants did not feel that they could forego the sad pleasure of once more looking in the face of their beloved mistress; and Mr. Thompson, believing that this night would close the earthly pilgrimage of his wife, was unwilling to deny them this privilege. He therefore approached his wife softly and asked her if she desired to see the servants. She opened her eyes and looking around the room to see who was present, answered emphatically, “Yes.” He then told her they were at the door, and he would let them come in, one at a time, and see her, but that she must not let it disturb or excite her. “No,” said she, “let them all come at once.” Mr. T. stepped back and told them to go in as easily as possible, one following the other.

“Uncle Jesse” led the way, and approaching the bed, held out his hand, and, taking hold of Mrs. T's hand, said “God bless you, my dear mistis, and make you well again.” Juda came next, and holding out her hand, burst into tears at the sight of her emaciated mistress. All who were not too deeply affected to speak, had some kind word for “Miss Penny,” as they took her hand. Dick, for a wonder, was behind. When he came up, she said, “Sing for me our good old song—

Dick paused, cleared his throat, and looked at “Mas George,” who did not shake his head. So he stepped to the door and softly called those who were just leaving. They all returned, when Dick led off, followed by all the rest—

A sweet, heavenly smile played over the face of Mrs. T., while the negroes were singing. Nellie, poor dear girl, sobbed irresistibly, and even Dr. Pratt wept big tears of mingled joy and sympathy. Mr. T's whole frame shook; while many voices among the colored songsters were tremulous with deep emotion.

“Uncle Jesse,” said Mrs. T., feebly, “I want you to pray for me.” Jesse looked round for his master's approbation, but his face was concealed and his frame almost convulsed, so Uncle Jesse feeling that “prayer never hurt no body,” he said, “Brothers and sisters, let us all pray. Do please, Master Jesus, hear us this one time more for our dear mistis. You have said whatsomever we ask in faith you will give it to us. You say in your word, Ask and ye shall receive; and you told us the prayer of faith shall save the sick. We bleaves thy word. Darefore, O Jesus, bless my Miss Penny. Be the Good Physician, to heal her sickness and make her well again once more, if it be thy holy will. O Master God, look upon poor servant, for Jesus' sake, and listen to his prayers. Poor sick mistis ask this poor servant to pray for her once more—O give us back Miss Penny as alive from the dead. But speak the word, and she shall get well again, for you did say, Lazarus, come forth! and the dead did live and come up out of the grave. Do please, my Heavenly Master, give her back to us again, for Jesus' sake, if it be thy most holy will, and we will praise thee forevermore, for Jesus' sake. Amen.”

The colored people all retired to their houses after the prayer. Uncle Jesse, however, lingered at the door till he could catch his master's eye, then beckoning to him, he walked to the outer door, and stopping, said, “I mighty sorry for you, but the Lord is good— his mercy endureth forevermore—it never fail him. I bleave Miss Penny gwine to get well.” “But, Uncle Jesse,” said his master, “the doctor says she cannot; that she will die to-night.” “The doctor can't cure her, Mas George, but the Lord Jesus can. He fetch up Lazarus from the grave after he be dead four days, and he able to make Miss Penny well again, too. You look to Jesus and trust in him, and not in the doctor, and you see if Miss Penny don't get well agin.”

Nellie and her mother had just given Mrs. Thompson a little wine, lest she might sink under the reaction from the excitement.

Having lain about two hours, with her eyes closed, save when she made a feeble effort to cough, she opened them, and motioning to her husband to come to her, she said in a soft whisper, “Husband, I am going to get well.”

“I hope so; but why do you think it? do you feel so much better?”

“‘Whatsoever ye ask, believing, ye shall receive, that the Father may be glorified in the Son,’ is just as much intended for our servants as for us,” she replied, “and I believe uncle Jesse asked in faith, don't you?”

“Yes, my dear, I do,” replied her husband, with deep emotion.

The Doctor had retired to a room, to obtain a little sleep, as the servants entered. He gave instructions, that if any, the slightest change for the worse, took place, to have him waked immediately. He was surprised, therefore, when a servant called him, to find it was to prepare for breakfast, instead of being an urgent summons to the sick room. On entering Mrs. T's room he gave her a careful examination, and looking at Mr. Thompson with a grateful smile upon his face, said, “Decidedly better.”

“Thank God!” said Mr. Thompson, as the tears involuntary filled up his eyes to the brim.

At the breakfast table, visible signs of the reappearance of the day of joy were seen in every face, and heard in every word. The night was far spent, and the rising rays were seen to gild the horizon. The cloud was being dispersed, and the light struggling through its hitherto dark bosom.

The reader may feel relieved to know that Mrs. Thompson began to improve, and continued steadily to grow better and strengthen daily, till she was, in two weeks time, able to join the family again in the parlor—whither we will soon conduct you to hear more of Bible slavery.

“I have resigned that honor in favor of our clerical friend,” said Mr. Mortimer, rising and handing the Greek testament from the table to Dr. Pratt.

“Then,” said Mr. T., “Doctor will you turn to Ephesians, vi: 5-8. ‘Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your hearts, as unto Christ; not with eye service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will, doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether be bond or free.’ Now the first question to settle, is, were these servants bondmen or free, were they slaves or hired servants. What is the Greek, Doctor?”

Douloi, sir.”

“Then, according to the scholarship of the present and last centuries, they were slaves. Conybeare and Howson, in their “Life and Epistles of Paul,” translate douloi in this place ‘bondsmen,” and in every other place, I believe, where Paul uses this word. They give it but one meaning—I believe, Doctor, you have not shown it to mean anything else.”

“I will grant,” said the Doctor, “in the language of Dr. Wayland, that ‘the New Testament contains no precept prohibitory of slavery.’ Ask me for no further admissions.”

“This is quite enough, Doctor, I am sure,” said Mr. Thompson. “I should certainly be hard to satisfy, were I to ask more. For where do you find a sin practised by the people, in the days of Christ and the Apostles, against which they did not utter a prohibitory precept? Not one, either among the high or low, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. There was no evasion or compromise with them. Christ and his Apostles condemned all sin, but they did not condemn slavery; therefore slavery is no sin. But I wish us to understand the meaning of the quotation just made, as Bible students, as seekers after truth.

“‘Bondsmen obey your earthly masters, with anxiety and self-distrust, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as bondsmen of Christ doing the will of God from the soul. With good will fulfilling your service as to the Lord our Master, and not to men,’ &c.

“In this quotation we have: 1st. Obedience to their masters, enjoined and required of slaves by the authority of heaven. But if slavery is wrong, then its obligations are usurpations, and must therefore be wrong. Now, whatever authority enforces obedience to error, by requiring submission to its behests, partakes of that wrong. It, therefore, follows, that if slavery is wrong, the precept above given to enforce obedience to it is wrong also. But if there be wrong in the precept, then God is the author of that wrong. But God can do no wrong. Therefore this precept which He gave is right; then it follows that the obligations of slavery are right—and how can this be unless the institution is right also? 2d. It is required that this obedience be in ‘singleness of heart, as unto Christ.’ Not only is the body to submit, but the heart also. The mind is to acquiesce in the moral and religious validity of slavery, and the conscience of the slave to be at rest in its entire approval of the institution which holds him in bondage. He must take his obligations and service to Christ as the model after which he is to pattern, in his service to his master. Olshausen says on this thought: ‘This working of Christianity, directed to the inmost state of the soul, renders it the power which transforms the world. It makes each, in his place, what he is intended to be: the master a true master, the servant a true servant. But further, not merely is the whole will of the master to be done, even in secret, where no eye observes the performance, but it is to be done from the heart also; i. e., with willingness and joyfulness. The will of the earthly master is here conceived exactly as the will of God, because the relation of dependence comes from God, and thus also its individual manifestations. Finally, here too again it is self-evident, that this obedience to the earthly master does not extend to that which is forbidden by God; he that serves his master as if he served God, will never fall into the temptation to sacrifice God's will to his master's.’ This able German commentator makes fidelity to earthly masters a means of promoting piety to God. 3d. Here is a most emphatic endorsement of slavery: Be obedient unto your masters.Doing the will of God front the heart, with good will doing service as unto the Lord.’ Here is the expressed will of God, that slaves should be obedient to their masters. Obey, do not rebel, do not run away, do not idle away your time. Obey, do not stop to question whether your master has a right to your service; whether his commands are just and proper; whether heaven has given him the power to order you against your will, or without consulting your wishes. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your heavenly Father, much less could you have been brought into bondage without Him. He has done it because it was right, because it was best for you; therefore obey. Do them service with the same cheerfulness, with the same fidelity you would to the Lord, ‘as unto the Lord.’ ‘Doing the will of God from the heart.’ His will in what respect? What is He speaking about? Why of the obedience of slaves to their masters. How, then, is His will to be done? By obeying their masters—by obeying them ‘from the heart’—a conscientious obedience, a cheerful, ready, willing obedience; this is the way in which they are divinely directed to do the will of God. Then disobedience to masters is disobedience to God; and rebellion against masters, is rebellion against God; to escape from their masters is to flee from a Divinely appointed authority. ‘Hagar, return to Sarah, thy mistress, and submit thyself unto her.’ Paul sent Onesimus back to his master. Now, then, if obedience to masters is doing the will of God, if disobedience to them is rebellion against God, is not this a full, explicit, and unqualified endorsement of slavery by the Supreme moral authority of the universe? None certainly can question this who believe the Bible. When God says: ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right,’ does he not thereby sanction the right of a parent to control the child? Does he not endorse the relation as right? Who would deny this? And yet it rests on the same basis as the other; only that higher and holier obligations are imposed on the slave, and stronger and more oft-repeated reasons are given why he should obey. But the authority for both is the same. Do not ‘be obedient,’ and ‘obey,’ mean the same thing, whether given to the slave or to the child?”

“But, Mr. Thompson,” said the Doctor, “the Scriptures say ‘children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ They do not say ‘servants be obedient unto your masters, for this is right.’ The one is endorsed as being right, the other is simply enforced without a reason. Now, sir, what do you say to that?”

“Then, I suppose, you understand it to be thus: “Children, obey your parents, for this is right, and you servants be obedient to your masters, for this is wrong.’ But you cannot make God enjoin a wrong act, without making him a party to the wrong; to make him a party to the wrong certainly destroys the perfections of Deity, which it seems you would do to destroy slavery. The same Apostle, in the preceding chapter, says: ‘Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord,’ but he does not add ‘for this is right.’ Then, I suppose, you think he means it is wrong, or that it is of such questionable propriety, that he will not give it his fullest endorsement. He also says: ‘Husbands love your wives,’ but he does not add even to this, ‘for it is right.’ He says to Christians, ‘Be ye followers of God, as dear children.’ But here, also, he fails to give the reason. It is always presumed, and universally admitted by all but infidels, that when Deity commands an act to be done, the performance of that act is right, without any express language to that effect. Obedience to the commandment just as it is given, is the highest obligation known to man; because it proceeds from the highest authority. If God was held to give a reason, then the Bible would abound as much in reasons as it does in precepts.

“‘Even so, Father, for it seemeth good in thy sight.’

“When it pleases him God gives a reason; as in our passage on slavery, the reason given is, that in obeying the master, the servant honors Christ. Matthew Henry says: ‘When servants, in the discharge of the duty of their places, have an eye to Christ, this puts an honor upon their obedience, and acceptableness into it. Service done to their earthly masters with an eye to Him, becomes acceptable service to him also.’

“Now, sir, it is apparent that slavery is from Heaven, and that every obligation of religion is but an additional fetter to bind the slave to his bondage, and that he cannot sunder bonds which bind him to his earthly master, without breaking those which unite him morally to his Redeemer. Doctor, will you now turn to—”

“Stop, sir; you run too fast to look up all the truth. You take such as you like, and leave the rest unnoticed. Let us see what the Apostle says to masters, before you leave this book. ’And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your master also is in Heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.’ Now, sir, here is a divine injunction requiring obedience of you to your servants.”

“Where do you find obedience in this passage?” said Mr. T.

“In the words, ‘do the same things’; i. e., do the same things to them, which are required of them in the above Scripture, to do for you. Do you not see it?” replied the Doctor.

“Not at all,” said Mr. T., “nor anything like it. Olshausen says on this verse: ‘Paul makes a transition from slaves to masters, and exhorts the latter, not as one might suppose (Mr. O. we may be sure was an Abolitionist,) to make their slaves free, that is left to the free motion of the Divine Spirit; but only on their part to exercise mildness towards them, in the consciousness that they, too, like the former, have a master in heaven, with whom personal considerations are of no avail.’ The motive which was to constrain the slave in obeying his master, was, that be might please the Divine being; the same motive was to influence the master in the exercise of a mild temper and kind treatment towards the slave. By way of enforcing this precept, Paul mentions the fact, which should be remembered by every master and slave, that both have one common Master in Heaven, who will hold each responsible for every violation of the injunctions given to them.

“Now, sir, if you have nothing more to say on this subject, be kind enough to turn to Colossians iii: 22-24, which is the next Scripture on slavery. Please tell us the Greek word used there for servants.”

“Douloi, sir, as a matter of course,” said the Doctor.

“Bondsmen or slaves, then. ‘Slaves, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-services as men-pleasers; but in singleness of your heart, fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.’ Here we have much the same injunctions enforced as in the preceding verses; only these unite the obdience of the slave, with the Divine favor, more intimately and forcibly than in the other. Here the slave is taught, 1st. That in his obedience to his master, he ‘serves the Lord Christ.’ His fidelity to his master is an acceptable service to God. Why? Because God commands the obedience, and its performance to the master, is its performance to God also. Disobedience to the master would, then, be rebellion against God. 2d. That the reward of the slave for his fidelity to his master, will be given by the Lord himself, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward.’ How strong an avowal of the Divine approval of slavery is here expressed. As if He were to say, ‘go work for your master; I am the author, the originator of this institution. I have brought you into servitude, I perpetuate the yoke of bondage, it is all of me; I am responsible for it. You slaves obey your masters according to the flesh, and I, the Lord, will reward you.‘“

“You do not mean to say, that the reward spoken of there is simply for obedience to the master, and not for general Christian fidelity?” said the Doctor.

“I mean it is the reward of grace. And grace produces general Christian fidelity, one of the obligations of which is obedience to the master. This obedience is one of such great importance in the Christian system, that the Apostle found it necessary to place it by itself, that it might be the more obvious, and attract the more attention. I might, were I such a stickler as you Abolitionists are, deny that any other duty is referred to, but as a conscientious man, having all the truth on my side, I can afford to be liberal, and certainly always truthful. This, though, I would be, were it to sacrifice my cause.”

“I hoped,” said the Doctor, “you would have proceeded to quote the first verse of the fourth chapter, and save me that trouble. I did not know but your liberality would induce you to advocate both sides of the question.”

“It would afford me great pleasure to accommodate you in doing so, sir, if the question had two sides. But after several days close application, investigation and discussion, you have failed to show yourself to be in possession of a side of the question, though you have proved yourself a student, and an adroit tactician in polemics. Indeed, you have admitted you have no argument to offer in the New Testament, by saying with Dr. Wayland, that there is no precept against it.”

“I do not mean by that admission, sir, as you very well understand, that there is nothing in the New Testament against slavery,” said the Doctor, rather impatiently, “and lest I be further misunderstood, I take back that admission, which I ought never to have made, and beg leave to differ from Dr. Wayland in this respect. But I will not suffer myself diverted from quoting the verse to which I referred, Col. iv: 1. ’Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.’

“Now, sir, I maintain that here is a precept against slavery. If this text is obeyed, slavery, must be abolished. Then if my construction is right, not only the principles, but the precepts also, of the New Testament are opposed to slavery. ’Give to your servants that which is just and equal.' Do justly by your slaves, and they will have freedom; do that which is equal, and you are obliged to place them upon an equality with yourself. Then this quotation destroys your foundation, and slavery is gone.”

“Your exposition is wonderful, indeed,” said Mr. T. “Whose commentary do you study at home? Has Beecher ever published one? They all lean to the side of Abolitionism. But seriously I am surprised that you should give, as an honest opinion, the views you have just presented. Let us again consult Olshausen, the German Abolitionist, and see if he concurs with your view: ‘Here the dikaion, which is translated just, refers to what the slaves are justified in requiring, clothing, food, &c., but of course isotes, which is translated equal, cannot mean equality with their masters; that would be abolishing slavery, which is against Paul's intention. The expression rather denotes the equal treatment of all, which excludes the preference of one at the expense of another.’ The ‘just’ refers to the master's obligation to furnish the slave with what he, in his condition as such, needs; and the word ‘equal’ forbids that partiality which would discriminate in favor of one and to the injury of another. Now, sir, if there had been any abolitionism in your text, this learned German would have found it. But he says this was contrary to Paul's intention. His views correspond with the early Christians. Bunsen, in his picture of the Church as it existed in the days of Commodus and Severus—the third century, drawn from the writings of Hippolitus, says: ‘Almost all the questions of the day came under discussion, and eminently among them, the important one of slavery. The resolution at which the Church arrived on this point, bears the impress of high moral faith and courage, as well as of Christian wisdom. A slave even of a heathen was not admitted unless he promised to deserve his master's good will by honest behavior, and to abandon every practice which was incompatible with his Christian vow and confession of faith in the proffered salvation. He was taught that it became a Christian to fulfill all righteousness.’

“Now obedience to masters was justly considered by the ancient Christians as a part of ‘all righteousness,’ because it was commanded by the Righteous Judge; therefore they required a special pledge or vow to that effect. But you Abolitionists would require no such promises; indeed, you would pledge him to a contrary course. You would inform him that religion enjoins no obligations of obedience to masters; that when the inspired word says ‘be obedient unto them that are your masters, according to the flesh,’ it means that the master ought to set him free, and in the event he does not, the slave is at liberty to run away, or do anything else that would break the yoke of servitude. Aye! you would put the torch in one hand and the sword in the other, as John Brown, the ’Martyr‘ (?) did, and tell them to burn and butcher their masters and their families. Does not this present a singular contrast between the spirit of Abolition Christians (?) and primitive disciples? But this is attributable to the moral advancement (?) of the age. It is hardly to be expected that those under the instruction of the fishermen of Galilee, and the pupil of Gamaliel, would be so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the gospel as the descendants of the Puritans, now taught by Channing, Beecher, Parker, and Wayland. Those could enjoin the obligations of slavery; but these know better. Those thought the institution was from God; but these have found out it comes from Satan. Those said ‘servants be obedient to your masters, according to the flesh’; these say, masters liberate your slaves, you have no right to the service enjoined by the Apostles. According to the gospel of Christ, slavery was right; according to the gospel of the Puritans, it is wrong. The Holy Spirit said servants obey your masters; the holy (?) Puritans say, ‘its bonds shall be broken, and they shall not obey.’

“A thought has just occurred to me,” said the Doctor, “for which I acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Wayland. I think you will find it a ‘hard nut to crack.’ Do you believe in the slave trade?— is it right? If not, then to enslave Africans is not right; and if it be wrong to enslave them, then it is wrong to perpetuate their servitude or if not, then can an act, having its inception in error, be made right by perpetuating it? Can a wrong act become right by continuing in it? If slavery was wrong at first, does its perpetuity for one hundred and fifty years make it right?”

“I thought, said Mr. T., “your ‘hard nut’ would not come from Paul, or Peter, or Christ, or from any ancient Christian, but from some of our modern self-appointed instructors in morals and Christianity. But as I have allowed you great latitude heretofore, it would seem a hardship to curtail your privileges now; so I will proceed to answer your questions, or, in your own classical language, to ‘crack your hard nut.’ You ask me if I believe in the slave trade? I am subject to the powers that be. My country has decreed against it, and I acquiesce cheerfully in the decision. Were it not for two reasons, superadded to the one above mentioned, I would be in favor of the slave trade. These are my two reasons for opposing it: 1st. We have negroes enough in the South. A greater number, with the present ratio of increase, would soon become burdensome. 2d. The inhumanity generally practiced in obtaining them on the coast of Africa, and bringing them over to this country. The slave trade has produced the most cruel and desolating wars, and these wars have devastated many fertile portions of interior Africa, and depopulated many large cities. I cannot favor anything which is accompanied by such disastrous results. I am not opposed, however, to enslaving Africans, or rather transferring these slaves from African to American masters, for this is all that is generally done. They were slaves before; they only exchange an idolatrous, barbarous master, who has power to kill them when he pleases, for a civilized and generally Christian master, who will feed and clothe them well, treat them humanely, and afford them an opportunity to hear and receive the gospel. The exchange for them is so happy, that the slave here is soon elevated immeasurably above what his African master was. I cannot, therefore, object to an institution whose results are so good. The type of slavery here is much more mild, humane and just than in Africa. But, then, if the slave trade is wrong, as I have admitted, you ask if the slaves brought over by it are not held in unlawful bondage? I answer No, for the following reasons, at which I have already hinted: 1st. The slave trade did not reduce them to bondage. They were in a bondage, not of their own chosing, before. They were made slaves by the decree of heaven, and the providence of God brought about the execution of that decree. I have already stated, that, according to the calculations of the most intelligent travelers, three-fourths of the African people are in slavery to the other one-fourth. Then, if the slave trade has transferred men and women from a cruel and inhuman master to a civilized, Christian and humane one, it has done them no wrong, but a great favor. If man devised it in his cupidity, ‘God meant it for good.’ If the Yankee Congressmen did refuse to let the Southern representatives repeal the slave trade laws, because Yankee vessels were growing rich by it, Divine providence overruled their selfishness, for the moral and temporal welfare of the Africans brought over. 2d. As the condition of the descendants of Ham is one of slavery under the Divine decree, it is right for those holding them in bondage to soften the rigors of this vassalage as much as their condition will admit. Indeed, is it not the part of philanthropy do so, and especially of Christian philanthropy? If I, a slave-holder, have a neighbor who treats his slaves cruelly, it is a debt I owe to humanity to endeavor to correct the evils in that master's treatment; and if I fail, I may endeavor to have the ownership of those slaves transferred, in a lawful manner, to a better master. Now, if the Africans would sell their own slaves to us, and not make war upon one another to secure a greater number, it would be our duty to carry on the slave trade, for the benefit of the enslaved. It would be right to transfer the ownership to a people who would appreciate the responsibilities resting upon masters, and who would understand and sympathise with the condition and wants of the slaves. The wrongs then which have been connected with the slave trade did not belong to it, any further than the temptation it held out to the cupidity of the barbarous tribes of Africa. It purchased the slaves at a price agreed upon by the master, and then transferred them to American owners at a price agreed upon. Whether the master in Africa came into the possession of his slaves lawfully or not, may be as difficult a question to settle, as whether Jacob obtained his birthright justly. One thing we know: both were in accordance with the Divine purpose, and both were brought about by the Divine providence. The Hebrews, on the eve of their departure from Egypt, borrowed jewels from their neighbors; the Jews drove out and reduced to vassalage by force the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. How can these things be justified? Both acts were done in obedience to the Divine will, and were, therefore, right. Long before these acts were committed, God had said ‘Canaan shall be a servant of servants to Shem and Japheth.’ Who should begin to bring them under this bondage, when or how, was not revealed. It was left for Divine providence to develop these. It began with the Jews in Joshua's time, if not in Abraham's day, and continued till their dispersion, as a punishment for the rejection of the Messiah. The door has again been opened by the same Divine hand—and who shall say that hand erred in so doing? As well might Jacob have said providence erred in sending Joseph into Egypt, or Jesse to have complained against the Almighty because David was persecuted by Saul. ‘My ways are not as your ways; neither are my thoughts as your thoughts saith the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’

“It would be fortunate for the Africans if they all had Southern masters. Their condition would be much better in every respect. They would be treated better, physically: better clothed, better fed, better cared for. Their minds would be better developed, and their moral condition unspeakably better.”

“But you have not got to the kernel of my nut yet,” said the Doctor. “If slavery is wrong in the United States, it is wrong in Africa. Though the African masters may have held their slaves for twenty centuries, does that make it right? The first master reduced the first slave from freedom to servitude; he therefore did wrong, for no man has a right to reduce another to slavery. Now, the question is: Does the long continuance of slavery justify the act? does it remove the wrong? does it make a wrong right?”

“Well, sir, I understand you,” said Mr. T. “You have made a man of straw, and desire me to fight him. You have supposed a case which does not exist, and asserted a fact, as you have many times before, which you cannot prove. You have asserted that the first master reduced a freeman to servitude. But I have proved, by Divine authority, that God reduced one-third of the descendants of Noah to slavery by his own decree. It was not man that made the decree, it was the Creator. It was not man that reduced the freeman and made the first slave, it was the Almighty—the glorious Maker and Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Were Canaan's descendants ever free after God said they should be servants?—had they any rights to freedom after he took them away? If slavery had its origin in error, then your complaint must be laid against your Maker, not against us. I refer you to Him. Read the 9th chapter of Genesis again, for I find your memory is very treacherous. Now, then, sir, your nut is cracked, and, like everything else you have borrowed from Dr. Wayland, is found to contain nothing. The sophistry of Dr. Wayland is well adapted to bolster up a cause the strength of which is water, and the foundation thereof sand. He has no truth on this subject which he can produce, he therefore approximates as near the semblance of it as possible; he has no logic, he therefore substitutes sophistry, which answers his purpose just as well with the Northern mind.”

“I am very glad he mentioned it, uncle,” said Nellie, “for I am sure if an Abolitionist had offered that as an argument against slavery to me, I could not have replied to it. It really seems that you have the Bible on your side sufficiently to refute every argument upon which the Abolitionists rely. I wish Dr. Wayland or Senator Sumner was here, or some other one of the more public men of distinction at the North; not that Dr. Pratt is not as well posted as any of them, but they are more accustomed to discussions on this subject, and might think of some argument that will escape him. I am exceedingly anxious to have the whole argument exhausted, the subject thoroughly analyzed. I feel confident my good uncle is able to meet the whole sandhedrim of Abolitionists.”

“Dr. Pratt has prepared and preached many sermons on the subject at home, where he had all the Abolition authorities and speeches before him, he has not forgotten the arguments which fired his auditory with indignation against slave-holders. Here he has Dr. Wayland's discussion with Dr. Fuller, and I see he is familiar with the writings of Sumner and Channing, and I presume he has read everything on that subject which has been given to the public—and, saving his presence, he is better posted than any Northern man with whom I have met. So you have no occasion to fear, my Nellie, but what all the strong Abolition arguments—if there are any such—will be presented. The Doctor shall have a fair chance, and as much time as he wants.

“If you have no further remarks, Doctor, will you be kind enough to turn to 1 Timothy vi: 1-5, and give us the Greek of the word translated servants.”

“Douloi, sir,” remarked the Doctor, curtly.

“‘Let as many slaves as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed: and they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness: he is proud knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness; from such withdraw thyself.’

“The following truths,” said Mr. T., “are deducible from the above quotation: 1st. That slaves are to esteem their masters worthy of all honor. This refers to heathen masters, as you will discover by a casual reading of the passage. A Christian slave was not to be puffed by his conversion, so as to look down with disrespect or even indifference upon his idolatrous master. He was not to disregard his commands because he was without the knowledge of God, and in the way of error, but he was to esteem him worthy of all honor. Abolitionists would teach them to look upon such a master as a merciless tyrant, a reprobate, a man-stealer, a heartless and remorseless oppressor. But, Paul says: ‘Count them worthy of all honor.’ A heathen, idolatrous master, is worthy to be honored by his slave. What a striking contrast between the advice of modern Abolitionists and primitive Christians! 2d. The reason assigned why slaves should thus honor their masters, is, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.’ Now notice this reason. The ‘doctrine’ of God requires that slaves honor their masters. Doctrine means teaching. You remember it comes from the latin doceo to teach. Then the teachings of God are blasphemed by the disesteem of a slave to his master. Doctor, did you ever teach a fugitive slave thus to blaspheme? However, I withdraw the question, it is one of too great delicacy to urge; but many ministers in New England have. ‘The name of God’ is also blasphemed in the same way. ‘Name of God’ is generally understood to mean ‘authority of God.’ It may mean that here. The heathen master has a theoretical knowledge of the religion of his slave, and knows it requires of all its disciples to live a holy, blameless, humble, innocent life; but if his slave becomes proud, disrespectful, disobedient, his master despises his religion, to which he attributes these results, and the master and slave are thereby both made blasphemers—the latter by his disobedience, the former by the example of the latter. 3d. If both the master and the slave are Christians, then Paul says: ‘Let them (the slaves) not despise them because they are brethren; but rather (i. e., much more) do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.’ Here are the two—the master and the slave—both in bondage to Christ, both freed men by the blood of atonement, brethren beloved, both partakers of the heavenly calling and benefit. But is this a reason why the slave should elevate himself to a political and social equality? No, let them much more do them service. It is a strong additional reason for obedience and love. What! a master beloved by a slave? So says Paul, and he calls him faithful also, conceives of him as a lovely character, one deserving the love of others, wearing the ornament of a Christian character unspotted by the world. You or Dr. Wayland would have said, ‘and they that are believing masters let them emancipate their slaves, let them not be guilty of the enormous sin of slavery,’ so you see a new dialect has been introduced into the Church since the days of Paul. 4th. ‘These things teach and exhort.’ Here is an inspired command to the minister of the gospel to instruct the slaves to obedience to every class of masters—to honor their masters—to do willing service to them—to cherish affection for them. When the slaves are taught their duties in these respects, the minister must exhort them to the faithful discharge of these obligations. But, Doctor, you Abolition preachers would not obey this Divine injunction, would you? You have not; but, on the contrary, you have most palpably violated it, by urging them to resistance of the master's authority. When a slave violates these precepts and flees to you for protection and concealment, instead of telling him as the angel did Hagar, ‘Return to thy mistress,’ or, as Paul, ‘Count your master worthy of all honor, and do him service,’ you take him by the hand and tell him, ‘You did right, sir; I congratulate you on your escape from slavery.’ You will hide him or pay his way to Canada, and if perchance the master find him in your borders, you raise a mob, and protect him against the rights of the master, the judgment of the law, the Constitution of the land, and the mandate of heaven. How strangely the conduct of Abolitionists appears (when compared with their professions of superior piety,) with the instructions of heaven. 5th. Here is a vivid, life-like description of you Abolitionists, as given by the Holy Spirit, through Paul. It is a graphic picture, a living likeness. Paul could not have made it more complete and perfect if he had lived in the nineteenth century, and been a regular auditor of your fanatical speakers, and a daily reader of the Tribune. Hear it, look at it, and may God help you to understand and apply it. ‘If any man teach otherwise, (that is just what you and every other Abolitionist is doing,) and consent not to wholesome words, (this is what you have refused to do, you do not consent to, but oppose these wholesome words on slavery) even the words our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness. (You reject the words of Christ, you reject the godly doctrine, by rejecting the above instructions to slaves.) He is proud (marginal reading ‘a fool’) knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railing, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness.’ Will you bear with me a moment, Dr. Pratt, while I point out a few of the well drawn features of this picture.

“1st. ‘Proud, knowing nothing.’ ‘He raves,’ says, Dr. Doddridge. ‘He has a dreadful mental distemper, and is brain sick. Bigoted— in Southern parlance, has the swell-head, or as Job would say, thinks he is the man and wisdom will die with him. To come directly to the point, he is a fanatic. He knows nothing, and yet his pride induces him to think he knows more than any one else. He looks with contempt upon those who oppose his views, and those who differ from him are considered stupid dolts. He is too wise in his own esteem to need further instruction, and is too ignorant to discover his own deficiencies.’

“2d. ‘Doting about questions.’ Makes a hobby of one idea. Dotes with fondness upon it; views others as fools who disagree with him. He is ‘silly and insane’ about his ‘question.’ Talking, he speaks of it; writing, he discusses it; sleeping, he dreams of it. Everything else is insignificant compared to it. If he is a public speaker, it is his theme; if a preacher, it seasons his sermons; if a legislator, he makes laws for it. He endeavors to stir up others to see and think with him. Now, was not that a master stroke of Paul's pencil? But it was guided by unerring wisdom.

“3d. ‘Whereof cometh envy, strife, evil surmisings, perverse disputings,’ &c. Here are the ugly features of this most striking face. But if you wish to see how correctly they are drawn, go to the capitol when Congress is in session. Go to a religious convocation of Northern and Southern Christians. Go to the Metropolitan Theatre—go anywhere that the voice of an Abolition orator is heard, and you will see that this sketch was taken by the unerring pencil of Divine Inspiration, and you cannot fail to recognize the original. You will see the ‘envy and strife,’ you will hear the ‘evil surmisings and perverse disputings.’ You will say, these are those who ‘consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ for if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his, and the ‘wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily to be entreated, full of love and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.’ But, alas! none of these are to be seen in Abolition meetings and discussions. I tell you, Dr. Pratt, abolitionism in its present form is an offence against God, the Bible, religion, the peace of the Christian world, and against common sense, and the more enlightened experience of the age. I would tremble, sir, at being obnoxious to the charges here laid against those who oppose the Divine teachings on the subject of slavery. Do you observe here, that Paul calls this instruction on slavery, the ‘words of the Lord Jesus Christ?’—that in order to enforce the precept he gives the highest moral and religious authority known to the world, the King of kings and the Lord of lords? And yet you, Dr. Pratt, and Dr. Wayland, and others who profess to honor the authority of Christ, array yourselves in opposition to Him, who spake as never man spake. How can you come in such direct and violent conflict with the authority of heaven. How dare you be so presumptuous, so impious? Why, sir, it is a fearful position. Christ commands—you give a counter-command. He enacts—you repeal. He speaks with divine authority—you stop your ears. He says slaves must obey their masters —you say they ought not. God says they shall serve—you say they shall not. Christ says these things teach and exhort—you say I will teach just the opposite. Well has the Apostle said, “From such withdraw thyself.”

“It is time we had obeyed this divine injunction, for it is authoritative, because positive. Already have two christian denominations withdrawn from you, and they did but obey this command of the Apostle. Soon will follow a more complete, and to the North, a more disastrous separation. When the bonds of this political Union shall have been severed, and the upheaved state of society and business consequent thereupon, shall have settled down, you will find that your Samson is shorn of his strength, your government tame, imbecile, effete, or else you will become a military despotism. Already is ‘Ichabod’ written upon its temple of liberty, and the ‘Rope of Sand,’ as the Constitution was once called, has been rent asunder by the ruthless hands of fanatical abolitionists. The compact has already been broken, and we are released.”

“You speak with a great deal of assurance, Mr. Thompson,” said the Doctor, as if he was just aroused from some profound reverie. “I cannot reply to you now. I have much to say—you seem to have had all your own way this evening, and I have ‘given you rope.’ I would reply now, but Mrs. Thompson is feeble, and it might not be best for her to sit up longer, so I will not tax her patience. As I am anxious for all present to hear what I have to say in reply, I will defer my answer until to-morrow evening.”

The party retired to their rooms—Mr. Mortimer having taken leave at the conclusion of Dr. P's remarks. Mrs. Norton was very anxious to hear what her pastor had to say in reply, for her faith in the rectitude of abolitionism was very much shaken; she began to fear it was a sin, and one of such magnitude that she dare not commit with indifference. She had previously felt very little interest in the discussion, thinking there was no very great sin in slavery, or her brother would have seen it; and that there must be some errors which made its abolition right, else so many wise and good men at the North would not have advocated it, or perhaps it was a question not settled at all in the Scriptures, and therefore men entertain different views about it. But she had never been able to see very clearly either the right or wrong about it. But now that Jesus had taught it, that the inspired limner had, given so graphic and appalling a description of the opposers of slavery, she felt if this was true, if her brother had made no mistake in his interpretation of this Scripture—the matter was no longer one of indifference— she must decide—she, too, like her daughter, must come out from among them and separate herself, or she would be a party to their wrongs.

Nellie was delighted. She felt grateful that she had seen her error, and had avowed her change of sentiment. Her uncle's explanations were as clear to her mind as a sunbeam.

She was astonished that her pastor should feel disposed to reply at all. She had never studied his character. She knew not how strongly pride of opinion and pride of position sometimes influence even christians against their conscientious convictions. She knew not how difficult it would be for Dr. Pratt to say, “We of the North are wrong after all, and you of the South are right, but I was ignorant of this fact till convinced by a Georgia slaveholder.” Ah! it was too much—the Doctor could make no such admission.

But our readers must desire to hear what Dr. Pratt had to say in reply. Be patient, for time and tide no more hasten than they “wait” for the accommodation of the inquisitive and impatient.

MR. MORTIMER returned to his home, entered his solitary room, stood before a large mirror surveying himself for a moment, soliloquising as follows: “Yes, I am the same identical man I was before, though really I have a different sensation about me. I wonder what Nellie, so pure, so angelic, could have promised herself in consenting to become Mrs. Mortimer? She could not have promised herself a handsome husband, or one very engaging in conversation, nor one very intelligent. Well, she loved me, and love “thinketh no evil and hideth a multitude of faults.” I am a perfect blunderer, an unmitigated bungler. Did ever anybody feel so embarrassed appear so awkward as I did? But it is all over, and I was successful, yes, successful in winning the noblest heart of the noblest, purest, most fascinating, graceful angel out of Paradise. Who so happy as I? None, positively none. But this is only the happiness of hope, of anticipation; how much more delightful will be the reality. Nothing shall ever prevent the realization of such a beautiful and bright prospect, unless heaven reverses our purpose; but heaven is propitious, and therefore the sequel will be a joyous reality.

“Massa, I 'clare you sleep all day, I 'bleave ef I let you,” said aunt Hannah as she shook the bed whereon her young master was soundly sleeping. Mr. M. opened his eyes, and was surprised to find he had slept till past nine o'clock. Why did you not wake me earlier, aunt Hannah?” “Why, you see, master, you comes home late, and I hates to 'sturb you 'fore you gits your nap out. I 'speck that young Miss over at Miss Thompson's, what keep you up so late, I never see you stay out so late 'fore. I 'spect some'n twixt you and that gal, aint they mas. You gwine to git us a mistis? I hope she be good, but I know you wouldn't git no other sort.” Her Master assured her that Miss Nellie Norton was a perfect Helena in beauty, a Minerva in wisdom, a Dorcas in kindness, and an angel in everything else.

But the reader is anxious to listen again to the discussion of slavery. So we will pass over in silence all the joyous anticipations of the two young loving hearts in which they indulged during the day, as they contemplated meeting again at evening. It was an auspicious discussion for them; they prized it highly, and hoped it might continue till Nellie's visit South terminated.

Mr. M. entered just as the family were all seated in the parlor after tea.

“You stated last evening,” said Mr. Thompson to Dr. Pratt, “that the Apostles are, in every case, careful not to utter a syllable by which they concede the right of the Master.” This opinion you obtain from Dr. Wayland. I propose to prove, both by the example and precepts of Paul, that Dr. W. and yourself are in error. 1. By Example. Onesimus was the slave of Philemon, a wicked, discontented, unprofitable servant. He ran away from his master, and sought refuge in the city of Rome. By some means he attended the preaching of Paul there, and was converted. Now what was the Apostle to do? If Philemon had no right to Onesimus, then Paul was under no obligation whatever to send him back. If he sent him back, knowing the master had no right to him, he was guilty of a violation of the rights of a fellow-man; he reduced a free man to slavery; his pro slavery sentiments predominated over his sense of justice. He outraged the inalienable rights of a freeman. His master, perhaps, knew nothing of his whereabouts; it could have been well concealed from him. But Paul was a minister of Jesus Christ, and must “teach all things whatsoever Christ had commanded;” he must do right. The once unprofitable slave, now an humble convert to the teachings of the gospel, was penitent for his past transgressions. Being bought with the blood of Christ, he must now “glorify Him in His body and spirit.” He now felt that his master had a right to his services. Both moved by the same purpose to obey God according to His word—the one to show his repentance by worthy fruits, and the other to seek to soften the pious heart of an outraged master. Paul tells Onesimus he must return to his master; the servant acquiesces cheerfully. Whereupon Paul writes this masterly epistle to Philemon, in which he “makes a strong, prudent, pathetic, affectionate appeal” to him in behalf of the slave, basing his plea upon the repentance of the fugitive.

Now Paul thought that the master did or did not have a right to this slave. If he did not, then he was no longer a slave, but a free man; but if he was free, then by sending him back Paul reduced a freeman to slavery. This you cannot deny. But that an inspired Apostle would thus violate the obligations of man to man, we do not believe. Then it follows that the Apostle did, mentally at least, concede the right of the master; and animated by the manly purpose of observing and enforcing that right, he sends home the runaway. Then, sir, you have an apostolic example, which stands as a perpetual rebuke to all anti-fugitive slave laws, and one by which heaven daily speaks to you abolitionists in accents of truth, solemnly warning you against your errors. Paul's example is as good testimony as a precept; he stands forth as a witness whose faith is proved by his works.”

“But, Mr. Thompson,” said the Doctor, “You do not mean to say that Onesimus was certainly a slave? Dr. Barnes says: ‘All that is necessarily implied in it is, that he was in some way the servant of Philemon, whether hired or bought, cannot be shown.’ Moreover, Dr. Barnes says that the word doulos denotes servant of any kind, and it should never be assumed that those to whom it is applied were slaves.”

“Do you endorse these views of Dr. Barnes, Mr. Pratt?”

“Why not? I am sure he is a very popular note writer and expositor, and this he could not be if he were not a scholar.”

“Have you ever found a single place, in Greek literature where doulos means anything but a slave? I appeal to you as a gentleman, and as a scholar, to answer me categorically, and, if you have, to produce the authority, and I will at least agree that Dr. Barnes may be excused for so absurd an assertion.”

“I have not, sir; but Dr. Barnes may have seen what I have not. Our great and good men should never hazard opinions, for they might lead others astray. I therefore, infer, that Dr. Barnes said what he knew to be true.”

“You may have noticed it, as a remarkable fact, at least I have, that Dr. Barnes makes no effort whatever to prove the truth of many of his reckless assertions. In this case, what I have said of him is verified. You must take his ipse dixit, because he is Dr. Barnes, the distinguished note writer of Philadelphia; it is too great a condescension on his part to stop to make proof; it is presumption in any one to call in question his learning and veracity. It seems that you have awarded to him all he asked; you have believed it because he asserted it, but Paul has declared the contrary, on slavery, to be true, in half a dozen places, but you do not believe him. Dr. Barnes is better authority with you than Paul. Great men, and sometimes a man who has some reputation for goodness, may become reckless in their declarations; especially is this true when endeavoring to build up a favorite dogma, and if they do not err intentionally they may in judgment, so that our only safety is to form our own conclusions from a fair, candid, impartial and thorough investigation for ourselves. All men are fallible in judgment, and all writers have some preconceived opinions which bias their minds, and lead far towards forming the conclusions at which they arrive. Dr. Barnes' assertion is simply the result of this preconceived prejudice against slavery. He, perhaps, believes what be says; he may be honest. I would not judge him harshly; but it is certainly strange that, coming in conflict with the almost universally expressed opinion of the learned and wise, he leaves his bare statement to stand solitary and alone, without a word of testimony to prove it. It is not strange that he did not produce proof; this he could not do, but it is strange that he made the declaration. But with abolitionists, he stands unimpeached and unimpeachable, and this is all he desires. Now let us put in proof the opinions of learned men, none of whom are slaveholders, but some, and perhaps most of whom, are or were abolitionists, and see whether Dr. Barnes' opinion of Onesimus are current among the learned. He says: “All that is necessarily implied in it (doulos) is that he was in some way the servant of Philemon, whether hired or bought cannot be shown.” On the other hand, Coneybeare and Howson, Englishmen, and doubtless abolitionists, but as scholars say, “the fugitive Asiatic slave Onesimus.” In speaking of the right of Philemon to his slave, they say of Paul: “He would not transgress the law, nor violate the rights of Philemon by acting in this matter without his consent.”

Bloomfield says: “Slave Onesimus had absconded, and having come to Rome, had been converted to the christian faith and baptized by Paul. In order to repair the injury done to his master, he was anxious to return to him, and Paul wrote this letter to entreat Philemon to pardon his offense.”

After retiring to his room, Dr. Pratt listened for some time to the hymns and prayers of the servants, who had congregated for that purpose at one of their houses. There was a pathos and fervor about these exercises that were to the Doctor very remarkable, and what seemed strange to their distant listener was, that they did not grow weary in well doing; for at midnight, when all the family were sleeping soundly, these pious negro chants broke upon the still air with unwonted melody and freshness. “And these are the oppressed and down-trodden, the miserable and hopeless slaves of Southern tyranny,” soliloquised the Doctor as he closed his window to the sound. That there is piety and fervor of heart in these negroes, even a sceptic could not deny. To say they are not happy would be a positive slander upon them. How favorably their condition contrasts with their wild, uncivilized brethren across the water! What a blessing that they were taught a Savior's name! But if they are so pious and happy in slavery, how much more so would they be if in the enjoyment of freedom! Surely, liberty would be a great blessing to them! I wonder my excellent christian host has never been moved to the noble deed of emancipation by this thought; for I really believe if he saw as I do, the benefit of freedom to his slaves, no motive of selfishness would prevent their liberation from bondage. He says, and I believe thinks, that they would be less pious and happy if free. This cannot be true, because it is unnatural. And still I can safely admit, here in my own dark chamber, that I have never known nor heard of such piety and uniform religion among them at the North or anywhere else in a state of freedom. This is strange and unaccountable to me. I do not, I cannot comprehend it. Why is it? Is Thompson correct when he says slavery is their normal state? Does God, on that account, make even the hated institution a blessing to them? But these are Southern thoughts, and shall find no lodgment in my heart. Slavery is wrong, even if the negro is better and happier in its chains. So the Doctor shut out from his mind the light which was beginning to dawn upon it, and quieted his conscience which began to be somewhat awakened, by courting the embrace of the “sweet restorer,” till he could rally his sterner will, at a time when the evidences of the happiness of slaves had somewhat faded from his memory.

As the first rays of the gray morning arose to gild the eastern sky, a servant entered with soft and noiseless tread to kindle a fire in the bed chamber of Mr. Thompson. The master had been lying for some time in pious meditation, prayer and thanksgivings for the blessings of a merciful Providence during the past year, and for the hope of salvation through that Redeemer, the anniversary of whose natal day was once more dawning upon the world. He heard many footsteps around the house, and occasionally low and indistinct talking in the yard. He understood its meaning. He arose and dressed himself hurriedly, and gently shaking his wife, took down a key and left the room. As he made his appearance, fifty voices cried out all at once, “Christmas gift! Christmas gift! Christmas gift!” till the welkin was made to ring with the enthusiasm of the clamor. All in the house were aroused. Dr. Pratt shuddered and drew the cover tightly over his head, and for a few moments indulged horrible thoughts of insurrection, fire and blood; but all being quiet, he ventured to rise, and gently pushing open a blind saw the yard literally covered with negroes, little and big, old and young, male and female, and Mr. Thompson standing in their midst. What Mr. T. was saying the Doctor could not distinctly hear, but he soon saw a separation take place; the females retreated toward the house, while Mr. T. with a lighted candle advanced to a small store house in the yard. A box was drawn to the door and opened, and Dr. P. soon divined the object of this strange gathering of the negroes. Mr. Thompson held up a coat, and looking at the mark, called out a name, when the one called advanced, hat in hand, and bowing and scraping his foot, received with a glad smile and a grateful “thanky, master,” the Christmas gift. This was repeated till every one had received a coat, or pair of pants, or hat, or some other Sunday garment, which filled up the measure of his desire. At the house a similar scene was transpiring. Mrs. Thompson was surrounded by the female servants, each of whom received some highly gratifying testimonial of the kind and generous heart of the mistress. All returned to their homes, well satisfied, cheerful and happy, each esteeming his own present the best; it was to them indeed a “Merry Christmas.”

About ten o'clock Dr. Pratt proposed to Nellie to walk over to the negro cabins to see how the colored people spend Christmas. Alice, who was familiar with all the scenes of country negro life, accompanied them. Approaching their cabins, they saw a large number in the yard, dressed in their most gaudy Christmas attire. Their movements were as unique as was the head dress of a few of them. They were drawn up in two parallel lines, about ten feet apart. One stood outside the ranks, who proved to be the leader of the play, and therefore had no connection with the “rank and file.” In military parlance, he was the commandant of the post. His orders were issued in verse adapted to a measure, and melody with which all were equally familiar, but they were not the less implicitly obeyed because sung instead of spoken. The chorus, which was sung by all, was the signal for action. The movement consisted in locking arms, swinging round and moving to the foot of the line, all in time to the music. If the reader desires a better description, he can just witness the play called Twistification by our genteel young ladies and gentlemen, and with the exception of the song, which accompanies all the holiday pleasures of the negro, they will see the exact counterpart of what Dr. Pratt witnessed. Several other performances, bearing some similarity, but affording to the negroes a pleasing variety, were witnessed by the spectators. The Doctor was disgusted at these “crude poems,” as he termed them, and at the child-like simplicity of the grown colored people. He was not aware that in many instances these “crude poems” were improvised, and that the refrain alone was supposed to be known by the audience. To Nellie there was something so novel, that even the simplicity possessed the power to fascinate and attract her for an hour and a half, in spite of all the Doctor's importunities to leave. “Just look there, Doctor,” she said. “See those happy faces, hear those cheerful voices, Mr. Pratt; these are the oppressed, down-trodden and miserable slaves, who groan beneath the burdens of involuntary servitude, and writhe in the galling chains of vassalage. Though they could not help their condition if they would, yet, after all, I believe they are voluntary slaves. What better freedom do they want than this? to what good purpose would they apply it?

From the joyous faces, the glee and mirth, the fun and frolic, the unrestrained hilarity of these negroes, I verily believe the language of every heart is:

Late in the afternoon the Doctor walked down to the steamer, which was to sail the next morning at ten o'clock, and, sauntering round, selected the place where Ned was to conceal himself. After tea he gave Ned the cap, and told him where to hide, and that he must stay in his concealment till they arrived in New York, and that he would come every day and feed him.

Before the sun arose, Ned was on the steamer and safely ensconced in his hiding place. But Hamp, the colored supervisor of the servants at the hotel, soon missed Ned and having made “diligent search” for him, returned without “tidings.” The fact was immediately reported to the landlord. He very soon suspected that his boy had been seduced, and was endeavoring to make his escape. The truth was his suspicions had been somewhat excited previously, on account of the great attention and unusual time which Ned had devoted to Dr. P's room. He looked over his register to see who was at his house, and finding no one from the North but Dr. Pratt, he felt convinced that he was the author of the mischief. So sending immediately for a lawyer, he advised with him as to the best course to ascertain the guilty party and obtain redress. He was advised to have Dr. Pratt arrested, and to take out a search warrant for the steamer, both of which he did at once.

The Doctor was immediately brought before the municipal court having jurisdiction of such cases. He pleaded not guilty. While the landlord was proceeding with the testimony, proving that he was the only man at his house from the free States, that Ned waited on him, and that he always over stayed his time when in his room, and that he had dropped some hints to the other waiters, the mystery of which was now solved by the circumstances, and while the Doctor was growing very serious, as his vivid imagination pictured a guard house with iron bars, himself looking from the inside, and perhaps something unspeakably worse in the not distant future. While all this was taking place, the officers sent to search the steamer, returned, bringing Ned with them. The appearance of the boy awakened some merriment with all save the Doctor and his angry landlord. The peaked head of Ned running up to a point on top was inclosed down to his eyes by the cap which sat so gracefully on the intellectual cranium of the Doctor of Divinity. Ned's optics were much less than two new moons, but were certainly dilated to an unusual extent by the excitement of his novel situation. “Whose cap is that on your head?” cried the landlord, rather unamiably.

“This here man's,” cried Ned, pointing to Dr. Pratt.