He was
Southern born, inherited slaves, had given them their liberty one by
one, and had recently returned from the North, where he had been to see
two of them--the last of his household--embark as hired servants with
families who were to travel in Europe.
"Some of us asked him about his visit to the North. Said he, 'I went to
church one day, and was enjoying the devotional services, when all at
once the minister broke out in prayer for the abolition of slavery. He
presented the South before God as "oppressors," and prayed that they
might at once repent, and "break every yoke," and "let the oppressed go
free." I took him to be an immediate emancipationist, perhaps peculiar
in his views. But in the afternoon I went into another church, and in
prayer the minister began to pray "for all classes and conditions of men
among us." I was glad to see, as I thought, charity beginning at home.
But the next sentence took in our whole land; and the next was a
downright swoop upon slavery; so that I regarded his previous petitions
merely as spiral movements toward the South. If the good man's petitions
had been heard, woe to him and to the North, and to the slaves, to say
nothing of ourselves.
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