And now they are at home;—Sidney and Annie Romilly
are at home! To them the word is full of meaning—
significant of Love, of Hope, and of Happiness.
By the light of Love they will be able to look Truth
steadily in the face; Hope shall make them strong to do
the Right; and the crown of their work shall be Happiness
for themselves and for others.

“Two are better than one; because they have a good

[figure description] Page 390.[end figure description]

reward for their labor,”—that is, sympathy with each
other. This implies full, trusting confidence, between
the wedded pair. They must be friends as well as
lovers.

Sidney Romilly had reflected much on this; for he
had a most uncomfortable impression of the domestic
discord between his uncle and Aunt Brainard. It had
not troubled him much while he was expecting to reside
in Northwood, because there his manner of life was
known to Miss Redington; but after he had resolved to
settle at the South, he could not help the intruding
thought—that Annie might feel a repugnance to the
measure. She had never been in a Slave State; she
knew their peculiar institutions chiefly by the reports of
those who sketched from fancy, or colored with fanaticism;
and Sidney knew, from the example of his Aunt
Brainard, how difficult it was to overcome such prejudices.
He resolved, therefore, to have a clear understanding
on this subject, and wrote the following letter
soon after his return to Northwood—as soon, indeed, as
he thought Annie sufficiently recovered to read and
reply.

Putting the letter in her hand, he said, gravely, yet
with deep feeling in his voice,—“I have made a full
confession. I hope, dear Annie, you will be as frank in
expressing your own views. Let us begin by an unreserved
confidence; if we do not maintain it we may live
together, but we can hardly be happy together!”

The letter, that Annie read with eagerness, ran thus:

You know, dearest Annie, that I am a slaveholder—
perhaps I shall continue one—for I cannot desert the
duty imposed on me by my late uncle. Mr. Brainard
left his servants to my care, to support and protect. I
am responsible before God for the charge; and you, my
love, would not counsel me to abandon it. I have, to
be sure, plans for the future welfare of these negroes
which my uncle never entertained. Still I may not be

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able to do what I would. I never shall execute my
plans unless you, dear Annie, aid me.

Enclosed is the Journal of my father, that I found in his
desk after his decease. It was directed to me, and evidently
written at intervals, when any thought, bearing
on the subject of my welfare, had moved his mind. You
will find in it his opinions on the momentous subject of
slavery. I would draw your notice to two points, particularly,
“What the Bible says of servitude,” and “Religious
instruction for the slave.” Dear Annie, if this teaching
is ever done, to any purpose, with my servants, (will
they not soon be our servants?) it must be done by my
wife.

You will see how highly my father estimated the religious
influence of woman in her family. He illustrated
this to me, only a few days before his death, in a very
interesting way. You know he was a Congregationalist,
and that this denomination do not kneel in prayer. I
had never, when I left home for the South, seen my
father on his knees in family devotions. When I returned,
after twelve years' absence, I found he used this
posture altogether. He told me the cause of the change
was this: “Your mother,” said he, “after your departure,
united herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church. She
had been brought up in that faith—converted, as she
trusted, under that ministration—and she desired to be
baptized by immersion. This our clergyman, Mr. Cranfield,
would not consent to do; and he advised her to
join the church to which her conscience inclined. I
willingly gave my consent,” continued my father, “and
your mother became a member of the Methodist Church,
though usually attending public worship, except on Communion
Sabbaths, with me. But one change was apparent:
she knelt at prayers; and soon the little children,
following her example, knelt around her. I stood
upright for some time—your mother never making a
remark or breathing a word to induce me to change—
but, at last, I can hardly tell how, from sympathy probably,
I sunk down on my knees among them.”

[figure description] Page 392.[end figure description]

To my inquiries, which posture he thought the right,
or most consonant with the Bible?

He replied,—“Both are consonant with Scripture, but
neither is material to salvation. It is the heart that
prays—not the knee nor the lip. And in this heartworship
women are more pure—more sincere than men.
We arrange forms—they mould affections; we give rules—
they set examples; we command in the household—
and they govern; for the influence of love is mightier
than the power of law. Therefore, Sidney,” said my
father, in conclusion, “be sure, when you marry, that
your wife is a real believer in the Word of God. The
woman who takes the Bible for her guide, will be a true
light in the house of her husband—leading him and her
family on gently but surely to happiness and heaven.”

I have given you this long story, dear Annie, prefatory
to the task I must beg you to undertake. I have a
household, including the plantation hands, of one hundred
and forty-nine servants;—more than a third of these
are under fourteen years of age. This great family is to
be fed, clothed, and instructed. The latter duty will, I
fear, fall chiefly on my wife. I am not fitted for the
task; and it has been sadly neglected.

Will you, dear Annie, help me in the plans of improvement
I intend to begin immediately on my return
South? With your aid, and the blessing of God, we
shall succeed.

This letter had the effect Sidney had hoped for.
Annie's reply was brief, but warm with sympathy for
his feelings, and assurances of her co-operations.

And now they are at home with hearts overflowing
with love, hope, and happiness.

“Mas'r Sidney” has been welcomed with such loud
demonstrations of hearty joy as mark the return of the
beloved friend. And their new “Missis” has shaken
hands with every individual negro, old and young. And
she has opened her week-day school for the children,
taking, as her assistants, two of the most intelligent

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among the young colored women. And a Sunday-school
for all the negroes is also established, where Sidney
assists the good chaplain he has brought from the North,
in teaching the men servants; while Annie and her
assistants have care of the women and children. Then,
when the school is over, all together, form a congregation,
and kneel in worship of that holy God who is Lord
over bond and free; and responses of prayer and songs
of praise are participated equally by master and servant;
and the sermon, from the servant of Christ, announces
to both, on equal terms, the Great Salvation.

Sidney Romilly was not mistaken in the way he took
to promote the good work of freedom. It is not, as
some would counsel, the tearing up of the whole system
of slavery, as it were, by the roots, that will make the
bondman free. The life-blood of the Union might flow
in such a struggle, but the black man would still be, in
our land, a servant.

Never will the negro stand among men as a man, till
he has earned for himself that title in his own country—
magnificent Africa—which God has given him as a rich
inheritance.

These ideas were enforced in the Journal left by Squire
Romilly; and Sidney and his wife read it with the reverential
attention such a memorial of thoughtful benevolence
for the improvement of society and affectionate
interest for his son, could not but inspire. A few extracts
are all we can give.

Of Faith.—There are two kinds of faith—one in God—
the other in man. Some people of undoubted piety,
having faith in God, do yet despair of the progress of
mankind in goodness. On the other hand, we have,
even in our Republic, philosophers and reformers—so
called—of both sexes, who put their trust in humanity
alone. Those who deny the authority of God's Word,
and claim to be governed by other moral laws than those
the Bible sets plainly forth, may be zealous in their way
of reform—we may admire their genius and enthusiasm

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—but we cannot recognize them as Christian philanthropists.

Of Reform.—One cheering proof of the world's progress
is the earnestness of those now working in the
cause of humanity. Men and women are seeking for
light in the path of duty. In our country the most dangerous
hindrance of true progress is—activity wrongly
directed. Those who urge onward the car of change,
should bear in mind that moral reforms cannot be made
as physical improvements are—by the power and skill
of the agent that acts: there must be, also, spontaneous
movement in the subject acted upon.

Even God, reverently speaking, could not, by force,
compel His rational creatures to be, in heart and soul,
obedient to His law. Therefore He sent His beloved
Son to die for us, and thus, by His love, to move us to
love, which includes obedience in return.

In short, as the Creator placed in the firmament but
two orbs of light to dispel the darkness of the physical
world, so in the moral world there are but two sources
of real soul enlightenment, viz.: Love and Truth; and
Truth borrows its radiance and holiest beauty from Love,
even as the moon does her light from the more glorious
sun.

All real reforms in society must be grounded on these
two principles of Love and Truth, acted out and brought
to bear in daily life and through the influences of moral
and religious instruction.

Of Slavery and its Reformers.—The great struggle now
going on for civil and religious liberty is, in our Republic,
complicated by the system of negro servitude, established
here by British power, before the true principles of freedom
were understood anywhere.

To overthrow this system by any means, and at any
cost, is the avowed intention of some Reformers.

Slavery is, no doubt, a great evil; so is despotic power;
yet anarchy is worse than despotism; and to kill

[figure description] Page 395.[end figure description]

prisoners of war, or allow the poor to perish of hunger, is
worse than servitude.

Domestic slavery was, probably, first established to
remedy greater evils,—when these are removed, that
should be abolished; yet not in a manner to cause more
ills than it cures.

Can Christians, pious men and women, favor the employment
of fraud, falsehood, or force, rather than wait
God's time for the liberation of the slave?

What the Bible says of Slavery.—Taking for granted
that a true Christian believes the Bible to be the Word
of God, that in it He has prohibited, expressly, those
acts which are absolutely in their own nature sin, let us
see if slaveholding is included.

It is not forbidden in the Moral Law; therefore it cannot
be sin in the sense that image-worship, profane swearing,
Sabbath-breaking, murder, theft, adultery, and false witness,
(or slanders of brethren) are sins.

To hold slaves is not, in any part of the Bible, denounced
as sin, though servitude is threatened as a punishment
for sin.

Men established domestic slavery, as they did all
human institutions; and in all things ordained by men,
there is more or less of evil; but as this particular institution
was allowed and regulated by the authority of God
among His chosen people, it could not, at that time,
have been a sin to be condemned.

The Hebrews, when settled in Canaan, had bondservants
or slaves, and we will give the exact ordering
of the matter by Divine authority. See Leviticus, chap.
xxv., from verse 39 to the end.

“And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be
sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant:

“But as an hired servant and sojourner he shall be with thee, and
shall serve thee unto the Jubilee.

“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have,
shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye
buy bondmen and bondmaids.

[figure description] Page 396.[end figure description]

“Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they begot in your land: and they shall be your possession.”

Thus this chapter goes on, regulating slavery, and not
a word in condemnation of the system as it then existed,
is recorded. The “possession” spoken of must have
meant the right of property, in servants as truly as in
land, or any other thing.

Again in Deuteronomy, chap. 15, verse 12, the selling of
the Hebrew men and women into servitude is regulated.

But the abolitionists exclaim—“All these wicked laws
were set aside, and the holding men in servitude became
sin immediately on the promulgation of the gospel!”

“Love your neighbor as yourself”—and “Do unto
others as ye would they should do unto you,” are indeed
gospel principles, bearing on every phase of the Christian
life, applying equally to our treatment of master and of
slave, and giving no countenance to the bitter denunciations
breathed against the former, nor to any fraudulent
or violent means of freeing those who are held in bondage.
The gospel is one strain of “peace on earth, and
good will to men.” The Saviour lived in the midst of a
slaveholding world; he never denounced this particular
form of evil; but he did denounce hypocrisy, covetousness,
evil speaking, and all violent means of reform. He taught
but one way—that of overcoming evil with good.

The Apostles preached before slaveholders and their
servants; both classes received the word of divine truth,
and became Christians. Did the Apostles order the believing
master to free his bondman? or tell him, even,
that the gospel required it? Consult St. Peter, 1st Epistle,
2d chap., verse 18, to the end.

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to
the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

“For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God
endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

“For what glory is it, if when ye are buffeted for your faults, ye

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shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye
take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.”

Then turn to St. Paul and read his injunctions to both
master and servant—not breaking the relation between
them, but regulating its duties.

Then turn to Colossians, 3d chapter, 22d verse, to the
end, where the same obedience of servants is taught.

Then read the charge to Timothy, 1st Epistle, 6th
chapter; but this is so full and seems so pertinent to the
solution of the gospel doctrine of peace and love, that I
give it entire.

“Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own
masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and of 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.”

Also, in the Epistle to Titus, 2d chapter, verses 9 and
10, a similar charge of teaching obedience to servants, is
enforced; and nowhere did the Apostles attempt to disturb
the relations they found existing between master
and slave. They preached the gospel of peace, believing
its truth, through divine love, would overcome the errors,
wrongs, and evils of society.

Is American Slaveholding sinful?—Every age must be
judged by the light it has received, and every nation by
the opportunities it enjoys. The American Republic is
favored, above every nation, ancient or modern, with

[figure description] Page 398.[end figure description]

civil and religious liberty; her people should, therefore,
lead the world in diffusing these blessings.

Holding slaves is a great hindrance to the diffusion of
American principles; this the true patriot must deeply
lament.

Though slaveholding is not, in God's Word, denounced
as sinful, like Sabbath-breaking, profane swearing, and the
other flagrant sins forbidden by the holy Law, yet, from
the system of slavery in our land, evils and sins of awful
magnitude do result; and though no Christian has any
Bible warrant for denouncing his slaveholding brother
as criminal, yet all should unite in diffusing the true
spirit of the gospel—its Truth and Love—which will,
eventually, break every bond.

How the Slave is to be made Free.—That the system of
servant and master is not the best for Christian advancement,
is indicated by the great Apostle in his Epistle to
the Corinthians, chap. 7th, verse 21st.

“Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it: but if thou
mayest be made free, use it rather.”

Mark the words—“if thou mayest be made free:”—the
Apostle does not counsel the escape or even the discontent
of the servant. Freedom may come to him—it is
the best condition, because he can “use it;” therefore it is
to be desired.

Christian slaveholder, is it not your duty to place, so
far as you are able, every Christian servant in this best
condition?

And what shall the Christians in the Free States do?
How help their brethren, both master and servant?
Thanks be to God, the way is clearly indicated. The
Bible is the oracle to consult when, apparently, conflicting
duties are before us. Read St. Paul's Epistle to
Philemon, whose servant, Onesimus, had escaped and
fled to the Apostle. It appears that this runaway slave
had been converted under the teaching of the Apostle:
Philemon, too, was a believer; and thus runs the letter
that the returned slave bore to his Christian master:

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“I beseech thee, for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in
my bonds:

“Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to
thee and to me:

“Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is,
mine own bowels:

“Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might
have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:

“But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should
not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.

“For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest
receive him forever;

“Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved,
specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and
in the Lord?

“If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.

“If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine
account:

“I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand. I will repay it.”

Let the pious friends of the slave imitate the example
of the Apostle, teaching those who come to them for aid
their duty, as the Bible sets it forth, first to God, then
of obedience to their own masters; then, turning to
these masters, entreat them, in all kindness and brotherly
love, to deal tenderly with the returned servant;
and, should it be necessary, and these northern friends
of the southern slave are real Christians, will they not,
remembering the promise of St. Paul, rather pay for the
slave, and thus free him, than connive at stealing him, or
even concealing him from his master?

Of the Bible and the American Constitution.—There is a
remarkable agreement between them in some important
points. Neither established slavery—both regulate it. The
Bible authority we have quoted; here is that of the
Constitution; all that it says of slavery, except to appoint
the time when the slave trade should cease in 1808, and
regulate its political power.

Clause III.—“No person held to service or labor in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due.”

[figure description] Page 400.[end figure description]

The Bible, in the gospel, establishes the law of brotherhood,
which will finally, by its influence break the bonds
of servitude in every land.

The American Constitution makes imperative the law
that “guarantees to every State in the Union a republican
form of government;” a brotherhood. Also in the
“Preamble” is set forth the indefeasible rights of
humanity. These principles must, in time, blot slavery
from our escutcheon of liberty.

Slavery among the Hebrews was permitted and regulated
by Divine authority, to prevent greater evils.

Negro slavery in the United States was permitted for
a similar reason. Without this—evil it may well be
called—the union of eight slave-holding states, and five
free states could not have been effected; the very existence
of popular freedom would have been periled by
the strifes and wars of brethren, and this Republic, now
the asylum for the oppressed of Europe, would never
have spread her protecting banner of stars.

The gospel humanizes those who live within its sound,
though they may not participate in its hopes or privileges.

American institutions are imbuing the minds of our
slaves with the true principles of civil and religious
liberty; these they will yet carry to their fatherland,
and there teach and exemplify, till that dark continent
shall become radiant in the white lustre of truth and the
warm beams of love.

Heathenism never looks so foul as when contrasted
with pure Christianity.

Slavery in America seems monstrous because the true
freedom is here. Letting in the light shows the dust—
when the sunbeams are excluded, as in Russia, for
instance, where all are slaves, no one heeds the filth.
But the first and indispensable step in purifying an apartment
or a people is to let in the light.

Of instruction for the slave.—Religion is the one thing
needful for all mankind. Instructed in Christianity the
slave on earth has the key of heavenly freedom; and the
one who is really a Christian should bless God for the

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privileges that American slavery has conferred on himself
and on his race. The slaveholders have an awful
responsibility resting on them. The souls of their servants,
will they not be required at their hands? And
the sins these poor, ignorant creatures have committed,
which the master might have hindered, as well as those
he has stimulated, for these sins will not the just Judge
hold him responsible? Oh, it is a thought to freeze the
blood—this of responsibility!

Every gift, every privilege possessed and misused will
rise up in judgment against the offending soul.

The acquiring or holding property is not sin—but
“the love of money is the root of all evil,” and through the
temptations thus arising from wealth, it may be all but
impossible “for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of God.”

Thus the system of slavery increases the temptations
to sin, and only the most resolute courage in duty and
humble reliance on Divine aid can struggle on successfully
against the snares of evil around the slaveholder.

Remember that on the conduct of one master or one
mistress hangs, perhaps, the immortal destiny of a hundred
souls! To teach the slaves their religious duties,
must be insisted on, as the imperative obligation of every
American slaveholder. It is not indispensable that the
servant should read in order to be well taught, though it
would be much easier to teach such an one. Three
hundred years ago there were no books; all Christendom
had been taught orally; and now, in three-fourths of
Christian (so called) Europe, very few among the masses
ever read, or even see the Bible, and a large proportion
cannot read at all. Therefore those nations need not
taunt us with the ignorance of our slaves, who, at least,
see the Bible, and hear it read, and are often able to
repeat texts and chapters with the greatest facility.

To instruct the slave in his Christian duties is the best
means of fitting him for freedom, indeed the only way to
insure that he will not, by his liberty, injure himself or
others. When Israel was freed from Egyptian bondage,

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it took a long and weary pilgrimage in the desert to
train the people for their religious duties—all the adults
died in the process: Americans must take warning by
this example and train their servants to worship the
true God before their emancipation.

In this soul education pious women are the most efficient
instructors, because they, more often than men,
enforce their lessons by examples of goodness and disinterestedness.
They have, too, that sympathy with the
young, and patience with the ignorant, which the other
sex often lack. And then they love the Saviour more
trustingly, and the angels are with them to help their
humble efforts, when men are proudly relying on their
own strength.

The Bible, history, experience, all show the mighty
influence of the mother's teachings; the religion of the
household and of society is mainly woman's. How finely
that Shakspeare of Christianity—John Bunyan, illustrates
this. His hero Christian, with all the man's power,
knowledge, and force of will, could hardly hold on his
way to the “Celestial City.” What doubts beset him!
What dangers, and delusions! He went alone, and only
one soul joined him on the long pilgrimage. But when
the woman, Christiana went, she took the children with her.
She drew nearly all she met to join her, and angels led
them on through pleasant ways to heaven and eternal life.

Nearly three years are gone since Sidney Romilly
and his wife first read together the Journal I have just
placed before you, kind Reader. They read it with resolves
to do what they could for their servants and the
cause of freedom—and they have done much.

And now they are returned from their first visit to
Northwood, whither they went to witness the twin marriages,
as it were, of both sisters, Sophia and Lucy Romilly.
For the Englishman had proved his admiration of
America, or of one of her fair daughters, to be sincere,
and had come over the wide ocean to claim his Yankee
Bride.

[figure description] Page 403.[end figure description]

It seemed to him that the New World, as if to welcome
his coming, put on her bridal robes. The Old
Granite State that, when he saw it first, had looked like
a fortress of rock-ribbed hills keeping guard over the
dying forests around, was now, in the “leafy month of
June,” Nature's Green-house, carpeted with flowers and
roofed by the sky.

But the change in his bride was more astonishing still.
He had, or he thought he had kept the image of Sophia
Romilly in his heart—he had sent her his own miniature
and received hers in return six months previous to his
arrival; and he fancied he could see exactly how she
would look when he met her. He knew she was beautiful,
exceedingly—tall and sylph-like, with a slightly
bending figure that seemed so charmingly to woo his
support. Such she was in his fancy. She appeared now
in another guise. The slight, drooping form of the girl
had rounded into the graceful majesty of womanhood.
Her mind had been developed and disciplined, and its
pure free light seemed to irradiate her face with intelligence,
and gave a lustre to her eyes that made their deep
tenderness, as they met his passionate gaze, seem less of
earth and more of heaven than mere mortal love.

Mr. Frankford was absolutely awed as he approached;
and he did not dare do what he had intended—clasp her
in his arms and kiss her sweet lips—he bowed before
her, took her offered hand, and pressed it softly between
his own. He felt in his secret soul that he must honor
as well as love her—and strictly guard his own life to
be worthy of her love; and that he should be a better
man for the companionship of a woman so pure and
noble.

A few days afterwards, the “Old Granite State Gazette”
announced the marriages of “Spenser Frankford,
Esq., of London, England, with Miss Sophia Romilly”—
and of “the Rev. George Cranfield with Miss Lucy Romilly—
both brides being daughters of the late James
Romilly, Esq., of Northwood.” It was further announced
that the newly wedded left on the morning

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of the marriage—the first named couple for England,
the other for Detroit, where the Rev. George Cranfield
had lately been settled as pastor over a Congregational
Church.” A hint was added, “that England, now despairing
of conquering the sons of America, was planning
to capture and carry off her fairest daughters;
therefore the Republic must be on its guard.”

The weddings were strictly private, as poor Mrs.
Romilly could not bear any bustle, being quite overcome
with the parting from two daughters at once. It
is doubtful if grief would not have preponderated over
the thankfulness she felt that they were both so happily
married—to good men, as she hoped—if Sidney, Annie,
and their dear little boy, Charley Stuart, a babe of a year
old, had not remained behind to comfort her.

Sidney Romilly passed the summer in New England,
traveling through the country, examining the improvements,
and collecting the best implements for agriculture,
and all the new labor-saving machines, both for
household and out-door work, that could be used at
the South. He also engaged a living labor-saving instrument,
an ingenious Yankee machinist and practical
farmer, who was to reside with Mr. Romilly and see,
experimentally, what could be done to improve and facilitate
the labor on a Southern plantation; and also, for
the introduction of white laborers.

The plans, then, that Sidney and his wife are now discussing,
this second time we find them in their own
beautiful Southern home, relate to these improvements,
and to the number of servants they hope to be able to free
by this mode of emancipation. They have resolved that
every slave whose services are not needed to keep up
the present income of the estate, shall be well fitted out
and sent to Liberia. And thus, gradually, without disturbance
to society, or danger of suffering to their servants,
they hope to make them all, eventually, free, and
prepared to do good by and with their freedom.

These plans had, in part, been suggested by Charles
Stuart, Sidney's friend in Georgia, with whom he kept

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up a constant correspondence. A few extracts will show
Stuart's opinions and doings.

“You inquire if I am intending to emancipate any of my
slaves? Yes, I say, but not till I can fit them for freedom,
and send them where they will be free. Two races,
who do not intermarry, can never live together as equals.
Frame laws as you will, the white race, being naturally
superior to the colored, in all that constitutes moral
power, the Anglo-American will be master over the
Negro, if the latter is near him. So I am intending to
help colonize Liberia. What a glorious prospect is there
opened before the freed slave from America! If he has
been religiously instructed—as most of the slaves are in
this State—he goes forth a priest, bearing the Ark of
God's Covenant mercy to Ethiopia. Millions on millions
of his black brothers will bless his name. And if there
is a country on earth where some future hero, greater
even than our Washington, may arise, it is Africa. The
real negro has never yet done anything for himself or for
humanity; but in the future, as a Christian, he may win
the palm from the world.”

“What am I doing to prepare my slaves for freedom?
Well, on week-days, I am careful that they work. Industry
is the lever to move the world, and Hope the propelling
power to uplift the soul. I have found the way to
educate and elevate my people. I have opened an account
with all my field hands, over twenty-one years of
age. Each has a daily allotted task; for every hour of
over-work, I pay a stipulated sum; this is returned to
me and credited to the individual. I also allow for conduct;
good behavior through an entire week, entitles a
servant of either sex to a premium of twenty-five cents;
extraordinary merit may claim fifty. I pay the money
on Saturday evenings, into the hand of each, that they
may have the pleasure of looking on the present reward
of their labor—I think this a material point—then I keep
it for each, as his or her banker, to be accounted for when

[figure description] Page 406.[end figure description]

they shall have earned their own freedom, or to be paid
over to whomever, among their fellow-slaves, they wish
to free.

“In this way I am not only preparing my servants
for freedom, but insuring it. All know their price;
indeed, nearly all priced themselves. In many instances
I cut down their own valuation, telling them it was more
than they were worth. By this increase of industry and
faithfulness, I shall be able to realize profits to fit them
out for Liberia, as they become free, without much loss;
and the negroes will be immensely benefited by this
course of training in self-exertion. On Sundays everything
is done for their moral improvement that my chaplain
and I can devise. My wife is as zealous as I, and
instructs the female slaves most faithfully. In short, we
are working earnestly, and trust that, before many years,
the majority of the planters will follow our example.”

“Will Slavery ever come to an end in America?—Yes;
because, wherever established it has proved a burden
and a curse on the general welfare. It lowers the tone
of morals; checks learning; increases the ignorance and
helplessness of women and the idleness and dissipation
of men; in short, it injures the white race more than it
benefits the colored—so that there is an actual loss of
moral power in humanity. Let me illustrate by the single
example of language. The negro is imitative and
capable of speaking the English language correctly; as
a slave, he will never be taught to do so—but allowed to
go on in his own idiomatic jargon. This he communicates
to the children of his master, and thus our noble
tongue is vulgarized and rendered disgusting to the
scholar and people of refined taste. I have met southern
ladies, elegant looking women, whose manner of speech
and intonation were so “niggerish,” that it required a
knowledge of this peculiar dialect fully to understand
them.

“These are the mothers of our great men, the inspirers
of Southern chivalry! Men free themselves, in a greater

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measure than women do, from this early vitiation of
speech, because of their more liberal education. But
they return from their college course, where they often
give promise of great talent, to smoke cigars in a veranda,
or lie in the shade reading cheap novels!

“It is the curse of slavery that it crushes the talents
and dwarfs the soul of both master and servant. Never
will the native genius of our noble Southern people be
developed till the system of free schools, which cannot
be carried out to much purpose, where slavery exists, is
established, and the masses are educated.

“There are, in this old State of Georgia, founded by
philanthropy and guided by philosophy, where Learning
was to have her seat: there are here thousands of free
white persons more ignorant and far more degraded and
miserable than any slave. Forty-one thousand white adults
who cannot read! and the number of children, whose parents
are not able to send them to school, is upwards of
thirty-eight thousand!

“While in New Hampshire, there are only forty-one
persons in the whole State who cannot read and write—
and these are foreigners.

“Such is the difference between freedom and slavery
in our land!”

And now, kind reader, we part in friendship, I hope.
Mine is no partizan book, but intended to show selfishness
her own ugly image, wherever it appears—north or
south: and, also, to show how the good may overcome the
evil.

“Constitutions” and “compromises” are the appropriate
work of men: women are conservators of moral
power, which, eventually, as it is directed, preserves or
destroys the work of the warrior, the statesman, and the
patriot.

Let us trust that the pen and not the sword will decide
the controversy now going on in our land; and that any
part women may take in the former mode will be promotive
of peace, and not suggestive of discord.

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The reverend clergy have an important work to do in
this crisis; to promote brotherly love and Christian progress
is their especial vocation. They can teach the way
of peaceful emancipation, and help to provide the
means. One mode might be this. There are in the
United States about forty thousand churches: on the
Annual Thanksgiving Day, let a collection, for the purpose
of educating and colonizing free people of color and
emancipated slaves, be taken up in every church in our
land. If the sum averages but five dollars per congregation,
the aggregate would be two hundred thousand dollars!
And if this mode is found productive of beneficial
effects, as it surely would be, the sum raised could be
annually increased, the slave holding states and the
general government would after a time, lend their co-operation;
till, finally, every obstacle to the real freedom
of America would be melted before the gushing streams
of sympathy and charity, as the ice of the polar seas
yields to the warm rains of summer.

Africa—word of wonder, fear and mystery, telling of
a land where nature is an Eden run wild, and man
darkens under the shadow of chains and death; where
science has never softened the primal curse, nor the sun
of righteousness broken the gloom of sin!

“The night cometh, and also the morning.” Is not
thine, sad Africa, near? Over thy western shore the
day star of liberty has risen with lustre caught from the
stars of the New World. God grant that the light may
spread, and the millions of thy heathen children may
find true liberty through the ministry of those who have
in the house of bondage, learned to know and worship the
true God. Liberia has solved the enigma of ages. The
mission of American slavery is to Christianize Africa.