Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998

Languages Used:

• English

LC Subject Headings:

• Loguen, Jermain Wesley.
• African Americans -- United States -- Biography.
• Fugitive slaves -- United States -- Biography.
• Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography.
• Slaves -- Tennessee -- Biography.
• Slavery -- Tennessee -- History -- 19th century.
• Plantation life -- Tennessee -- History -- 19th century.
• African Methodist Episcopal Church -- Clergy -- Biography.
• Clergy -- New York -- Syracuse -- Biography.
• Antislavery movements -- New York -- Syracuse -- Biography.
• Syracuse (N.Y.) -- History -- 19th century.
• Underground railroad.
• Slaves' writings, American.

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THE
REV. J. W. LOGUEN, AS
A SLAVE
AND AS
A FREEMAN.
A NARRATIVE OF REAL LIFE.

SYRACUSE, N. Y.:
J. G. K. TRUAIR & CO., STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS,
OFFICE OF THE DAILY JOURNAL.
1859.

TO THE FRIENDS
OF THE
UNDER GROUND RAIL ROAD
IN
AMERICA AND EUROPE

        The subject of this book has had the charge of the Under Ground Rail Road at Syracuse for many years-- therefore we dedicate it to the friends of that Road on both sides of the water, hoping they will be charitable to its blemishes and defects, and countenance its circulation to the extent of its merits.

THE EDITOR.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
REV. J. W. LOGUEN,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States
for the Northern District of New York.

PREFACE.

        Every book has its preface. A book without a preface, would be like a city without a directory, or an animal with part only of the organs necessary to its existence.

        We have proposed to write the Biography of Rev. JERMAIN WESLEY LOGUEN, and we have given its features in the following pages accurately. We took the features from him and filled up the picture. We began with his parents, infancy, childhood, and traced him from the Southern prison through the wilderness, and Canada, and back to the United States again, to fight the enemy all through the anti-slavery war to the end of the Jerry Rescue--giving the particulars of that Rescue, with the names of persons engaged in it, on one side and on the other.

        The latter half of the life of Mr. Loguen stands out before the world. The other half is buried in the cimmerian night of slavery. Defective as is our taste

and ability in giving the former, it will be allowed that we have been true to it, because the world has seen it. It is that portion in the folds of slavery only that may be questioned and criticised. It will be more likely to be questioned, because some few facts, circumstances, and discourse, not connected with Mr. LOGUEN'S experience with slavery, have been supplied to connect the real facts of his life, and furnish variety for the reader. Whoever reads such portion, or any portion of this book will remember, that not a fact relating to his, or his mother's, or brother's, or sister's experience with slavery, is stated, that is not, literally or substantially, true. Those facts were history before they were written; and they were written because they were history.

        We have adopted the popular form or style in our narrative, in respect to popular taste; and, as aforesaid, occasionally supplied vacancies in his southern life from our own fancy; but in every case that we have done so, the picture is outside Mr. LOGUEN'S experience with slavery--and the picture, be it fact, opinion, or argument, may be adopted, and all we have given as his slave life will remain true. The reader, therefore, will test every such case by the question-- "Does it involve Mr. LOGUEN'S experience of slavery, or that of his mother, or family, or any one else?"

If it does involve one or the other of them, it is substantially, if not literally, true, as related.

        Again. For obvious reasons, we have not always used real names when writing of real persons; for we would not involve living friends, or their families, for their good deeds. We refer now to Mr. LOGUEN'S life in Tennessee, not to his life in New York, or Canada. In Tennessee, slavery rules the tongue, the press, and the pen. In New York and Canada, these are given to free judgment and discretion. At the north, men are answerable for such judgment and discretion to the law only. At the south, they are amenable to an overgrown monster that devours alike law and humanity. At the south, we give Mr. LOGUEN'S connection with slavery, and therefore conceal names. At the north, we give his connection with liberty, and therefore give names of friends and enemies alike.

        Because the circuit of Mr. LOGUEN'S activities has been large, we have necessarily followed him all around the course; and have been obliged briefly to note the growth of public opinion in favor of freedom, until freedom snapped her cords in Syracuse, and in the country around Syracuse, and in other places. In doing so, we have given particulars, and used the names of friends and foes with absolute truthfulness.

        Though we have spoken freely, we doubt not there

were other persons, equally, if not more deserving of honorable notice, than some we have named. Modest and retiring men are often most effective when bravery and strength are needed, but, nevertheless, they blush at a record of their own qualities. They vote, or strike, and retire out of sight. When justice opens a picture gallery to display the faces of those who have done much for African freedom, we shall see many noble faces in it, which are now obscure, in our villages and towns. If an artist would pass through those villages and towns, and engrave those faces in a book over a sketch of their deeds and lives, he would have a book posterity would love to look at. It would be a book of great thoughts, great hearts, and great men--men who were the receptacles in the body politic, to receive the inflowing life of Heaven, and diffuse it over the system, and bring it to life again--the real Saviours of the country.

        We have put into the mouths of some of the characters, religious counsels, ideas, opinions, and sentiments, which may not, and of course cannot, coincide with the divided and distracted theories of the age. All we ask of the reader in regard to these, is, that he will be as charitable to them, as they are to him. Those counsels, ideas, opinions, and sentiments, are responsible only to truth, and conscience, and reason;

and we kindly ask the reader to submit them to those heavenly vicegerents, and not charge them as a sin upon the Editor, or anybody else.

        But the enquiry may be made--"What is the call for such a book; are we to have a book for every man or woman who is good and useful among their fellows?" Our answer is, it would be well if we had. This is not only a reading age, but it is a new age, and it is well to occupy our youth with its philosophy and facts. Men do not think, or labor, or travel, or live, as they did fifty years ago ; and still the change is onward. For a long time invisible mental powers have been turning society on its hinges to let in a new dispensation of learning, religion, and life. There is a spring in all departments of humanity for a "long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together," to move mankind on to a higher and a better level; and our young readers should know that colored men furnish a quota of the mental and physical muscle that produces the motion. Society is in process of incubation, and we should know whence is the heat and substance that embody and cherish the embryo. We should keep an eye on the formative elements, to see what portion is subsiding and dying, and what portion is combining to form the substance and life of the coming age. The African element contributes largely to the

causes that agitate mankind, and must have its place in the product. The vital powers are attracted to it by force of the charities that make them vital, and are amalgamating with that element to form a new basis for society--a basis on which it will stand in the order of heaven, humanity, and religion--when men may look at it, and not start back affrighted.

        We have come, therefore, to consider and honor a new element in the social state, and for that reason a man like Mr. LOGUEN becomes a subject of speculative and philosophical enquiry. At such a time, colored men are divine instrumentalities for Divine ends. Hence, so many, of them have dodged their masters and their chains,--broken through the clouds, and become conspicuous in the intellectual and moral firmament.

        In a mere preface, it becomes us not to anticipate history ; but in answer to the question, "Why should the history of LOGUEN be written?" we may say, that though God has distinguished other colored men, by genius, learning, eloquence, and high deserts, he has distinguished LOGUEN more than all others with that noble and enlightened courage, which, at the earliest moment, turned upon the tyrant and defied his power. Instantly upon the fugitive slave enactment, and before that even, he proclaimed, with a voice that was heard

throughout slavedom--"I am a fugitive slave from "Tennessee. My master is Manasseth Logue--the "letter of the law gives him a title to my person--and "let him come and take it. I'll not run, nor will I "give him a penny for my freedom." He was an example of courage to white and black men alike, to set slave laws at defiance, and trample them under his feet,--at a time, too, when such an example was needed, to mesmerise the drowsy spirits of both classes, and move them to break the crust which pro-slavery usages formed over them, and let the waters of life flow freely.

        It needs little observation to see that the tide of affairs has reached the point, when men of power are needed, with moral courage to face the false and selfish, and in regard to slavery, the devilish policy and usages of the world, and avow in a manner to arrest the attention and legislation thereof, that "Human Rights" are the limits of Divine, and, of course, of all human law,--and that all enactments beyond those limits are void. Precisely at this point in the order of Providence, the men, the God-appointed men to do so, appear. We need not name them. Some of them are among the dead, many of them are among the living. They are the lights of the age, and saviors of the country --the monarchs of progress, in politics, in morals,

and religion. By these, politics, and morals, and religion, are being regenerated, and society is evidently in prosperous effort to attain its natural and heavenly basis.

        But if men are selected and gifted to impress the law of freedom, it is needful also that somebody be gifted with the sublime qualities, that shall lead him in defiance of penalties, to tread upon the enactments and constitutions that transgress such law. Pity, amazing pity, there are so few among white men gifted and commissioned to do so. As if to vindicate the deserts and dignity of all races, God has taken from the ranks of the severest bondage, JERMAIN W. LOGUEN, representing equally the blood of the slave-holder and the blood of the slave, the extremes of inverted humanity, and qualified and commissioned him, and made him alone conspicuous among black men, and most conspicuous among all men, practically and personally, to nullify all slave laws, and boldly to defy the enemies of human rights to enforce them.

        Therefore, his name is entitled to a place upon the record.

J. W. LOGUEN.

CHAPTER I.

        We must devote a brief chapter to the parents of Mr. Loguen.

        The genealogy of an American Slave may be traced with certainty to the mother, rarely to the father, never beyond them on the male line. It is the condition of the mother de facto that makes the slave. She is mother de lege only to the intent that her offspring may be an outlaw. As to the progenitor on the male side, he is rarely known as the father in fact, never in law. The slave has no father. Slave legislation has no use of a paternal line, and refuses to acknowledge one. It acknowledges a mother; not in respect to any natural relation, but for accommodation, as the medium of titles, not of affections and obligations. Legally speaking, the slave has neither father or mother.

        Slavery, of course, has no records of conjugal relations. Should the clairvoyant translate and publish the secrets of its history, the domestic relations of the

South would be broken up, and society sink in the abyss of vulgar passions. It owes its existence to the fact that its sexual history is faintly shadowed in the varied colors of the abused race.

        It is hardly proper to pass by those familiar truths, while placing upon the record the life and character of Jermain W. Loguen. It is to be presumed that his physical, intellectual and moral qualities, partake of the character of his ancestors, and that they were modified by the influences that surrounded his childhood.

        The mother of Mr. Loguen is a pure African. Her skin is jet black, and her hair short and curled to the head. She is now, if living, near as can be determined, about seventy years of age. In her youth and maturity her face was fair, and her features marked and regular--her bodily proportions large, symmetrical, round, and muscular--presenting a model of health and strength, and a specimen of the best of her race.

        Of her parents and kindred of any kind, she is perfectly ignorant. The extent of her recollection is, that she was free in her infancy, in the guardianship of a man in Ohio, by the name of McCoy, with whom she lived until about seven years of age. She remembers that she was out of sight and hearing of Mr. McCoy's house, alone, when she was such little girl, and that a bad man got out of a covered wagon and took her into it with one hand about her body and the other upon her mouth to prevent her screams--that when she got into the wagon, he held her in his lap, and told the teamster to drive on--that there were several other little colored children in the wagon with her--and

that they were taken over the river together in a boat; probably into Kentucky.

        This story she often repeated to her son, and kindled in his boyhood the intensest indignation against the institution which so outraged the mother he loved. All other memories were drowned in the sorrows and terrors, which at that time overwhelmed her spirit, and the brutal associations and treatment she received afterwards.

        Thus all recollection of parents, kindred and friends of every hind, were merged in the clouds which the kidnappers drew about her; and she has not heard the name of any one of them pronounced from that day to this. She is as if she never had any parents, or kindred, or, as if they were all buried and forgotten. That she was once free, she has the most distinct remembrance, and a flickering recollection of happy days in early childhood, still faintly illumines the dark horizon of her memory.

        She does not remember the precise number of wretched little children, boys and girls, who were in the wagon with her, but thinks they were about her age, and all involved in the intensest grief, She remembers that their cries and sobs, like her own, were silenced by the terrors of the lawless villains who had them in charge.

        We may be allowed to remark that these colored orphans illustrate the helplessness of the whole colored race, in a country where slavery is guarded as lawful and sacred. In proportion as slavery has the protection of law, do the persons of all colored men, women

and children, lose the protection of law. As the condition of the former is hopeful and secure, is the latter desperate and exposed to outrage. Not only does the colored man suffer from the contempt and insolence of the favored class, but his or her person is outlawed to the limited and unlimited abuses of the conscienceless men who make them their prey. Developments of such enormities, incidentally and occasionally appear, as specks of light through "the blanket of the dark" upon the black volume which is out of sight.

        These unhappy little ones were at the age, when. childhood carols its joys with the birds, and bounds like lambs in the pastures at the touch of angels. For long and weary days and nights, not a motion or sound of delight, not a joyous look or laugh varied their depression and wretchedness. The oblivion of sleep was the only solace of the little sufferers; and even this was often tortured by the pressure of misery, and the silence of night broken by their sighs and sobs. Whether, like the mother of Mr. Loguen, they were stolen from their parents, or purchased from those who should have protected them, is unknown. Their story is untold or it is forgotten, and their history is a secret only to him who gathered little children in his arms to represent the kingdom of God.

        After they passed the river, the kidnappers sold them, one after another, as they could light of purchasers on the road. The mother of Mr. Loguen was left or sold to three brothers, David, Carnes, and Manasseth Logue, who lived in a small log house on

Manscoe's Creek, (so called) in Davison county, about sixteen miles from Nashville, Tennessee. They were large, rough, and demi-civilized young men, the unmarried owners of a miserably cultivated plantation, and (what was at that time in that part of the country of better repute than a school or meeting house,) a whiskey distillery.

        Whether these brothers were a link of a chain of kidnappers, extending through a part or the whole of the free and slave states, and claimed the poor girl as a Pirate's portion; or whether they purchased her for money or other thing, she does not know. Of one thing she is certain, so soon as the ruffians left her, she had an interview with her purchasers which made a lasting impression upon her person and memory.

        There was nothing in the aspect or conduct of the Logues that showed aught but sympathy for her manifest wretchedness. Such was the tenderness and concern with which, at first, they seemed to be touched, and the obvious natural humanity which in their countenances, concealed and gilded the quiet ferocity of their natures, that she ventured to tell them how she was stolen, in the hope that they would return her back to her friends in Ohio. She had but begun the story when every expression of sympathy vanished, and their faces were covered with frowns. Their kind words changed into threats and curses. Nor was this all, or the worst. One of them took a slave whip that hung on the wall of the cabin and whipped her. Of course she could but beg and suffer, and at the conclusion

promise she would never again repeat the offensive fact of her freedom.

        Thus was this innocent child, according to the customary mode in such cases, metamorphosed from a human being into a chattel. To cover the transaction and make the change more complete, the name by which she had always been called, "Jane," was taken from her, and that of "Cherry," the name by which she has ever since been called and known, was given her.

        Of course it is not the intent to give more of the history of this woman than shall serve to illustrate the maternal influences which nourished the spirit of her son. Though the enchanter's wand touched and changed her into a slave de facto, the terrible lesson did but adjust her habits to a prudential exterior. While it checked the growth of the sympathies and virtues of artless childhood, it awakened and strengthened animal energies, which under better influences had ever slept. The Logues intended her for a useful slave. The whipping and threats and extorted promise were designed for that end--and whether they were aware she had been stolen or not, her treatment would have been the same. They had no unkindness farther than they intended that neither her tongue or name should lead to evidence, by accident or intent, by which they might be deprived of their property; all memory of which they hoped would be overgrown by the habits of servile life.

        Free colored persons have no right or privilege beyond a permitted residence in slave states, and such

residence gives them nothing that deserves, the name of protection from the wrongs of white men. The kidnapping and enslaving this little girl therefore, could not be looked upon as very bad, by men like the Logues, and the body of slaveholders, whose morals and humanity are so inverted, is to suppose, that by making her a slave, they raised her from the lowest to a higher condition, and furnished her with protection and privileges riot to be enjoyed in a state of freedom. This fact will be illustrated in the course of our history, and we have mentioned it, incidentally, to relieve the Logues from the inference that their principles and habits were barbarous beyond public sentiment and the laws of the land.

        Not slaveholders only, but slaves in the slave breeding States, as a general truth, regard theirs as a favored position, compared with the condition of free colored men and women at the South. Mr. Loguen, whose biography we write, is not the only one who says from experience, "If I must live in a slave State, let me be a slave."

        Thus was Jane, who we shall hereafter call "Cherry, at the age of seven, robbed of all her rights, even of a knowledge or the names of her parents, and every one of her kindred, and placed under the tutelage of the rude habits and passions, and unscrupulous avarice of David, Carnes, and Manasseth Logue. These three brothers, lived with their widowed mother in a small log house, and Cherry was put in a pretty cabin, with other slaves, a little distance from them.

        As her physical strength developed, she became their

main dependence, in the house, the distillery, and in the field. Without losing her feminine proportions, she grew to a masculine hardihood. Among her other accomplishments, she became export in the art of manufacturing whiskey, and was often employed day and night with other slaves in the distillery. On the plantation there was no hard service, whether it was driving the oxen, loading, lifting, plowing, hoeing or any other thing, to which she did not do a man's days' work. There was no man on the plantation, upon whom her masters more depended in all the departments of labor, and at all times, and in all weathers.

        Cherry had now arrived at the condition her masters desired her to occupy. She was a faithful, skilful and able slave. She however felt the condition as a necessity, and submitted to it with the same contentment that the young Leopard feels under the restraints that cages and tames him. Her natural disposition was gentle, affectionate, kind, and confiding; but these qualities reposed upon a spirit, which, when roused and chafed, was as resolute and indomitable as the tigress in the jungles. She know no fear, and submitted only to passion, interest, and necessity. Nothing but the lamb-like sympathies she always manifested under decent treatment, and her inestimable personal services, saved her from the legal and usual consequences of desperate resistance to those who would outrage her person.

        It is believed that ten thousand slaves have been whipped to death, shot, or otherwise murdered, for transgressions no half so offensive as hers. But

ignorant and brutal as were her masters, they respected alike the natural loveliness of her affections, and her indomitable impulses under wrongs, which no chastisement could subdue. But what most contributed to her safety, was the fact, that she was a first class laborer and slave breeder, and finally the mistress of David Logue, the youngest of the three.

        This spirit of resistance, caused her many and some bloody battles and scourgings--the marks of which she will carry on her person while she lives. She would never allow a woman or any number of women to whip her. Nor could she be subdued by any ordinary man. When women sometimes inconsiderately engaged with her, they were obliged to call in a posse of stout men to bind her.

        Jermain W. Loguen, whose heart even now, is as tender as a child to the touch of pity, when a little boy, and afterwards, has seen her knocked down with clubs, stripped and bound, and flogged with sticks, ox whips and rawhide, until the blood streamed down the gashes upon her body. When released from the place of torture, she never retired with a subdued spirit, but passed from a scourging to her labors like a sullen tigress. Her habits and character in this regard will be more unfolded in connection with the life of her son.

        Compelled, as she was, to endure violence from her masters, and comparatively cautious in resisting them, she never endured it from others. White or black, male or female, if they attempted liberties with her person, against her consent, she not only resisted, but

fought with a spirit and force proportioned to her own estimate of her rights and wrongs.

        In describing the person of Cherry in the ripeness of robust youthful development, it may be inferred she was not destitute of attractions for the casual lust of the vulgar slaveholders who lived along the banks of Manscoe's Creek. The black distillery was the common resort of that class of lawless men. David, Manasseth, and Carnes Logue, her masters, were of the same class. They were all hard drinkers, and the distillery was a convenient place for coarse enjoyment and low carousals.

        Though Cherry made the fire-water, she never drank it. Her nights and days were often spent at work in the distillery, and of course she was in the sight and hearing of these vulgar men, and often the subject of their brutal remarks. But outside the family of Logues, woe to the hand laid upon her person with lascivious intent. The body of a female Slave is outlawed of course to the white man. All the law she has is her own arm, and how Cherry appreciated that law may be illustrated by the following incident.

        When she was about the age of twenty-four or five, a neighboring planter finding her alone at the distillery, and presuming upon the privileges of his position, made insulting, advances, which she promptly repelled.

        He pursued her with gentle force, and was still repelled. He then resorted to a slaveholder's violence and threats. These stirred all tigers blood in her veins. She broke from his embrace, and stood before him in bold defiance.

        He attempted again to lay hold of her--and careless of caste and slave laws, she grasped the heavy stick used to stir the malt, and dealt him a blow which made him reel and retire. But be retired only to recover and return with the fatal knife, and threats of vengeance and death. Again, she aimed the club with unmeasured force at him, and hit the hand which held the weapon, and dashed it to a distance from him. Again he rushed upon her with the fury of a madman, and she then plied a blow upon his temple, which laid him, as was supposed, dead at her feet.

        This incident, though no portion of the biography of her son, is introduced to show the qualities of the woman who bore him, and which those acquainted with him will infer she imparted to him. This, and like scenes, formed the cradle in which the infant spirit of Jermain W. Loguen was rocked.

        Cherry, unterrified by the deed we have related, did not flee to escape the application of the severe laws she had violated by striking a white man. She left the now passionless and apparently lifeless villain, bleeding not only from the wound inflicted, but from his nose and ears also, to inform her masters of the encounter, and meet the consequences. She told them she had killed the wretch, and the whole family of Logues hastened to the distillery to look, as they supposed, upon the face of their dead neighbor. They found him laying in his gore. But upon raising him and washing his wounds, he showed signs of life, though it seemed likely he would [die.]

        To curtail a story which may seem an interpolation,

after the most unremitting care and skilful attention of the best surgeons and physicians they could procure-- and after the lapse of many weeks, during which time be was stretched on a sick bed, and racked by pains and fevers--after drinking to the dregs as severe a cup as ever touched a slaveholder's lips, he recovered.

        In the meantime Cherry was shielded from harm, partly by the shame of her violator--partly by her masters' sense of justice--more because they had a beastly affection for her as a family chattel--more still because they prized her as property--but most of all because she was the admitted mistress of David Logue, the father of Jermain, then about six years of age.

        He (Jermain) well remembers the case and the excitement produced by it in the family and neighborhood. His memory was refreshed with the rehearsal of it for years by the family and the negroes.

        When Cherry arrived at about the age of twenty- eight, she was the mother of three children. To this period, she had never passed through the ceremonial sham of a negro marriage, but for years, as stated above, had been the admitted mistress of David Logue, the father of her children.

        Here we may be permitted to record a fact well known at the south, and allowed by most white men, and by all slaves, to wit: that a young negress is often her master's mistress, until childbearing and years render it tasteful or convenient to sell the offspring from his sight, and exchange her for another victim. Such

was the relation Cherry sustained to David Logue, and such too her fate.

        At this point we drop the mother to consider briefly the character of the father.

        It is rarely possible for a slave to identify his father with so much certainty as in this case. In a society where promiscuous intercourse is allowable, as at Manscoe's Creek, the chastity of white men of course does not transcend the chastity of black women; and the conspicuity of virtue, is apparent, only, in the fidelity of the slave girl to her condition of mistress. On this point the conduct of Cherry was a bright example and her fidelity to that relation was confessed and allowed, not by the parties only, but by the family and neighborhood.

        Jarm, as Mr. Loguen was called when a slave, remembers when a very little child he was the pet of Dave, as his father wits also nicknamed, that he slept in his bed sometimes, and was caressed by him--he also received from him many little favors and kindnesses which won his young heart. As his body and features grew to fixedness and maturity, all who knew them both, instantly recognized a personal, and even a spiritual resemblance.

        On his recent visit to the fugitive slaves in Canada, Mr. Loguen met a fugitive from the neighborhood of his old master in Tennessee. She informed him that she was struck with his resemblance to his father-- that his size and form--his walk and motions, every thing but his hair and complexion, was a striking expression of him--that from his walk, alone, she should

take him for the same man at a distance, if his face was concealed.

        Thus was Mr. Loguen taught by his mother, by the treatment of his infancy, by the admitted fact in the family and neighborhood, by family resemblance, not of person only, but as we shall see by the impulses of his spirit, that David Logue was his veritable father.

        With his other brothers, David lived at the paternal mansion of their widowed mother, when Cherry came into their possession. They were all three, young men. David, the youngest, probably not over eighteen years of age. Jermain never saw or heard of a schoolhouse or school, or meeting house, at Manscoe's Creek, nor does he believe there were either. Many of the planters were ignorant of letters. Their Sundays were spent in sport and dissipation. Their agriculture resembled the Indian culture on the Onondaga Reservation in the State of New York. Mr. Loguen never passes through that Reservation in the Summer, without being sensibly reminded of the scenes of his childhood. The houses were all log houses, and the people even more destitute than the Indians of the means of intellectual, moral, and religious culture.

        Nevertheless, the father of Mr. Loguen was not devoid of noble and generous impulses. He was full six feet high, sprightly in the use of abundant muscle; an impulsive, drinking, and chivalrous rowdy--unscrupulous in his pleasures--but ever ready to help a friend or smite a foe. Had be been cast amid the privileges of northern culture, instead of the creature of passion and indulgence that he was, his excellent physical and

intellectual qualities might have blossomed into the highest use--the public might have honored him as a benefactor, and Jermain loved and revered him as a father. Even now, bowed down, as it is said he is, by poverty and dissipation, it would be a real pleasure to Mr. Loguen to contribute to his father's necessities--and help the infirmities of his sin smitten and rapidly declining age.

        We need not dwell longer upon the father and mother of Mr. Loguen. We have given enough for the purposes of our story, and their character and condition, will, of course, be further illustrated by facts to appear in the history.

CHAPTER II.

        In the ordinary and acknowledged relations of life, the mere naked facts attending the infancy of any man or woman, are the farthest removed from romance or interest. They must be the result of an individual or social departure from the order of nature, to claim a slight attention. Nevertheless, we must devote a little, attention to the infancy of Loguen.

        The fact that shocks us in the infancy of a southern slave, is, that its story cannot be told. No facilities are provided to mark its steps or preserve its memories. A slave baby is the offspring of brute passion

and the subject of brute neglect and suffering. It claims no greater sympathy and care than any other animal of the sty or the field. The angels, who delight to touch the delicate fibres of the brain, and communicate the joys of heaven, and paint them on an infant's face, are driven away by oppression, that the most perfect medium of Gods, converse *** conjunction, with man may be tortured and distorted by devils. Black and damning will be the record of the crimes and cruelties by which thousands of these little innocents are let into heaven.

        The above remarks are made, not because they apply to the infancy of Mr. Loguen, for they do not--but because they do apply, as a general truth, to the great body of children who are born as Mr. Loguen was. We should do injustice to history, did we present his infancy or childhood other than as an exception to the general rule. He has every reason to believe that his infancy was cared for by the strongest maternal affection consistent with his mother's servitude, guarded as he believes it was by the instincts of a lawless, but naturally susceptible father. Multitudes of kindnesses partialities, and unquestionable loves, are indelibly written upon his memory, which he thinks contributed to the formation of his character. They are lessons which even now temper and molify his passions, as he sees them through the sorrows and trials and outrages and storms that are piled upon his pathway.

        "Jump on my back, Jarm," half whispered Dave, as, rifle in hand, he stepped lightly down the bank of the creek where little Jarm was playing with the pebbles,

suiting his bulky frame to the body of a child three or four years old.

        Well did the child understand the accustomed ceremony, and he clasped his little arms upon his father's shoulders.

        "Be still now--say not a word and you shall see me shoot a deer."

        "Where is a deer?" said the child, while Dave neared a bunch of bushes, and pointed to an animal the former took for a pet calf which had grown up under his eye, and for which he cherished a child's regard.

        "Don't say a word now--you will scare the deer away if you do," repeated Dave.

        Jarm was obedient, while Dave with his load, which which was scarce more than a fly on a giant's shoulder, crept slyly into the jungle, and crouching by a log, rested his rifle on it, and drove a bullet through the body of file beautiful animal. The deer with dying energy, leaped and poured his mortal bleat upon the air, then staggered and fell.

        Poor little Jarm was in an exstacy of grief, and made the plantation echo with his screams, and brought the whole swarm of whites and blacks to his relief. His cry was "He has killed the calf," "he has killed the calf." Even old "Granny," as Jarm called the mother of the Logues, hearing the screams, came to see what mattered the little favorite chattel.

        Ere they assembled, Dave had the game, bleeding from the deep gash his knife had made in the throat,

at the feet of the child, and was soothing him with the tenderness of a father's love.

        The boy soon saw his mistake, and was laughed and petted into a tremulous composure; but the shock of seeming cruelty made an indelible impression on his spirit and memory. To others, it was an amusing and vanishing incident--to Jarm, it was a lesson of life.

        Life, truly and philosophically speaking, is the form and embodiment of thoughts and affections. In its uninterrupted current from the uncreated fountain, it creates and vivifies material receptacles in the form of angels, and also of all that is healthful, beautiful, lovely, innocent and correspondent of heaven, in animal and vegetable nature. But when that current is intercepted, and passes through the medium of infernal loves, it creates and vivifies other receptacles of monstrous forms. Hence all the noxious plants, and loathsome insects, and poisonous reptiles, and ferocious animals, and hateful men, correspondent, all, to the varied passions of Hell. Hence the slaveholder and the slave.

        The life of little Jarm blossomed in the shape of an angel, but receptive of the disordered affections and monster passions around him. The problem must be solved, whether he should resist those surrounding affections and passions, and preserve his virgin life, or be deformed into a monster. The incident just related was the first shock upon his spirit which he remembers. It is introduced to show the condition of his childhood, but may be noted as the commencement of incidents which were to form his manhood. The forms of feeling and consequent combinations of thought, which are

the life of a child, manufacture the spiritual cable which holds him amidst the storms and tempests of the world, or leaves him a wreck upon its waves. To change the figure, they are the causes which ultimate the hero, the despot and the slave.

        The first ten years of Jarm's life was to him a period of much freedom. He was as well fed and housed as any other little savage. A single loose, coarse cotton garment covered his burly body, and he was left in summer to hunt mice and chipmunks, catch little fishes, or play with the ducks and geese in the creek, and tumble down and sleep in the sun or shade if he was weary; and in the winter, covered only by the same garment, to sit in the corner and parch corn, scatter it among the fowls and pigs, (his peers in the sphere of plantation rights) and occasionally ride on Dave's back or trot by his side, to the great house, (about the size of a moderate log cabin on the Onondaga Reserve) and have a frolic with him and "Granny," and perhaps stay over night.

        It was the only schooling he ever enjoyed--for he was left to his own thoughts and invisible instructors. And though doubtless he came to as valuable intellectual results as any boy, it must be confessed the school was better adapted to physical than mental development. His tender muscles swelled and hardened with the severity of his voluntary exercise, and no boy on the plantation or in the neighborhood, black or white, could measure strength with him. Personally, he suffered no treatment from his masters which hinted to him that he was a slave.

        But he was at school, and was not to eat and drink, and sleep and grow only--but to think also. The story of the deer was the first item in life's reality, gently pictured on the Canvas, which, ere long, was to be covered with black, ugly, and unendurable forms. As the days and months increased, the items multiplied. He saw little boys and girls brutally handled for deeds, and even no deeds, which he knew would not attract censure had he been the subject. In his day dreams, it puzzled him to know why he was secure and petted, while they were insecure and abused.

        Forbearance and forgiveness, or any of the virtues of charity, find little root in the soil of slavery; but passion, revenge and violence come up as in a hot bed, and are familiar to every eye. The oft repeated sights, instead of darkening, sharpened the eye of Jarm, and stimulated his enquiry. They made him think the more. When, as near as he can guess, he arrived at the age of seven or eight years, loitering on the bank of the creek at the close of a summer's day, he saw his mother coming with unusual steps. It was obvious to Jarm that she was in distress, for her head, usually erect, was downcast, and her sighs and sobs were borne almost noiselessly on the light wind to the heart of her son.

        "What is the matter?" with animated voice exclaimed Jarm.

        The poor woman, absorbed by grief, had not noticed her darling; and was even thinking not to shock his young heart by appearing before him, until the depression which bent her down, and the crimson signals

upon her person, had disappeared in the waters of Manscoe's Creek. The idea came too late. All trembling with indignant sorrow, surprise and love, at the sight of her boy, she rushed towards him, raised him from the ground, and pressing him to her bosom exclaimed in a voice of hysteric earnestness:

        "Oh my poor boy, what will become of you?"

        Jarm felt there was sadness and significance in her emphasis, altogether unusual, which, with the tremulous pressure of her embrace communicated a nervous sympathy to his heart, and was already changing his spirit by the influx of a new idea.

        "What is the matter, mother, and what makes you bloody?" instantly asked the little boy.

        "You will understand such things too soon. Don't ask me about it," replied the mother, as she sat him on his feet again, and let fall a drop of blood from her brow on the face of the child.

        He wiped the stain away on his coarse shirt, and plied the enquiry with a concern which could not be resisted.

        Fearing he would pursue the subject at the house, with the slaves, with Dave, and even with Carnes, and thereby involve himself and perhaps forfeit his future security by an alarming independence which was increasing with his years, and which was less likely to be indulged as her attractions and intimacy with Dave were failing, she determined to improve the occasion for his benefit. She trembled lest his unrestrained spirit should be an inconvenience to her oppressors, and that Dave would consent to the breaking it, by the

same brutal treatment that other little colored children of the plantation suffered--or what was worse, that they would sell him at a distance to rid themselves of an annoyance--therefore she determined to satisfy his enquiries, and if possible, determine him to a prudent silence.

        "Where is Jane?" a little girl two years younger than Jarm.

        "I have just sent her to the house with the babe," replied Jarm--"but what is the matter, mother? do tell me."

        "Well, I will tell you" said she, "and I tell you that you may not speak of it to anybody, and especially that you do not let Mannasseth, Carnes, or even Dave, know that you know it. If you should speak to them about it, they will not treat you so well as they have done; and I fear they may whip you as they whip me; and what is very dreadful, I fear they will sell you to the slave drivers and I shall never see you again."

        Cherry had not yet known the deep grief of parting with any of her children, and the fear of that heart- rending experience often tortured her spirit. She knew there was no dependence upon Manasseth and Carnes, and that her peril increased with the increasing dissipation and consequent embarrassment of all the white Logues.

        Jarm had never seen his mother stricken, and his blood boiled when she gave the cause of her wounds and misery, and he asked fiercely "who whipped you?"

        Cherry had effectually roused the indignation of her boy, and saw before her precisely the presence she

feared he would one day exhibit to her masters, in view of the outrages inflicted on her or on himself. A change of relations which was being more apparent every day, made it not unlikely he would manifest the same spirit to them, and bring on himself one of those awful flagellations employed to crush the budding manhood of a slave. No premonition warns the undisciplined wretch of his fate. A display of just feeling and manly spirit, precisely what Cherry now saw in the swelling muscles of her son, was sufficient to subject him to cruel torture. To be a slave, he must cease to feel that he is a man.

        The evidence of deep feeling which her words and appearance produced in the child, induced her to make him acquainted with his true condition, so far as he could comprehend it, and if possible set him on guard against invisible dangers.

        In answer to his enquiry, "who whipped you?" she said Carnes struck her on the head, and made the wound from which the blood dropped. She said that Mannasseth and Carnes often whipped her, and even Dave had lately treated her roughly. She explained to him, his and her helpless condition--how she was stolen when a little child like himself, and left with "Granny," and the white Logues--how she was cruelly whipped for innocently stating her case to excite their justice and pity--and again charged him, with great earnestness, not to let it be known at the house that she had told him this, or that he knew anything about it--assuring him, that if the white Logues knew she had told him these things, they would whip him also,

and may be sell him to the slave drivers, as they did little "Charley and Fanny," a few weeks previous. She told him that though Dave and old Granny now loved him, they would certainly hate him, if he pestered them with complaints regarding her wrongs--and that his doing so would bring upon her greater wrongs, and in the end upon himself the most terrible chastisement, and perhaps they would sell him away from her forever.

        Jarm was now fully possessed of one other shocking idea, which though it determined his prudence as it excited his pity and fear, did not repress the swelling and burning current in his veins, which swept before it every lamb-like feeling. The case of the deer, shocked his pity deeply, but did not forbid utterance--but now, at the sight of his mother brutally mutilated, suffering, and bleeding, he was taught to stifle his sympathies and passions, clamoring, swelling, and almost bursting his heart for utterance. The incident was burned into his memory by the fire it kindled, and the incident and the fire will remain there forever.

        Cherry went with him to the creek and washed the stains away as well as she could, then assuming an erect and cheerful position as possible, took her course, towards the cabin, requesting him to wait a while, and then follow on. Her interview with Jarm was a relief to her sad heart--she partook of her coarse meal, bugged her babe to her breast, and then care-worn and weary, cast herself on her bed of straw, and lapsed into oblivious and healing sleep.

        Not so Jarm. This second chapter in the slave's

life, weighed upon his spirits and disturbed him. He was not old enough to comprehend its full import, but his understanding was sufficiently mature to receive and plant it deep in his memory, and shape his manners to its terrible demands. It had full possession of him, and it was sometime ere sleep closed his memory, and laid the surges of sorrow and anger that swelled within him.

        The morning found Cherry composed, and Jarm too was soothed and refreshed by disturbed slumber. She went to her usual labors in the field, and he, after a breakfast of corn bread and bacon, sauntered away alone, to reconsider the lesson which was taught him, and study its philosophy and bearings. His daydreams and buoyancy were laid aside, and that day was spent in studying the alarming reality which stared him in the face.

        Thus early was he forced to revolve matters of grave importance. His treatment by the white Logues was most difficult to reconcile with the perils which his mother thought was present with him. To his inexperience, the enigma was inscrutable--but the conclusion was irresistible, that he and his mother were linked to a common destiny, and he felt his heart grappled to hers with a force greatly increased by sympathy for her sorrows, and a strong conviction of common dangers. The causes which attached him to her, weakened his attachment to her oppressors, which no evidence of kindness or affection on their part could prevent.

        From this time forward, though left to dispose of his time and body as he willed, the clouds increased and

thickened around him. Dave's favors and caresses were less frequent as the months and years came on, and in perfect recklessness of his presence, the most shocking and brutal outrages were inflicted on his mother. His masters were late at their carousals, and became more and more embruited as their affairs became embarrassed.

        It was about this time that the family and neighborhood were agitated by Cherry's brave resistance and almost death of the licentious villain at the distillery, which were circumstantially related in the last chapter. This also served to confirm the story of his unhappy mother regarding the condition and danger of both, in the mind of her precocious and considerate child. The conversation among the slaves as well as among the whites, assured him, that not only his mother, but himself also, was at the mercy of every white man, and in case he or she resisted them, be their intents never so murderous, the whole power of Tennessee was pledged to their destruction. It was much talked of and well understood at Manscoe's Creek, that poor Cherry, had forfeited her life to the law, and that she held it at the mercy of the ignorant, and passionate, and unscrupulous people about her.

        The distance between Jarm and Dave widened as the intimacy between Cherry and Dave ceased. He soon brought to his home a white woman, who resided with him as a wife or a mistress, and by whom he afterwards had children. Nor did Jarm regret the separation from his mother. The events of every day convinced him that their intimacy and connection was

forced and unnatural. His boyhood was social and buoyant, but it revolted from family relations which seemed pregnant with evil, and obviously destitute of mutual trust, affection and support. The current of causes was forcing the affections of the mother and son to a common center, and fusing them into one. He felt that she and their little ones were all the world to him.

        He sympathised deeply with those who were in like condition with himself, but to his mother, brother and sisters he was attached by ties which none can appreciate, but those, who, in like condition, have felt them.

        The spiritual changes which were now gradually forming the great gulph between him and the white Logues, allowed him more leisure for thought and physical development. His time was nearly all his own; and with maturer judgment, and greater strength, he pursued his game on the land and in the water. The harmony of woods and fields, of birds and flowers and bounding animals, gave birth to ideas that chimed with the angelic counsels of his mother but which, in the family of his oppressors were never felt or imagined.

CHAPTER III.

        Marriage (or what is called marriage) between slaves, is sometimes accommodated to the affections of the parties--always to the interest of the slaveholder. As its end or intent is his interest, the feelings of the parties are indulged or compelled as the interest varies. Legally, and strictly, there is no such relation as husband and wife among slaves, because the law adjudges them to be things, and not men and women. They are chattels in law, and their sexual relations in contemplation of law are the same as any other animals. The whole affair is in the hand of the master as a means of the increase and improvement of stock. Other important motives sometimes blend with it and subject it to ulterior views. But the end or purpose is the same. The slave being "property to all intents," is subject, of course to the laws relating to "things," not to "persons."

        The strongest affections grow up between male and female slaves, for they are men and women, the law to the contrary notwithstanding. Masters too become tenderly attached to their female chattels, and have children by them without once thinking they are guilty of the crime against nature. That they are not thus guilty follows from the fact, that nature acknowledges the connection and the offspring as her own, which she ever refuses to do when the parties are not adapted to the highest human uses.

        Cherry was already the mother of three children by David Logue. They were eminently perfect in their physical proportions a case quite in point, (if one is needed) to show the parties eminently human. Besides, Dave pledged a slaveholder's word to Cherry that Jarm should not be a slave, but that he should be set free. So "Granny," as Jarm always called the mother of the Logues, often told him he was not to be slave, like other colored children, but was to be free --thus showing that the Logues also considered that the law, not Dave and Cherry, was the criminal against nature.

        Since Dave took to his home the white woman, his intercourse with Cherry ceased, while she was yet in the vigor of young womanhood. In respect to her profitableness as property therefore, as well as a protection against disturbing domestic influences, it was thought best she would have a man, who, in the eye of his white family, would represent a husband and father.

        Where, among a large portion of any community, children are propagated as other animals, without the acknowledgment of marriage relations, or the care of law, it follows of course, that the moral feelings and prevailing habits of the law-makers are on a level with the indulgence which their laws and habits protect and sanction. And as the laws which sanction slavery are made by white men alone, it follows that the chastity of a majority of the slave legislators does not rise above the level of the chastity of black women, who they purposely expose to their polutions. Hence,

the secrets which the former labor to keep from their wives and daughters, canker their morals in other respects, and are a ceaseless source of jealousy and discontent.

        Dave had now successively purchased the interests of Manasseth and Carnes in the paternal estate, including the slaves, and became the sole owner thereof. Manasseth had moved to the southern part of the State, and Carnes had gone, it is not known where. Dave and his white family and mother occupied the paternal mansion alone, and the delicacy of his condition as father of the colored Logues forced on him an external regard to proprieties.

        In the neighborhood of Dave's plantation lived a planter of unusually high character among colored people, and among all people, by the name of Barry. He was unusually humane and indulgent to his slaves, and they were strongly attached to him by reason of such indulgence. As a consequence, his slaves were more industrious thriving and happy, and the plantation better improved and more productive than any other in that region. The peace, industry, and thrift of this family were the subject of general remark among all classes of people.

        This Barry owned a man by the name of Henry. He was a stout, well-built fellow, about thirty years of age, perfectly sound, having never experienced a day of sickness to his remembrance. Barry, of course, valued him highly as a most faithful servant and an honest man.

        Henry was a kind, warm-hearted fellow, but he had

seen such sights of misery in the disruption of families, the separating sometimes husbands from wives, and sometimes parents from children, that he had resolved never to expose himself to such misery, by becoming a husband or father. To be free of those endearing relations is the only freedom a male slave can enjoy. In his person, the apostle's rule is inverted, he had better not marry, and very many considerate ones so determine, and abide by the determination. Had Jermain W. Loguen remained a slave, he was sworn never to be a husband or a father. To a sensitive and reflecting spirit, the greatest curse of slavery is, that it is doubled, and more than doubled, with every domestic relation. Alone, the slave suffers personal wrongs only; but as a husband and father, his heart strings are exposed to, and his imagination tortured by suffering which can never be described.

        But the laws of nature are not easily controled or evaded. Henry's coarse and untutored nature was pervaded by powerful susceptibilities, and ere he was aware of it, his spirit adhered to its conjugal counterpart in the spirit of Cherry. The spiritual relation was formed before Henry's prudence was sufficiently on guard to forbid the banns.

        This attachment between Henry and Cherry so favored the purposes of Dave, that he approached Mr. Barry on the subject, and asked his consent that Henry and Cherry be acknowledged as man and wife. Mr. Barry consented to the proposal, on condition that Henry should be consulted and his wishes pursued.

        Henry accordingly was sent for. When the subject

was broached to him, as if awakened by an important crisis, his prudence was aroused. He confessed his willingness that Cherry should be his wife, only on condition that neither he or his wife, or any children they might have, should ever be separated by Dave or Barry at a distance of more than ten miles from each other.

        Both Dave and Mr. Barry readily pledged themselves to the condition, and Cherry was sent for and presented to Henry, and he joyfully embraced her as his wife.

        Mr. Barry was perfectly trustworthy as to his engagement, nor was Dave less so if he continued solvent, for he never intended to part with Cherry or her children. He was by nature and habit a kind and generous hearted man, and such was his relation to Cherry and the children, that be would not think of separating from them after he had provided against suspicions which disturbed his domestic peace.

        This event was to Cherry like a morning sun after a dreary night. A genial atmosphere warmed and healed her bruised heart. It was the gentle breath of spring melting icy fetters to admit the influences of heaven upon her soul. Her daily labors, she was habited to as a portion of her life. She felt them not as a burden, now she enjoyed her hours of refreshment and repose with Henry. The attachment and joy were mutual, and for two happy years Cherry was scarce disturbed by one of those jars, which before, and often, left indelible marks upon her person. They lived in the aura of their own affections, without a single care

beyond the faithful execution of their tasks, and inventions within their means for each others happiness.

        At the end of the year their union was blessed with a darling boy. The rustic bosom of the innocent and noble natured Henry swelled with the heavenly influx of parental love. The very condition of slavery seemed to defend them against the invasion of evey evil, and in an exstacy of delight they were prepared to adopt the delirious dream of the sailor boy-- "O God, thou hast blest me. I ask for no more!"

        Another year rolled away and left them in the same blessedness--another month and a startling light disturbed their dreams--another, and "the gay frost work of bliss" was gone forever.

CHAPTER IV.

        All unseen by Cherry and her little ones, affairs at Manscoe's Creek were now verging to a crisis. The most important and stirring events in a slave's life were pressing to the surface. For a long time there been quiet at home and in the field. Jarm had digested the lessons which had been taught him, and the balsam of peace was healing the wounds upon his spirit. But could he have looked behind material to

spiritual causes, he would have seen it was the quiet that preceded the storm--the repose that enveloped the lightning and the thunder, which were to break upon the heads of his oppressors, demolish the circle of his loves, and drift him to a distant part of Tennessee.

        As a prelude to a disaster, the community on Manscoe's Crook was shaken by one of those astounding acts of barbarism which occurs in no country but where chattel slavery exists, and which is there only occasionally permitted to demonstrate the inherent atrocity of the slave system.

        At a small distance from the Logues, on the opposite side of the Creek, lived a savage man by the name of Betts. He was the proprietor of a large plantation and a number of slaves. He was also an habitual drunkard, and proverbial for his passion and malice and cruelty; and for such excesses, was despised, even by the slaveholders of the neighborhood.

        On a beautiful spring's morning, (and none more beautiful ever infolded the rays of divine goodness, than those which pour their blessings upon the monster growths of nature and man in the valley of Manscoe's Creek)--Jarm, having neared the age of ten years, was leisurely sauntering amid the green grass and blossoming fields, and regaling his senses with the music of birds and insects, and the outspreading beauties and harmonies of nature, which over enter a receptive spirit, and with "a still small voice," announce the presence of an unseen God--then, when all was quiet within, and all beauty and [unclear in original]

there arose from the opposite bank a bowl of agony which thrilled his soul, and forced him, as it were, from heaven to earth again. Screeches, and screams, and cries for compassion, followed the sounds of the unfeeling instrument as it fell from the hand of the murderer Betts, upon his unhappy slave. The charms of nature in a moment vanished, and the voice of God was drowned by the cries of misery.

        Jarm's compassionate soul comprehended the thing at once, and instead of fleeing with terror, as small boys of that age would, covered by the brush which formed a deep fringe on the bank of the Creek, he sped swift and noiselessly as possible, and sheltered by the outer verge of it, had a clear view of the infernal act on the opposite bank, which so rudely and suddenly changed a celestial picture into an image of hell.

        Nothing could excuse the detail of a scene like this, which disgusts and crucifies good taste, and all refined and humane feeling, but the necessity of descending to the depths of this terrible system, to display its frequent and horrible monstrosities. It is to be borne in mind, that such scenes formed the life of Jarm in his boyhood, ere he was thrown into the crushing jaws of slavery.

        The distance from bank to bank across the river at this place was about four rods. The sky was unusually clear, and Jarm had a distinct view of the whole transaction after he arrived. The sufferer was a young man about twenty years of age, by the, name of "Sam" --a good-feeling, kind-hearted fellow, who Jarm well knew, and who, a few weeks before, saved him (Jarm)

from drowning in the creek when it was swelled by the rain.

        This poor fellow was stripped quite naked, hooped, and lashed by cords to a barrel on the steep bank of the stream. His head almost, if not quite, touched the ground on one side, and his feet on the other--the fleshy part of his body being exposed above, covered with gore, while the blood dropped upon the barrel or ran down his back and legs to the ground.

        Whether the barrel was filled in whole or in part with liquor, Jarm of course could not know. The flesh of the poor wretch was quivering in the sun, and painting its pure rays red, while Sam was moaning and pleading for pity with a depth of feeling which would move any heart.

        Beside the barrel stood a man without a heart--a stout, square-built, burly, bushy-headed fellow, of about forty years of age, whose face resembled an intoxicated fury. He had on neither hat, coat, or vest, and his shirt, open at the collar, fallen loosely away, showed a broad, sun and whiskey-burnt chest, which seemed a fortress of strength. His sleeves were rolled up like a butcher, and his right hand clenched an instrument of torture, known nowhere under the sun but in the slave States, called a paddle, which he fiercely flourished over the heads, and faces of some half dozen negroes who stood trembling by.

        Such is a poor description of the murderer Betts, and the wretched objects around him, when Jarm took his position in the bushes. The villain, as he brandished the bloody paddle, filled the air with his curses,

and threatened the slaves with the same and even a worse vengeance than be was inflicting on the fainting Sam.

        The instrument called "a paddle," was the only article of southern manufacture that Jarm knew of-- and its existence might have remained a secret to the rest of the world, had not he, and others like him, escaped to declare and describe it. It is a firm board, shaped like a huge Yankee pudding stick filled with small auger holes, and of a heft to do the most execution upon the flesh it bruises. It is the most savage and bloodletting instrument employed to torture the slave. Every blow, the sharp wood on the circumference of the holes cuts into the flesh, and the pain and the blood follow, in proportion to the number of such holes and the force of the blows.

        The monster having finished his speech to the negroes, turned to glut his vengeance on poor Sam, with a rage and energy that seemed provoked by his cries, and the sight of his own barbarity. As he grasped the paddle and swung it from his shoulder to increase the force of his blow, Sam begged with all the strength of nature. The slaves turned their faces to the ground or covered them with their hands--and Betts, with an oath, brought the weapon down with his might--blow after blow followed, and screams, and howls of agony, and cries for mercy, followed with them.

        Jarm, overcome with the misery of his friend and the cruelty of his tormentor, hid his face on the ground and covered it with his hands, and refused to look upon the scene.

        Betts continued the blows until he was weary, and then ceased them to repeat his threats and curses to the negroes.

        Thus he alternated his violence upon the one, and threats and curses upon the other, until the voice of Sam growing hollow and faint, convinced the listener that nature was failing. The last sentence which he articulated was, "O Lord! O Lord!" and he continued to utter it until utterance failed, and no noise broke the stillness around but the sound of the infernal weapon upon the insentient and motionless body. When the monster saw Sam ceased to speak or move, he also ceased his blows.

        At this time, when all was silent, Jarm raised his head from the ground and saw Betts place his foot against the bleeding body, and with a savage curse and malignant force, set the barrel and body rolling together down the steep bank into the river. As they reached the water, he (Betts) turned to the negroes and said, fiercely:

        "There, you d--d dogs, go and bring him back again, and unbind him and let him go."

        Quick as lightning the compassionate fellows sprang to the water, unbound him, and laid him on the bank --but it was too late. Life ceased to animate the poor man--his soul was set free, and his mutilated body, already wrapped in its bloody shroud, was prepared for its funeral.

        The poor fellows looked meaningly at the brute Betts as he stood at the Creek washing the sweat from

his brow and arms, and then, with sad countenances stood motionless around the corpse.

        "What are you doing there, you d--d villains," said Betts.

        "Sam be dead, massa," said one of the circle.

        "I'll bring him to life," said Betts, and coming rapidly up the bank, gave him a brutal kick upon his ribs. Not a muscle stirred--sensation was gone forever-- his last breath was spent with his last prayer, and the life and the prayer together were already infolded in the infinite heart, to which, in the last extremity, the wronged and outraged never plead for protection and repose in vain.

        "Take the d--d dog and bury him," were the last words that Betts muttered, as he turned and walked heavily away.

        Thus closed the last scene of the tragedy, and Jarm, faint with contending emotions, bent his way homewards. Any more teachings on the subject of the slave's helplessness, and hard fate, were now superfluous. Boy as he was, he comprehended all from Alpha to Omega. Any other lessons, he saw could only vary the manifestations of the diabolical principle, which nulified every right, and exposed the slave to every outrage. His first lesson was the dying deer-- the last, the dying slave. He shuddered to think that by a change of masters he might be murdered as Sam was. His heart was tortured with the intensest hatred of slavery, and concern for himself, mother, brother and sisters.

        Now, for the first time, he revolved the possibility of

escape, and if an opportunity occurred, determined to improve it at any hazard.

        On his return, his soul was locked up to its own perceptions. He saw only the world within him and had no eyes or ears for the world without. The flowers flung their fragrances on the breeze as before-- the birds sung as sweet--all nature was redolent with divine goodness when he returned, as when be went out; but he heeded them not. This scene, connected with corresponding reminiscences, filled him with new and harrowing thoughts and passions, which were regenerating him. Young as he was, it needed but that to stir a new life in him. From that moment he felt a flame enkindled which made him a new creature --a flame which all the demon fires of slavery could not countervail--a flame which, at the expiration of another ten years, forced him from his mother and kindred, bravely, to stand at the mouth of the infernal crater and throw his shackles in it.

        Of course, Jarm's verdict in the premises was qualified by what should be the conduct of white men in the case. He knew the Logue family well enough to know that they would revolt at this deed of nameless and murderous atrocity. He thought all white men must feel as he did, and it remained to know that they would act also as he would act in the case.

        Jarm instantly informed Cherry of what he saw. Smitten with terror by the story, and by the danger to which she feared he would be exposed if he breathed it aloud, she hushed him to a whisper. She assured him the deed would be known through Bett's slaves,

and charged him to say nothing about it lest he be involved as a spy. She said the absence of Sam in the neighborhood and on the plantation would confirm the report, and there would be abundant opportunity to know the effect of the murder upon the white people. In thus charging him, she was prompted more by an over anxiety for the safety of her boy, than by any real danger which she saw could result from his making the story public.

        This tremulous caution, which was so common on her part, had a nervous effect upon Jarm. While it determined him to secrecy, it increased his sense of insecurity, and deepned his hatred of the web in which he felt himself involved. Cherry, however, informed him he might set his mind at rest at once as to the effect of the disclosure. It would create a tempest of passion soon to pass away, anti the slaves would remain unprotected and Sam unavenged.

        As foretold by Cherry, so it came to pass. Before the sun went down of the same day, the murder and all its particulars were known to every slave and every white person on the plantation.

        The secret was first communicated by one of Bett's men, to a slave girl belonging to the Logues, who was much attached to Sam, and who expected to be his wife. She declared it aloud, and sobbed in all the demonstration of grief.

        The family of Logues were stirred to madness by the hellish deed, and swore Betts should be lynched and driven from the neighborhood. They communicated the facts to the white people about, and a flame

blazed forth which, threatened for a time to wipe the murderer from the earth. They did not expect, nor did they wish, the judicial tribunals to furnish a precident of punishment for the murder of a slave, which was impossible (by the express terms of the law,) if the murder occurred "by moderate chastisement"--nor could it be proved by colored witnesses. They preferred rather that he should be a victim to the lawless vengeance which their chivalric notions allowed to trample on the laws of the land.

        As Cherry predicted, the tempest of passion perished in its own effervescence, and in a little period Betts was as safe, and the negroes as unsafe, as ever.

CHAPTER V.

        The appearance of Dave since his connection with the white woman and purchase of the paternal estate, was a great improvement upon his previous life. He was a drinker, to be sure, but more regular in his hours--more sober in his demeanor--more attentive to business than before.

        To the poor slave who is blind to everything not on the surface of affairs, the inference was quite natural that he was growing in the right direction. He had

carried on the estate some three or four years, alone, with an attention to its interests which showed his mind active above the level of his past life. The labors of the plantation were conducted with more order, peace, and profit. The Logues always denounced the economy of pinching the stomachs of the laborers, and sufficiently provided them with coarse food and clothing. In fact, the slave began to value his breath--the only property he could enjoy--more than he had done.

        Strangers, too, some of them evidently of the better class, began to call on him, sometimes to leave papers, sometimes to chat on politics and business, and taste his hospitality; while Jarm, then in his eleventh year, tended their horses with grass and grain.

        As these calls increased, Jarm thought he perceived they were not always agreeable to his master. He wore a frown sometimes when he saw them coming, and there was an evident dash of servility in his face and manners after they arrived. His demeanor seemed sometimes strained and unnatural in their presence.

        On one occasion he was closeted a long time with one of these gentlemen, who, though a stranger to Jarm, seemed to be an acquaintance of Dave's. When their interview was concluded, they approached Jarm in company as he was holding the horse. The faces of both wore a jocular expression, which seemed to indicate anything but ill-will. But Jarm was somewhat expert at reading countenances. Face expressions were the only letters he had ever set to learn.

He was quite sure their careless pleasantry was a cover to other and graver feelings.

        "This fellow will answer--I guess, I will take him," said the man, as he came up to Jarm and put his hand on his head.

        The joke did not drive the smile from Dave's face, but it changed the color of it, and he quickly replied:

        "This is a bad business, anyhow, Joseph. I trust you will consult my convenience. It will be an extreme case that separates me and that fellow."

        The Sheriff--for such was Joseph--raising a searching eye from Jarm to Dave, broke into a laugh, and said:

        "A dash of the Logues--don't deny it, now. Ah, you have been a sad boy, Dave!"

        Dave was in no condition to relish a joke in that direction--his voice and expression sank together, and adroitly as possible he changed the subject.

        There are no such highways in that neighborhood as are used in the north. The path through the plantation was mainly used by travellers on horseback, and occasionally an ox cart picked its way along. Dave and his friend walked on foot, conversing as they went along--while Jarm led the horse a few paces behind them.

        "I tell you what, Joseph, I don't know but I made a blunder when I bought this property; we were reckless boys, and I don't know but I was most reckless of the three; we suffered the estate to be embarrassed. I have a strong veneration for it--in it are the bones of my father--my old mother has lived on

it from the day she married him--all the negroes were derived from him, except the mother of the boy behind us and her children. I bought it in to save it, and I mean to save it. I have been very attentive to business for some time--the plantation has never yielded half so much as it does now, nor looked as well. I have given up every luxury except an occasional glass with a friend--by heaven I won't give up that. I have done well for the last three years--the negroes have done well--their hearts are grown to the soil and to each other--we are a happy family without these accursed debts, which are killing me. If my creditors will indulge me another crop, I can twist out of this infernal case. It will be mighty hard for me to give up any of these boys--it will break their hearts, I know, and will almost break mine--but some of them must go. Humanity to the rest demands it--'the greatest good to the greatest number,' you know, is our democratic doctrine."

        "If it was expedient that one man should die to save a nation, I suppose you think it is expedient that some of your slaves be sold to save the rest--that is your argument, is it not?"

        "Exactly."

        "All fudge!"

        "No fudge about it. How am I to get along if I don't part with some of my slaves?"

        "And if you could get along by doing so, it does not follow it would be right. Nor does it follow if you sell some of them that you will thereby save the rest--or that you or they will be the better off. That

was the argument of Caiphas, a Jewish old fogy and incorrigible hypocrite. The Jews adopted his counsel and killed Jesus in obedience to your infernal doctrine, 'the greatest good to the greatest number.' But did they thereby secure good in his sense of the words? No. I tell you good can only come from doing good--and we can never receive good unless we do right. Come, I am going to preach. No good can come from wrong. Good to one is good to all-- and evil to one is evil to all. Caiphas lied when he said that. He was blind to everything but--self. He gave up his church and country to be murdered when he gave up Jesus to be murdered. It needed just that to seal their doom. Jerusalem, which symbolizes the Church--and the Temple, which symbolizes the Lord himself, fell by that sin from among them. The foundations of the former were plowed up, and not one stone, that is, not one truth, remained upon another, after they had crucified Jesus. Falsehood was ultimated and triumphed in the decapitation of the Lord of the Church."

        "Always a preaching--but how do you make out that the Jewish Church fell with the Jewish State? There is scarce a large city in the world without one or more synagogues in it--you are out there."

        "No church can survive its Lord--its form may remain, as the Christian church does now, like the broken shell when the chick has flown. When it excommunicated the Lord, its life went with him, of course. The old church committed suicide to let in a new one. Fi! I Dave--don't believe these preaching,

praying, and chanting assembles in synagogues and meeting houses, are, of course, genuine churches. They may be forms without life--mere husks and shells--mere human organizations, made by men for men--not by God for God. There is but one church and that is 'the Lamb's wife'--in other words, the Lord's wife--the Lord has not got two wives. He maintains no Harem. He acknowledges no Presbyterian wife, nor Methodist wife, nor Baptist wife, nor the thousand and one things that claim him as husband. They who live to do good to others, be they Christian or heathen, "lean on his bosom" and are his wife, and "he is their Lord."

        "Do you mean to say that the Church instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ can lose its life, and be as a husk or shell, as the Jewish Church is?"

        "Indeed I do. When it becomes as the Jewish Church was, its fate must be the same, by the laws of order. The Apostolic Church was no more the Lord's Church, than was the Adamic, Noatic, and Israelitish churches, before them--and they successively performed their uses and perished. When a church ceases to honor its Lord by a life devoted to his uses--when it is a covering for selfish and worldly aims, it has like the Jewish Church excommunicated its Lord--it has conspired with Judas and sold him--it has, in other words, lost its life. It may preserve truths--but they will be without good--the will be truths in petrified forms after life is gone--their light will be the light of winter shimmering in the face of death. Of what

use is light without heat--truth without good--or what is the same Faith without Charity?"

        "Now, Joseph; I am no Christian, and know little of Divinity--but you surprise me--do you mean to say that Christianity is a failure, and that the Lord has no Church in the world?"

        No, no. No church ever was a failure. All were adapted to the age they were instituted. They performed their uses and perished--they are the ages or dispensations that have come and gone."

        "I am not satisfied--I want one reason why I am to believe that the first Christian Church, as you call it, has perished?"

        "Well--I will try to give one. Christ founded his Church on Peter, on a Rock, on Truth--in other words, on Faith. After Christ arose from the grave, he had a talk with Peter--the Rock, the Truth--Faith--for in the language of the ancients the former words mean Faith. In that talk he described the doom of his Church in the following striking prophesy: "When thou wast young thou girdest thyself and walkest whither thou wouldst--but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not--"

        "But that was said to and of Peter."

        "Don't interrupt me--have I not just said, that in the correspondential language of our Lord, Peter means Faith? It's literal, is Rock or Stone, and in such language, they both mean Truth or Faith. Christ did not establish his Church on Peter as a man. He was a very unreliable man. In ancient times things had

their names from their qualities--Rocks and Stones represented Truths--and Peter is another name for Rock or Stone, the Divine meaning of which is Truth or Faith--and the Bible is to be read in its Divine or spiritual meaning. The things of nature represent God's thoughts, and were clearly seen and read by unfallen men. And because Peter or Stone is a Divine representation of Truth or Faith, therefore it is said to be the head of the corner. Christ used the word in the Divine sense, as it was used before letters were made."

        "When he spoke of Peter then, he spoke of a New Church he come to establish--was that it?"

        "Yes. It was a prophecy. 'When thou wast young,' means when the church is young--'thou girdest thyself,' means, it thought for itself or had a mind of its own--'walking whither thou wouldst,' means that such church was free to obey God according to its own mind and will--'when thou shalt be old,' means when the church is decaying--'thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee,' means that in its decline it will give its power and honor to another (for hands mean power)--to the Pope, to the Bishop, the Presbyter, the Council, the Synod, &c.--that these shall dictate its doctrines and creeds--'lead thee whither thou wouldst not,' means that the Church will become a servile, fashionable thing, without understanding or will of its own. Now, when Peter, or Truth, or Faith, has given its understanding and will to another--don't you see it can't obey the command

'follow thou me'--that faith is gone, and the church is defunct, when it follows another?"

        "But Christ said that to signify what death Peter should die."

        "So he did. But natural death is spoken of only because it corresponds to spiritual death, just as stones correspond to truth. The former is the external and natural, the other the internal and Divine sense."

        "Is that the way you read the Bible? I have always understood the Bible as it reads, and have never read it much. Then you will have it, God did not mean that Adam should die on the day he eat the apple?"

        "No--indeed,--he did eat the forbidden fruit, but did he die a natural death on the day he eat it? Not he. God set him to tilling the ground,--sufficient evidence that, to satisfy everybody that God intended a different sort of death. He lost the Divine life and image--that was death enough. Natural death is purely normal; our natural bodies are no part of us. The spiritual body is the man, and it takes on this body of flesh, and puts it off like a worn-out garment --and then lives on, and on, on forever in a higher sphere of existence. To suppose that God declared that Adam should die a natural death on the day he ate the fruit, is to suppose, not that the serpent or devil, but that God was the liar. Not so. God was true. Adam lived naturally, but not spiritually."

        "Do you suppose mother Eve was seduced by a serpent?"

        "There it is again. If we take the natural sense of

the letter to be the Divine meaning, our God will be little better than the gods of the heathen. Adam and Eve, the man and the woman, represent the bride and the bridegroom, the lamb and the lamb's wife--the church, in the Divine sense. The serpent is a hieroglyph, representing the sensual principle in man ruling his affections--as woman does the Church itself under the dominion of the higher principles of his nature. So the serpent was understood by the ancients, and so figured on the pyramids and rocks, the books of the ancients. The serpent crawls upon his belly, and cannot raise its head to see or assail the higher principles of man's nature. It aims only at the heel, the lowest natural principle--it can't reach higher. But, be it remembered, the sensual principle is a Divine element in God's nature as well as in man's, for man is an image of God--and being so, it is an essential element in man. In its place, under the dominion of the understanding and will, the higher principles of the human soul, it is absolutely necessary for human uses. Separate from those principles, it becomes an enemy, a serpent. It is beautifully represented by the rod of Moses. In its proper place, in his hands and power, it is a staff to help him in the Divine walk or life--but released from his control, it is a snake, whose bite is death, and that is what it means. The Woman, that is the men and women of the church called Adam, gave themselves to the dominion of the sensual principle, and of course separated from higher and Divine principles, and sought light and wisdom through the senses. They threw the rod of God upon the ground,

and of course came under the dominion of the serpent or sensual principle, and perished."

        "But how will this carry out? If Peter's name had such significance, what is the meaning of JOHN? His name, too, is used in this connection. Has that an internal meaning, too?"

        "O yes--John, as represented by the ancients, means 'the Life of Charity,' or love true to its impulses, and never swerving from its duties. John never forsook the Lord of the Church, though Peter, and all the Apostles, who represent all the other qualities of the Lord and of the Church, forsook him. Charity is ever faithful, leaning on the Lord's breast. What a beautiful emblem of Charity that! John, or Love, followed the Lord into the High Priest's Palace, when every other disciple fled, and Peter, or Faith, stood at the door without and denied the Lord three times. John stood at the Cross and saw his Lord die, and received his last words, 'Woman, (or church) behold thy son'--then to John (or charity) he said, 'Son, behold thy mother.' Charity is born of the Church (or heaven) as its mother--and now mark 'from that hour that disciple (Charity) took her (the Church) to his own bosom and preserved her,' to use the Lord's expression, 'until I come,' that is until he came in the spirit to form a New Church. Christ came only to form a new church. If you want to find the church, look for John, not Peter."

        "Well, you may be right in all this business, Joseph --but what do you mean by it? Do you mean I am

not to sell some of these slaves to save me from bankruptcy?"

        "I am not your judge, Dave. You will judge your own case, as I shall mine That is the order of Heaven. But mind you, 'with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.' If you seek the good of others, then ye will have good for the deed--but if ye seek your own good, disregarding the good of others, then will ye have evil. I shall take your receipt for this slave, but I will never sell him. I am sick of my office and shall resign it. I don't like it, any way. What I cannot do for myself, I will not do for the state."

        They had now come in sight of the slaves at their work. Joseph endorsed one of them on his execution against Dave and took his receipt for his delivery at a future day, and they separated. The slaves were as ignorant of it, as if they had been hogs or horses.

CHAPTER VI.

        The course of events soon satisfied David Lougue that he could not relieve his estate from the pressure of the claims upon it. His creditors had the fullest confidence in his industry, honor and intents, and would gladly indulge him a reasonable length, but some of them feared that others would press their claims for the sake of precedence. They could not

trust each other. Suits were, therefore, commenced to obtain a priority of lien, and thereby all his creditors were about to be let upon him. He was likely to be ground to powder by the merciless principle that the law favors the vigilant and not the slothful creditor. His real estate was considerably encumbered, and such was the pressure of his creditors that he foresaw he must sell his slaves, as well as his plantation, to escape hopeless bankruptcy. He had intended to keep the mother of Jarmain and her children, but now, he saw he could not. He had promised Cherry and Jarm that he would give Jarm his freedom--nor could he do this and be solvent.

        It became now inconvenient to redeem his promises, and they were of no avail opposed to his convenience. Being chattels, Henry and Cherry and Jarm could not be parties to contracts. A deed of freedom supposes all the rights of the slave vested in the master, and he gives those rights as by a new creation.

        When Dave saw the storm gathering, and clothing the thunderbolt over the heads of his slaves in its black folds, he was deeply grieved; but not so much grieved that he was willing to adopt the only expedient that would avert it. His interest overbalanced his sympathies and good intents. He dreaded hopeless bankruptcy more than that thunderbolt and the unutterable woes its fall would produce. It would be unjust to say his feelings were not pained by a struggle between pride and poverty. They were deeply pained; but such was the force of pride and perversity of education, that they overcame his justice and

instincts, and compelled a determination to convert his slaves, and even his own flesh and blood, into money to pay his debts.

        All his plans and purposes and promises of good to Jarm and his deeply-wronged mother, were nullified by the selfishness that nourished his chivalry. He might have taken them out of this dark land into a free State and given them freedom--or have put all his slaves in charge of the British King in Canada, and plead the claims of justice and humanity against his creditors in justification of the act; but in such case he would also be obliged to take up his abode at the north, as he supposed, in naked poverty.

        In such circumstances, Dave determined to sell all his slaves the first opportunity, and to the best advantage.

        In the meantime, the poor negroes were cheerful at their labors, not dreaming of an event that was soon to separate them forever, and scatter them through the southern country. The terrible secret was carefully kept in the bosom of their master. He was cautious that not even a suspicion of their fate should be awakened until he had sold them, and they were fairly in the power of their purchasers.

        But, notwithstanding this determination, he mediated the possibility of so providing for Cherry and her children, that their fate should be as endurable as possible and never relinquished the hope, that, by some means, at some time, he could secure the freedom of Jarm. He had already accepted a proposition for the sale of his plantation, on condition he did not refuse

it in a limited time, which refusal depended upon his disposal of his slaves to his liking in that time. Slave traders often drove through his plantation, but it required time to find a purchaser for so large a stock.

        It was in the fall months, after the crops were harvested, and the slaves were looking forward to the leisure and pleasure of the holidays, and a comparatively easy winter life, that such an opportunity occurred.

        Quite late in the season, his affairs called him to Nashville, where he found a trader willing to return and spend a day with him on the plantation, and make him an offer for all his slaves. He was to be at Dave's in the character of a visitor and acquaintance, and inform himself of the quality of the chattels without creating a suspicion of his intent.

        On the evening of the same day, Dave and his visitor concluded their contract for the sale of the entire stock of slaves, not excepting Jarm. He learned that the purchaser, on his way to Alabama, would pass the residence of Manasseth Logue, in the southern portion of Tennessee; and it was a condition of the bargain that he should sell the Logue family to Manasseth, in case he, Manasseth, would pay the sum at which they were valued in the Bill of Sale.

        At the time the contract was closed, Henry had just arrived, as usual, to indulge a few moments of comfort with Cherry and her boy, and the whole circle of slaves were seated around their cabins, in the same social and happy contentment they enjoyed since Dave was the separate owner of the estate; little suspecting

this was the last time they would be thus assembled, and that the shades of the evening were shutting from their eyes the scene of their comforts and labors forever. To them, a slave trader was an object of supreme dread; and the caravans of misery which such traders drove by their poor homes, were the most shocking of all scenes. Their course was always towards the deadly sugar and cotton fields. The sad and moaning coffles stirred the depths of their souls and discovered the last soundings of human misery. With the planters interest as well as sympathy usually combined to keep families together; but the poor negroes knew, as well as others, that these trading vagabonds were ruled by interest only; and that they separated families with as little feeling as professional cattle traders separate other animals. By a sale to these soulless men, they knew they were literally thrown into the jaws of avarice.

        In the dead of night, when they were locked in sleep, the negro quarters were surrounded by stout men, armed with revolvers and shackles. The strongest and bravest of the negroes were manacled in their slumbers--and because of the prospect of frantic agony, and desperate bravery, and strength of Cherry, they put the irons on her also, as the best means of managing her. The other women and children were easily secured.

        The victims, taken unawares, were in the power of their captors. Cherry waked from her slumbers, her infant sleeping at her side. Her imprisoned limbs revealed her helplessness, and a consciousness of the

cause sent a chilling horror through every avenue of feeling. Her first utterance was a shriek, responsive of the deep agony of her soul. For a moment, her spirit was swathed with black despair, and then she raved with the fury of an imprisoned tigress. She called for Dave and she called for Henry, and no voice responded to her call but the voices of savage wretches who stood over her and the rest, armed with whips and pistols.

        She was told that Dave had, that night, started on a journey--that she no longer belonged to him--that she was the property of the ferocious-looking man who stood in the centre of this group of sorrow, clenching a whip in one hand and a pistol in the other--that Henry would meet her on the road--that she must "shut up at once, and take her babe and come along"--that she would meet Dave at Manasseth Logue's, in southern Tennessee, where he resided. The speaker said Manasseth would take her and the children off their hands.

        This was quite possible, for he (Dave) had already started on his journey to see Manasseth, to prepare him to redeem this wretched family, who were mostly his own flesh and blood, in pursuance of the arrangement with the purchaser. The fact, like the lie in regard to Henry, was repeated to the miserable woman only to pacify her. The cowskin had failed to answer the purpose. Her body, insensible to assaults, was already seamed with bloody stripes, and the lie and the truth, so far as there was truth, was adopted

in lieu of the lash for the sake of convenience, not compassion.

        It is left to the imagination of the reader to finish this night scene, and fill up the picture of horrors which drew their dense folds, blacker than the night, about the minds of these miserable chattels. They were about twelve in number; and suffice it to say, that ere the signs of morning light appeared, the coffle, consisting of the men and women who it was thought best to secure, with the exception of Cherry, were chained together and to the wagon, as usual in such cases, and ready to start on their dreary journey. Cherry was fettered with irons which were fastened with a lock, and placed, with the children, in a covered wagon, which occupied the van of the procession.

        About the time the sun began to change the color of the eastern horizon, the procession started. The purchaser and his adjutants, having refreshed with bacon and whiskey, and distributed coarse eatables to the captives, armed with whips and pistols, mounted, one of them the wagon which was drawn by four horses, and the others, each a horse, in front and flank and rear of the prisoners, and started on. The crack of the driver's whip over the backs of the horses gave the first notice, and a like crack over the heads of the slaves, gave an irregular start to the dark and wretched coffle in the rear.

        It seemed as if some of them were fainting with sorrow, and scarce able to march in order. But the noise of the terrible lash awakened their activities, and brought them into an even step with the dragoons

by their side. The thought that they were leaving the spot, which, in spite of its sorrows and trials, was dear to them, without being able to see it--and that they were parting forever from acquaintances and relations in the neighborhood, under circumstances the most awful to their conceptions--for a country and condition which they knew not of, and to be scattered they knew not where, among cruel strangers who had even less sympathy for the slave than the man who sold them, threw them into paroxysms of grief. Many of them mourned aloud, and their sighs and sobs, mingling with infant's screams, the crack of whips, and the curses of the drivers, made as discordant and infernal sounds as ever shocked the ear of night.

        The sky just began to grow gray when the procession started. The wagon was closely covered with canvas, which shut out every appearance of light, and the blackness within was made more gloomy and sad by the scraping and rustling of the brush against the sides of the wagon, as it picked its way along the narrow path in the forest. Every spot was familiar to Cherry for miles around, and these sounds of familiar and stationary objects in contact with her rolling prison, seemed like the voices of the spirits of Manscoe's Creek speaking an everlasting farewell. The bottom of the wagon was covered with clean straw, just harvested and threshed by the hands of the prisoners, and she could have been comfortable, if it was possible for her body to rest when the miseries of hell were let loose upon her soul. She knew these slave dealers were the most truthless men, and placed no confidence

in them. She never expected to see Henry or Dave again in the world. All thought was drowned in a phrenzy of despair. Agony had taken full possession of her spirit, and she groaned aloud. On the very brink of sanity she was startled by a gentle whisper in her ear, which, as by enchantment, laid the surges of her soul.

        "Where is Ohio, mother?"

        Jarm, not comprehending the circumstances of his condition as did Cherry, but yet sufficiently comprehending it to know it was insufferably bad, felt most keenly her sorrows--he had quieted the babe to sleep in his arms, and laid it with the other children who were asleep by his side. Thus relieved of his charge, and full of a sense of his incomprehensible dangers, he revolved the possibility of escape from them. He called to mind the fact, often told him by his mother, that, when a little child, younger than himself, she was taken by force from a free land called Ohio, and left in slavery with the white Logues. Intensely moved by her present sufferings, he impulsively breathed in her ear the above startling question. The flood immediately passed off from her spirit and she was herself again. She paused a breath or two and asked--

        "Is it you, Jarm?"

        "Yes, mother."

        "Did you ask me where is Ohio?"

        "You told me you were free in Ohio, and that you were stolen from there when a little girl and made a slave. I want to know where Ohio is."

        "Why do you want to know where Ohio is?"

        "Because, I hoped we were moving that way--and may be we can get away from these wicked people and go to Ohio and be free."

        "Hush!" said Cherry, "we can never get away from these people. Besides, I don't know which is the way to Ohio. I am very sure we are not going that way. The slave traders always drive their coffles toward the land of slaves, never to the land of freemen. These bad men intend to sell us at the far south, and I fear they will sell you from me. They will sell us all apart, so that we shall never see each other again, if they can make more money by our separation."

        The conversation continued for some time in this manner, Jarm suggesting the possibility of escape, and his mother resisting it, until sleep overcame the boy and laid him beside the little ones, and Cherry was left to her chains and reflections.

        When Jarm awoke, the golden light of an autumn sun poured through the mouth and crevices of his prison, and showed him a scene that moved him to tears. His mother, in her fetters, was feeding his little half brother, the son of Henry, from her bosom, and the other women and children were either crying or deeply sad; but his mother, the saddest of them all, resembled the image of disappointment and misery. At such a sight, Jarm could not resist the sympathy which burst the fountain within him, and vented itself in sobs and tears. It was broad day, and the sound of merry voices in the streets, and of birds in the

trees, speaking the mercy and goodness of God to all outside the hell in which he was caged, communicated to his inmost soul the certainty that Nature, and the God of Nature, were outraged in the persons of the prisoners.

        It was now the turn of the mother to comfort her son, and pacify her little ones. The sweet office of affection relieved her own suffering spirit. Jarm's fountain of tears was soon closed, and he and his mother lapsed into a state of rational sadness, which seemed to say, "We will make the best of it."

        The captain of this band of robbers took his coffle to a sort of slave pen or tavern, near Nashville, where he refreshed his company and fed his victims; and thence made his way again over the wretched roads and through the uncultivated scenery, which is the everlasting inheritance of the land of slaves. Days and nights the caravan pursued its monotonous course until it reached the borders of Alabama. It would be useless to detail the incidents of the road, nothing having occurred to vary the usual character of the journey. The older slaves were habituated to their imprisonment and severe exercise under the lash of the driver, and had looked their wrongs and prospects so long in the face, that they were drilled into a state of sad contentment; whilst the younger ones, let loose to play among the beasts which held their and their mothers, ignorant of their doom, were pleased with the journey.

        Jarm, now grown to a stout boy, was the pet of savage men; and, though he never forgot his

wrongs, he put on a cheerful face, and was rewarded by favors and privileges beyond his companions. He had just begun to learn to ride and manage a horse, and was clothed only with a single coarse shirt. To relieve and please him, they occasionally put him astride the leader, where, whip in hand, his bushy head exposed to the sun, and his fat legs and unshod feet clinging to the horse's ribs, he whistled his time away. Sometimes, to give him company and contentment, and to gratify Cherry, they placed behind him his brother, a chubby little fellow, who kept his place only by clasping his tender arms as firmly as he could to Jarm's back.

        These human cattle drivers, as well as other cattle drivers, understand full well that it is better to amuse and coax and flatter their chattels, than cross their tempers and passions by unnecessary violence. Thus it is, that what seem to their victims as favors, are often means of economy and expedition, rather than a manifestation of humane feeling.

        It should not be inferred, though, that mild expedients are the only ones adopted to hasten along these poor people. The driver's whip, followed by the groans of the sufferer, occasionally started the rabbit and the partridge from the brambles, and announced to the weary ones, that, whatever the inconvenience, their steps must respond to the will of their drivers. Expedients, which we need not name, were adopted to strengthen and cheer their languid spirits, in aid of their bodies. But now and then, one, less able or fortunate than the rest, from foot-soreness or weakness,

sank beyond the power of the lash, and was taken into the wagon as the only means of getting him or her along.

        It need not be stated that such a condition as this slave coffle, which has its likeness in all the roads of the south, dispenses, by necessity, with all the decencies and moralities which men and women, even in a state of savage freedom, instinctively preserve. The imagination, for decency's sake, must fill up the pitcher, if the true idea of the horrible exhibition is obtained. Suffice it to say, that in this way, this wretched coffle dragged its length along, until it arrived at the Little Tombigbee, on the northern borders of Alabama.

        The slaves were encouraged to more than usual speed during the day on which they arrived at this place, for the reason, that they had been promised a respite of rest and refreshment at this spot. Cherry had been particularly told that there she would be met by her old master and her husband, and that she and all her children would be left with them. As we before said, her experience taught her that a negro trader's word, and more especially a negro trader's word to a slave, under the circumstances she and her children were placed, was worth nothing; nevertheless, she knew their pretence was possible, and the hope that it might be true, was some relief to her tortured spirit.

        It was about an hour before sunset that the coffle arrived at the Little Tombigbee, and stretched its length under the shade upon its banks. The

owner, some time before the arrival, had parted from it, and hurried his horse toward three log buildings, which nestled like Indian wigwams in a half cultivated forest, half a mile distant from the company. Cherry seated herself on the banks of the stream, with Henry's babe in her arms, her children by her side, and waited with keen anxiety the fulfillment of the promise the robbers so often made her, that she would there meet Henry and Dave, and that she and her children and Henry were to remain there together.

        It was not long before she saw three men, in the direction of the three log houses, approaching on horseback, and behind them, a wagon, with two horses, driven by a colored man. The two former she recognized as the Captain of the band and Manasseth Logue. This was the first actual evidence that the affirmations of the barbarian might be true. She hugged her babe to her bosom with convulsive transport, thinking that, though Dave was not along, Henry was actually approaching with the wagon to take her and her children to their quarters. How sad was her disappointment, as the wagon neared her, to see that it was another man, and not Henry, that was driving the horses. Still she hoped. Manasseth and the captain rode near where Cherry sat with the children, and the latter, pointing to the dark circle, said, "There they are; Cherry, Jarm, and the others described in the Bill of Sale."

        Cherry, slave fashion, dared not raise her head, but sat looking humbly, sadly, but hopefully, at her image in the water, and seeing only Henry in it, but had not

courage to ask the question, the answer to which would relieve her aching heart, to wit, as to the whereabouts of her husband. This, she concluded, would be too great presumption, and might lead to bad results. She, therefore, said nothing, but hoped on.

        "Why, how these children have grown," said Manasseth. "This boy," said he, pointing to Jarm, "will make a profitable servant, if he is not spoiled. Come, Cherry, get up into the wagon with the children, and Jack will show you to the quarters."

        When the wagon had gone out of the hearing of the white men, she enquired of Jack for David Logue and Henry, explaining to him that the former was her old master, and that the latter was her husband.

        Jack told her that David Logue had, that morning, started on his return journey to Mansoe's Creek, and that no such man as Henry was now, or ever was, on the estate to his knowledge.

        It was now clear to Cherry, that that portion of the promise regarding Henry was made for the occasion; and she vented her disappointment in loud expressions of grief and indignation. Now she felt that the separation between Henry and her and their child was eternal--the last hope vanished, and she settled down in sullen despair.

        Cherry and the little ones were soon deposited at the negro house, which was one of the three buildings spoken of. A few rods from it, in different directions, was a small smutty distillery, and the family mansion

of her new master--all which, as has been said before, were log houses, and the only buildings in sight.

        It was now dark, and Cherry, weary with grief, labor and disappointment, cast herself and babe on her bed of straw, and, notwithstanding the shock she received the evening previous, for the first time for many days had a night of repose. The healing angels closed her senses in absolute oblivion--"raised from her brain the rooted sorrow, and cleansed her bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart." The history of her relations to Manscoe's Creek was all told, and she was now to enter upon a new chapter of life.

        When she awoke in the morning, it was with a new spirit--bent, but not broken. The instructions and endurances of the past, strengthened and tempered it to meet the conflicts before her with greater skill, prudence and courage.

CHAPTER VII.

        It was said at the conclusion of the last chapter, that the sale and abandonment of the colored Logues by David Logue concluded an important epoch in their lives. The two families parted to encounter temptations and conflicts in different directions. But the

temptations and conflicts of the colored Logues were an accumulation of wrongs, which did not break them down, but instructed and strengthened them rather, for others to come. Not so with poor Dave. He had unwittingly cast away the only anchor which, hitherto, kept his barque right side up amid life's waves. Had he not yielded his natural kindness of heart to false pride, and a perverted public opinion, instead of the victim of poverty and low indulgence which he afterwards became, he might have risen as his son J. W. Loguen rose, a conqueror on the waves of life, and defied its storms. The anxiety to save his slaves, especially Cherry and her children, had, for years, held him, in a measure, obedient to the duties of life. In separating from them, he cut with his own hand, the cable that preserved him, and without an anchor was driven by the winds, and shortly sank into the gulph he labored to avoid --and there remains, without the hope, and probably without the wish to escape.

        The fate of this generous, chivalric, and noble natured man, the only saving clause in the history of the white Logues, has a counterpart in thousands who die to all good, like the mercies of heaven in the soil blighted with the crimes and cruelties of slavery.

        Poor Dave had not willingly parted with Cherry and her children, and therefore the memory of the act remained to dog his footsteps, and torture his brain like "a rooted sorrow." Though he partnered with his brothers Carnes and Manasseth in the crime that kidnapped her when a little child, he remembered

with keen remorse, that, with one exception, he was the father of the hale and lovely children by her side, and that he was in fact responsible for the wrongs and miseries each and all of them had sufferered hitherto, as well as those they might thereafter suffer. The excepted link in this circle of wronged ones was the child of Henry. His memory, too, which would awaken delight in an angel, had clinging to it a barbed curse. The cherub face and innocent smiles of the boy, often crept into David's mind's eye in connection with the compact he made with Henry at his nuptials, as if they were the living seal of his perjury and dishonor.

        As before said, after his bargain for the sale of his slaves was perfected, David left Manscoe's Creek for Southern Tennessee. He started in haste, and in the night, that his eyes might not witness the misery he had produced, and hastened to Manasseth to arrange with him a plan for the redemption of Cherry and her children. Manasseth and his wife had become brutes, and like other brutes, their minds and hearts were unadapted to the mercies and business of life. David Logue knew full well that, without the aid of his genius and industry, his kind intents to prevent Cherry and her children being driven to Alabama, could not be executed. And not until the morning of of their arrival at the Tombigbee had the plan been completed. To avoid again the sight of Cherry, Jarm, and the rest, on their arrival, and to hasten to the relief of his affairs at home, which actually and

strongly demanded his instant attention, he started without delay to Manscoe's Creek.

        He started on horse back of course, the only mode of travelling in those days. Except in the immediate neighborhood of Columbia and Nashville, his journey was through a new country, and such a thing as a pleasure carriage or wagon had never been seen there. His way, mainly, was through gigantic forests --occasionally broken by fields of girdled trees, and sometimes by lots partially cleared of large timber, where the sparse settlers, with their negroes, had begun to grow corn and tobacco.

        Like the early settlers of N. York and Ohio, the early settlers of Tennessee did not, as a general thing, clear off the heavy timber and fence their lots before they commenced cropping. More like the aboirgines, the negroes girdled the large trees, and cleared off the underbrush, leaving the large trees to die, and then planted their seed. The trees thus girdled were left to rot in their natural position, until blown down by the winds, and then they were not cut by the axe, but burned into sections convenient for logging, and consumed.^*

        * The first settlers of Western New York had a similar practice. After falling the large trees of hard wood, they not unfrequently chopped a place in their trunks and made a fire there, on the top of which they placed another hard stick called a "nigger," which they occasionally stirred to increase ignition--and in that manner they made the fire work for them, and burnt the trees in pieces, while they used their axes on other trees.

is customary with the pioneers of the north. In the neighborhood of such fields might be seen two or three log cabins, which served for the dwelling of the whites and blacks, and shelter for horses and cattle.

        It may be safely conceived that Tennesseean agriculture made a haggard aspect on the face of noble nature. The people were mostly emigrants from Virginia and North Carolina, and had none of the habits of industry, which at the North harden and embolden the farmer, whilst they perfect his skill to change the forests into pleasant fields and cheerful residences, for the use and comfort of men.

        It was a chilly morning when Dave sallied out on his homeward journey. The tops of the large trees were already shorn of their leafy honors, and numerous squirrels sported on their branches and trunks near the cornfields, and served for a time to divert him. The external pressure which for years held his mind and body in painful durance, was broken by the denouement of this last enterprise, and left him to his contemplations. The event which he most dreaded, and which he in vain supposed "was done, when it was done," to wit, the deliverance from his slaves, and their value deposited at Nashville, was accomplished--and he rode into the forest thinking he was alone with nature.

        The traveller in Tennessee at that day, and particularly at that season of the year, was rarely disturbed by other travellers. He jogged on his way with all the expedition consistent with the ability of his

horse--but not alone did he travel. Always moved by external and sensuous things, he had never looked into himself, or dreamed that his mind was an interior world, peopled with angels and devils from whom he derived every thought and desire, and that the mutable things of the outer world were but the incrustation of the substantial and indestructible things within it. He did not dream that "the kingdom of God was (really) within him," and that that kingdom was a heaven or a hell in proportion as his affections were like or unlike the angels who love or hate him. He never dreamed that every struggle of temptation, every sensation of conscience, was the touch of the Almighty's finger from God's throne within him, indicating every tendency of a departure from the law and order of that kingdom. He supposed he would be alone in those wild woods and unfrequented paths --that his mind and body, relieved of care and labor, would be refreshed by the pure air of the mountains and vales through which his journey lay. His philosophy never taught him that the solitude of nature was the aura of the spiritual world, in which good angels from within talk with bad men without, and mirror before them their crimes and deeds until prevailing goodness wins them to repentance, or prevailing evils harden their consciences to the touch of infinite mercy. He little thought he should meet Cherry and her babes in the wilderness, pointing to their wrongs and sorrows, from the day she was kidnapped, and pleading for his justice and mercy, and compelling him to a decision which would save or damn his

soul. He did not know that the throne of eternal judgment was within him--and that, under God, he was to pass upon his own bad deeds the sentence which would consign him to the infernal fires which engendered them--or that other sentence which would change those fires into a love which was life eternal.

        But so it was. The change of scenery diverted him until the novelty ceased, and his mind was wrapped in the inspiration of the wilderness. A feeling altogether new came over him. He seemed in the vestibule of another world, and in the midst of those with whom his life had been connected. He was let into himself, to see his own spirit daguerreotyped in his life. His slaves were impersonated in their wrongs, and for miles and hours, he was tortured with the ghosts of memory. The evils which were past, plead for rescue from evils to come. Most clearly of all, did Cherry and her babes rise before him and appeal to his charities. It was in vain he attempted to avoid them. Like the ghost of Banquo, they would not down at his bidding. The various ways in which he could save them from coming calamities were opened to his consciousnesss. He might declare their freedom, for she was really free, and the condition of the children followed her condition by pro-slavery law--he might return her to her friends in Ohio--he might flee with her and hers to Canada on the north, or to the Mexican settlements on the south--he might concoct a plan with Manasseth for their deliverance, which would avoid the claims of his creditors. Every consideration of mercy

and justice and compassion, was pressed upon him, until the light which presented them was gradually intercepted by the veil of selfhood, and they disappeared like dissolving views, and the things of sense and nature reappeared, and he was back to the outward world, whose deepning shadows covered the light within, and he was spiritually blind--externally all was light and beautiful--internally, all was night. It was a fatal triumph. Overcome by pride, sensuality and ambition, he turned his back again upon the immutable truths which would certainly save him, be the peril ever so great, and embraced the mutable things of sense and nature, which would certainly sink him, against any amount of human foresight.

        As he approached Nashville, the country was more cultivated, and travellers more frequent. He was in the full enjoyment of fancied freedom. He felt relieved of a double bondage--the claims of his creditors upon his property, and the claims of his slaves upon his humanity. He fancied he saw the end of all his embarrassments, and his light spirit was busy building castles in the air. The Genii which released him from spiritual visions, surrounded him with other "pictures which fancy touched bright." Spellbound in delicious dreams of the future, he was suddenly startled by a voice behind him--

        "Well, Dave, I have found you at last."

        "Good!" said Dave. "You, Joseph, are the man I wanted to see. I am prepared for you. The money is in the hands of my banker, at Nashville, for the payment of those infernal executions, and I am

anxious to cancel them and have them off my mind."

        "All right. But you look better--more cheerful than you have done. What turn of fortune, pray, has wrought the improvement on your spirit?"

        "Why, sir, I have been horribly under the load. To be burdened with debts and pursued by creditors as I have been, is, enough to make any man solemn; and the way and only way I had to discharge them, was calculated to intensify that solemnity to torturing and unbearable pain. Thank God it is all over now. I have sold my slaves, and they are out of my sight and out of my heart. The burden is all gone, and I can pay my debts, and have a balance to begin anew, I hope. I am in a new world, Joseph. The Lord is on my side, I believe. The sun, and the world it encompasses and vivifies, are as bright to my eyes as to yours, now. Thank God I shall be free."

        "Of course the Lord is on your side; but are you on his side?--that is the point."

        "Why, that is what I mean."

        "You are happy?"

        "Yes."

        "May you not learn that your happiness is a delusion."

        "How can it be a delusion? I feel it--I know it, --there can be no mistake."

        "Well, I want you to be happy. I want to be happy myself, and see others happy--but allow me to say to you, that the buoyancy that comes of relief from debt may be a wretched counterfeit, after all.

I hope, sincerely, that your experience may not teach you that yours is spurious."

        "This is a matter in which I, alone, am the witness, and can, of course, alone decide--and I will prove my happiness to you over the best bottle of wine in Nashville, after those executions are discharged."

        "Ah! my dear fellow, I appreciate your generosity --but I fear you do not appreciate your own state."

        "How is that?"

        "You have forgotten what I told you when last we met. There are two kinds of happiness--the one comes of the love of self, and the other of the love of the neighbor. Both are real, but not genuine. There is a broad difference between them. One, in fact, is infernal--the other celestial. The source of your joy, and the assertion of yours, that you are the only witness in the premises, leads me to fear the quality of your delight."

        "There you are--preaching again--but I love to hear you preach. You talk philosophy and good sense. I wish our clergy would preach as you do-- go on--I want to hear you. And first of all, tell me what difference it makes, whether my happiness is my own only--the pleasure that comes from the love of self, or the love of others. If I am happy, I am happy --come the gratification whence it may. It belongs to me alone, not to another--it is in me and not in another, and another cannot speak of it, of course."

        "Difference! It is the difference between Heaven and Hell! In one case you delight in the happiness

of others, and are in Heaven--in the other, you delight in sensual and worldly things, for the sake of self, and are in Hell."

        "Go on--do you propose to make out I am in Hell?"

        "I don't propose anything about it. I was but contrasting my notions of happiness with yours. I spoke of Heaven and Hell incidentally. They are states in a man, not places outside of him. He, who, forgetting self, delights in good done to others, and lives in the happiness of his neighbors--who feels their happiness within him, not thinking of his own--whose joys are their joys, that man is in Heaven. Place him in any natural condition you will, and all the devils and flames of Hell cannot hurt him. On the other hand, he who seeks his own happiness, in himself, and for himself, forgetful of his neighbors, of necessity, hates all who conflict with himself--and though he may have moments of delirious delight, he is, in fact, in Hell--and cannot fail to come into conflict with others--and in the end, sink into the flames of his own passions and lusts."

        "Joseph, you are a better philosopher than Divine. 'Charity begins at home,' is a truism as old as mankind. The charge of the apostle is founded on it-- 'if any provide not for his own, especially for his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.'"

        "There are those who are indeed worse than infidels --worse, because wilfully blind to truth. They are those who falsify the Word for the indulgence of

self love--who provide 'for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.' 'Provisions,' in the sense of the Scriptures, are truths and goods--the treasures of the mind, which is the house, the Heaven, the home of God. The children of such house, are the products of such truths, goods, and treasures, begot by use. 'Provisions,' in the sense of your interpretation, are falses and evils and their offspring, tenants of that house when self love has changed it into a Hell. Christ begins by driving those evil and false things out of his home, and fitting it for Heaven's uses. You libel charity which 'seeketh not its own,' but begins in use to others, and ends in joys which result from such use. Those only who do good to others are man-like, Christ-like, God-like. The Lord never taught a doctrine at war with his own likeness."

        "Go on--may be you will make me a convert. What sect do you belong to? I should like to know."

        "I don't belong to any sect; my religious platform, which is 'charity,' can have no foundation in sect, and no abode but in 'truth.' Charity disarms sects, and merges them in a common brotherhood. Would to God you were converted to my opinions, and lived their, not my life--theory is one thing, and practice quite another thing--"life is everything."

        "You are a singular man--you don't talk religion like other folks. What is religion?"

        "Religion is Love to the neighbor manifested in the Life."

        "If that is religion, there are a blessed few religious

men and women in the world--you may bet your life of that."

        "And for that very reason it is necessary to build a new ark, or new church, and gather into it, again, the beasts and birds and living things, representatives of affections, which have been seduced away. The old church has died out, and the Lord comes in the new, just as fast as he disappears in the old--just as fast as the world is willing to receive him. There is just as much religion in the world now, as there is love to the neighbor, and no more. Religion is Life --it is love to others, in action, for their good. The Lord never left his church--he never left anybody. It is they who leave him. The story of his ascension and return in the clouds, is symbolic and prophetic language. It asserts apparent, not real truth, just as when it is said 'God is angry.' The Lord, of course, can never leave men, or be angry with them. Men leave him, though, and change his light into dark clouds, and his pure love into infernal hate. They make their own lives--and the clouds in which the Lord appears and disappears, are in the mental, not the material world."

        "What do you mean by men making their own lives?"

        "A man's life is his ruling love--it is himself. In general terms, life is love. What we love, we do. Take from you your love, and you cannot speak or think, or act--you are annihilated--your love is your life. If your ruling love leads you to mercy, justice and goodness, you are spiritually alive, and are in the

way to regeneration and Heaven. On the contrary if your ruling love overrides your inclination to mercy, justice and goodness, you are spiritually dead, or dying, and on your way to Hell. That is to say--in each case you will be giving to your affection a state, or form, which will determine the character of your acts and desires, forever. Our love remains with us after death, and rules us forever. Heaven and Hell are states of the soul."

        "Your divinity always captivates me, Joseph, but it thwarts my purposes and feelings cruelly. Nevertheless, I always feel in a good atmosphere in your company. Your philosophy is beautiful, but it begets a painful conflict within me, between duties and inclinations. When I leave you, I have no peace until I forget it all in my affairs."

        "For God's sake, don't lot that conflict cease, until your inclinations side with your duties. It is the process of regeneration. It is the spirit with you in the wilderness, as it was with Christ. He was a man, and his victory over his lusts which hungered for indulgence, made his humanity divine. Such a victory would make you an angel of Heaven--defeat, will sink you into a devil."

        "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. What if I was one?"

        "If you be a Christian, it will be your joy that you are useful to others--your joy will be in the use. And again, mark me--whether you will or no, infinite wisdom will make you tributary to merciful ends. Uses on the earth, are the same as uses in

the Heavens, to wit, doing good to others. The joys of Heaven and the joys of earth, are not in the states of the soul merely, but in the actual uses which the soul performs--it is the use, the happiness of others, which makes heavenly joy."

        They had now arrived at Nashville, and the colloquy ended. The last remark of Dave was--

        "How I regret that this conversation must end here. May we have another opportunity to continue it to the end of the chapter. There are various topics I want your advice upon, and I shall delight in an opportunity for that advice."

        "I shall always be happy to talk with you; but if I have given any light to your mind, set it down to the Lord himself--it is his light, not mine. It is now twelve o'clock--meet me at my office at half-past two."

        "Dine with me, Joseph."

        "I can dine nowhere--I have 'uses' to perform, which I must attend to. Remember--just half-past two."

        Joseph emphasized his declaration of 'uses' with a smile, indicating both playfulness and sincerity, and waving his hand, departed.

        Dave had his heart full and running over. Whether intended to that end or not, the words of his friend fell like fire upon his conscience. He felt them to be true, and because they were true, they lay where they fell, and burned like hot iron. But he passed into a cold atmosphere. That fire soon ceased to burn--and another fire, congenial to his interior state,

healed the wound it made. Though naturally impressible to the kindest sentiments, his life had been a succession of self gratifications, and whatever might have been his misgivings during the talk with Joseph, they soon vanished in the storm of passions which clamored for indulgence.

CHAPTER VIII.

        Jarm now felt, for the first time, what it was to be a slave. He was turned into the fields with the other hands, without experience, to do his part, according to his years. Unfortunately, his personal appearance and strength were beyond his years, and led his overseer to expect more of him than is usually exacted from boys of his age. By the instruction and assistance of Cherry, he was soon able to accomplish all that was required of him, and more, had there been motive to prompt him to do more.

        Manasseth Logue purchased a plantation on the Tombigbee, where he lived after he sold out to his brother David, as stated in the previous chapters. Beside his plantation employments, he kept at his old trade of manufacturing whisky. Had he been a manufacturer and vender only, it had been better for his character, habits, property and family. But unhappily,

he and his wife were large consumers also, and sank together into intemperance. Their original virtues, if they had any, were lost, and they were very drunken, passionate, brutal and cruel. As a consequence, their habitation, and the habitations of their slaves, were neglected, filthy and uncomfortable. They had several sons and daughters, most of them older than Jarm--all idle, ignorant, unlettered, and gross in their manners and habits, following fast in the steps of their miserable parents. Those parents belonged to that unfortunate class of drunkards, whom liquor makes mad--and when in it, as a general thing, fight each other, abuse their slaves, and every body else who come in their way. Jarm has frequently seen them fly at each other with great fury,--chase each other with stones, clubs, tongs, or whatever other thing was handy--and rave, and curse, and threaten, like mad ones.

        When such scenes occurred--and, alas! they were too frequent--the slaves were particularly careful to be out of sight--or if in sight, so to demean themselves as not to attract the attention of the furies. If, by any unlucky act or word, in such cases, the wrath of their master or mistress was attracted to the slaves, it was as steel attracts lightning, and the innocent victims were beaten, without sense, reason, or limits. Thus they were often maimed and bruised shockingly, and sometimes left almost dead. The poor negroes never knew when they were safe in the presence of Manasseth and his wife, when they were in such condition. And they never were safe, except

at those rare times when their tormentors were not in liquor. And when their master and mistress were without liquor, their minds and bodies were so shattered by the frequent and severe tests to which they had been subjected, that they were nervous, irritable, and easily excited to deeds of excessive violence.

        About the second spring after Jarm was consigned to these barbarians, an event occurred illustrative of his condition, and of the safety of all the human chattels in their possession. He was at work in the cornfield with other hands, Cherry not being among them. Manasseth was present, and in a condition to terrify them all.

        The article used as a hoe by a Tennesseean planter could hardly be acknowledged as a hoe by a northern farmer. It was a thick, heavy, pyramidal piece of flatted iron, with a large eye on the top for a clumsey handle.

        All were excited to the utmost carefulness, not to attract the attention of this terrible man, and very attentive at their work to avoid him.

        Unluckily for Jarm, as he raised it to strike, his hoe handle became loose, and the hoe fell to the ground. This was enough to stir the devil in this wicked man; he raised a stone and hurled it at the head of the boy, charging him with culpable negligence in his tools, in terms too vulgar to repeat. Jarm dodged the missile, and crazy with excitement, raised the hoe and put the handle in it. His master ordered him to go into the yard, near by, and wedge

the handle on, and at the risk of his life, never to expose his carelessness in that way again.

        Already had Jarm partaken largely of the alarm which made all around him tremble with fear. He obeyed the command promptly and returned to his work. He spared little time for the purpose, well knowing if he did not return quick, the tiger would be after him. In his haste and fright, he thought to fasten the handle sufficiently for the time his master was by, and to finish it when he had gone. The wedge he drove into the handle stuck out of the end of it an inch or two, and he went to work with his hoe in that shape.

        The instrument answered the purpose for a short time, when, most unluckily, he struck the wedge against something, and knocked it out, and off went the hoe again. Alas! poor Jarm!

        The last unlucky event threw the intoxicated beast into a phrenzy of passion. Blazing with alcohol and Hell within, he picked up the long wedge, and swore the boy should swallow it. As if to compel him to do so, he ordered Jarm to open his mouth. Jarm instinctively demurred to the absurd proposition, but Manasseth was inflexible. So soon as Jarm hesitated, his enemy struck him a blow on the side of the head, with his fist, which brought him to the ground. The brute, with increased passion, leaped on him, and held him down--and in that condition charged the boy to open his mouth, on peril of his life--at the same time pressing the wood against his lips and teeth. Jarm, fearing he would break in all his teeth,

opened his jaws, and the wretch immediately crowded the wedge in until it reached the roof of his mouth, before he could stop it with his teeth. He began to pound it in with his heavy fist. Not withstanding Jarm held on with his teeth, the wedge driven into the roof of his mouth, and mangled it frightfully. The blood flowed down his throat, and profusely from his mouth.

        So soon as Jarm found his teeth were likely all to be broken, and that there was no hope of sympathy from the intoxicated wretch, he obeyed the instincts of nature, and by a sudden and powerful effort, he seized the wedge and the hand that held it, and turning his head at the same time, delivered his mouth from the instrument, and turned it towards the ground--resolved, if he was to be murdered, he not be murdered in that way. The heartless man then commenced punching the boy with the sharp end of the wedge, on his head and mouth, making bloody gashes--Jarm dodging, as well as be could, to avoid the blows.

        This cruel transaction, from the time of the first attack to the close, lasted some minutes--when, tired with the effort, Manasseth rose from the body of the boy, and ordered him to get up and learn how to wedge a hoe.

        Jarm was weak and bruised, and his lips and mouth shockingly mangled and covered with gore. With some difficulty he rose to his feet, wiped the and blood from his face and lips, spit the blood from his mouth, and returned to the yard, to fasten

the handle to his hoe again. At the same time, his master, with dreadful oaths and curses, muttered against his hands, and Jarm in particular, turned his face to the distillery, and soon disappeared--to the great relief and joy of Jarm and all the other hands present.

        This experience was valuable to Jarm, for it revealed to him his positions and relations to slavery, which he ever afterwards remembered with perfect distinctness. He was now about fourteen years of age, of excellent strength and health, and saw there was no other way for him, but to bear his trials with all possible discretion --and if an opportunity occurred to escape, to embrace it at whatever peril--but if doomed to remain a slave, to die struggling with his tyrant, when driven to the last extremity. To this resolution he was always obedient--ever mindful of the occasion that induced him to make it.

        For many days it was with difficulty that Jarm swallowed his food or performed his tasks. Without the sympathy and assistance of his mother, and the hands, with whom he was a favorite, he would probably have failed in his labors. With their assistance, he was restored to ability and soundness, and had full opportunity to digest the terrible instruction this transaction furnished.

        Cherry, fortunately, was absent when this outrage The slaves who were present, would have interfered to prevent the cruelty, had they not supposed their interference would expose themselves to greater evils than might be inflicted on Jarm,

without the hope of lessening his wrongs. But, had Cherry been there, nothing would have restrained uncalculating and indomitable courage from pitching into the fight. Jarm esteemed it fortunate that his mother was absent.

        Such was the state of things in this unhappy family for a year after the above outrage, when they were awakened, at dead of night, by a glaring light which filled every cabin, and made their dark rooms brighter than day. They all sprang in terror from their miserable beds, and saw the old distillery buried under a pyramid of fire, which spread a sheet of light in every direction over the country around. The first moment of alarm having passed, they saw the flames had progressed to a complete victory over the establishment. The negroes were delighted, first at the beauty and sublimity of the scene, but more from the hope, that, as the cause of their daily peril, terror and suffering came from that distillery, its destruction would be to them the beginning of better times.

        Nor were they mistaken. Manasseth, and his wife and children, walked around this blazing hell, and witnessed with horror the bursting barrels spurting their burning contents, which flowed in flaming rivulets around the base of the pyramid. To them, it was a shocking sight. At first, they could not look upon the ruin of so much of the "dear creature" without sympathy for their aching apetites and failing revenues. With all their sottishness and negligence, they never lost sight of their property--and

though they did not, and with their habits could not, accumulate property, they did not sink their avarice in a thirst for liquor. They "held their own" in that respect, while they were fast giving their souls and bodies to the evil one. Having surveyed the sad spectacle for some time, the following colloquy ensued:--

        "All gone to the devil" said Manasseth.

        "Good riddance!" said the old woman.

        "A thousand dollars in a single night," he replied.

        "Good riddance, I say," responded the old she bloat, as the pale light of the fire reflected from her blood- swollen cheeks.

        "What do you mean by that?"

        "I mean we are better without than with the infernal thing. It has made brutes of you and me, and has been fast making brutes of our children. I am heartily glad to see this fire."

        "But I tell you here is a great loss of property."

        "The loss is gain, I tell you. Had it been burned as soon as built, and remained burned, we should be better off as to property this moment, besides being decent and respectable people. We should not then be the miserable creatures we now are. I am glad to see it burn."

        "Why, do you mean that you will live without whiskey?"

        "I shall try it--you may bet your life of that. I had rather die for the want of it, than be burned up by the accursed stuff soul and body together. I rejoice

that there is no other place where it can be had for many miles around."

        "But the property--were it not for the value of the property, I could rejoice with you--for I allow it has been a curse to us almost as great as absolute poverty."

        "Infinitely greater, Manasseth. How much happier would we be in absolute poverty, with sound minds and bodies, and peaceful affections, than in the Hell where we have been burning for years--and dragging our children there, too. Like the Rich Man, I have been in agony for a drop of water to cool my tongue for years, and now feel it drop upon my soul from the light of this fire. We have property enough left--let us employ the brains we have left, to turn it to better uses, for our own good and the good of our children."

        "It is the first sensible proposal you have made in eight years. And now, how do you suppose the distillery took fire?"

        "Can you doubt about it? Of course those spoiled boys yonder did it. They won't tell us--but the truth is, they were late here last night, and no doubt they left fire so carelessly that it fired the building. We are ruining our children, Manasseth, and the Lord has burned the building to wake you and me to business of saving them--which can only be done by leaving this hateful thing in its ashes, and living like sober people. I am glad it is burned, I say, and I pray Heaven it may stay burned."

        "Then you have sworn, in earnest, to have nothing more to do with liquor?"

        "I have so sworn."

        "D--n the stuff--I'll join you," said he.

        "Boys, give three cheers for the old distillery!"

        This took the negroes by surprise; but they joined the white Logues, and sent up a 'Hurrah' which which filled the country around with a jubilant demonstration. This was the first time for years, that the presence of their master and mistress was tolerable to the slaves--but now their was not tolerable only, but joyous. They joined in the loud hurrah with eminent gusto, for it honored a compact, which, fulfilled, would deliver them from the greatest terror of their lives.

        It was the whiskey from that distillery that made beasts of their master and mistress. Left to their own natures, which were not lovely, they were endurable--because the slaves knew how to find them, and could act intelligibly. Subject as they had been to fits of intoxication, which occurred almost, if not quite every day--sometimes one drunk, and then the other; and sometimes, and often, both drunk together, and always under the influence of liquor, the negroes never knew when they were safe--and they never were safe in the presence of their master and mistress--and often suffered the in most terrible injustice and cruelty. The slave must fit himself to the will of his master. This can never do if his master is a drunkard--and if he is an ugly drunkard, as were

both of these, then is the poor slave literally delivered over to be tormented by devils.

        This chapter might be lengthened to any extent, with details of cruelties and outrages inflicted by Manasseth and his wife during their intoxication. But they are too atrocious and disgusting to be recorded. The above outrage on Jarm must suffice as a specimen--but by no means the worst specimen of their numerous and shocking barbarities.

        The reader may easily infer that the slaves were happy to witness this compact of their tormentors, and will not wonder that their voices, louder than the rest, rolled upon the clouds, and reverberated from the hills and woods.

        Thus, this event, which the slaves supposed would drive their master and mistress to madness, to be vented, as usual, on them, put the latter in possession of their reason, and the former in comparative safety.

        Slaveholders are in their own place, and of course creatures of sense. From necessity, they are licentious and intemperate, or are in kindred evils. Their sensuous spirits look downwards to the earth, where they hold their human chattels only as instruments of their pleasures, and never upwards to the heavens. Did they turn their affections upwards, they would bear their slaves aloft with them, into the region of religion and liberty. Instead of holding them for selfish ends, their slaves would be only instruments of higher use to them. "A servant is the Lord's freeman," and the Lord's injunctions is, "neither be ye called master, for one is your master," and "whosoever

would be chief among you shall be your servant." Slavery is a state, corresponding to the inner man. It is the inner man in ultimates. Lust and cruelty and murder are as incident to it, as heat is to fire, or as love is to life. In other words, it is the exterior and natural form of internal love which makes the master a spiritual bond slave to the greatest tyrranny in the universe. As slavery is the inverted order of humanity, so is a slaveholder an inverted man--the opposites, each, of God and Heaven.

CHAPTER IX.

        Not long after the events related in the last chapter, a circumstance of great importance occurred, which favored the agreement Manasseth and his wife made in their own strength.

        Notwithstanding the injustice and wrong which all her life long had been inflicted on Cherry, and though outside of Henry and her children she had always been surrounded by examples of fraud and sin, in trying forms, still she preserved an internal consciousness of right, and was ever receptive of religious impressions. Doubtless those outrages and examples, taught her there was no power on earth upon

which she could rely for support and happiness, and led her to look above the earth for repose and comfort.

        The Methodists largely prevailed in this portion of Tennessee; and in the neighborhood of Manasseth's plantation was a notable camp ground for their great gatherings. At those annual gatherings, the inhabitants of the surrounding country assembled in great numbers, in their best costumes. As a general thing, the slaves also were there, as servants of their masters and mistresses, or to enjoy a holiday of personal relaxation and pleasure, or to sell the fruits some of them were allowed to raise on their little patches of ground. The free blacks and poor whites were there also, with meats, fruits, and liquors of various kinds, to sell to the white aristocrats, who, from pride, or fashion, or religion, were attracted to the place. The camp was the universal resort of lovers and rowdies, politicians and pleasure seekers of every kind, as well as religionists, who gathered about the preachers, or promenaded in the woods, or refreshed at the booths, where the poor whites and blacks exposed their provisions for sale.

        For years the old distillery monopolized the entire wholesale liquor trade on those occasions. The poor people aforesaid purchased it of Manasseth at a whole sale price, and retailed it at a large profit, to the world's people and christians who attended the meetings.

        These circumstances regarding the camp meetings are related as preliminary and explanatory of the

events which follow. Cherry invariably attended the meetings, when the claims of her master and mistress did not require her stay at home. Not long after the events in the last chapter, a religious awakening occurred in the camp, which spread at a great distance over the country. Cherry was one of the first to feel and acknowledge the divine presence. In the agony of her convictions, she fell upon the earth, and begged forgiveness at the throne of mercy, in tones of impassioned earnestness. Her master and mistress, touched by the sight of their poor slave in such a condition, left their place among the whites, and stood near her, to hear her words and watch the result.

        It is proper here to remark, that, though religion in a slave is always a marketable quality, and therefore their masters are always desirous their slaves be converts, for the supposed increased value which religion gives them; still, we would not convict Cherry's master or mistress, on this occasion, of a motive so unworthy. Nevertheless, it is not unlikely, if they had searched their bosoms closely, they might have found at least a dormant motive of that sort, because it is inseperable from the condition of master and slave.

        Manasseth and his wife stood behind the praying slave, and received every word from her lips. She first plead for herself--and then, as if caught by a new inspiration which left self out of sight, she besought the divine spirit to fill every soul of the great assembly. Warmed by the increasing fervor of her

devotion, and forgetting every presence but her Lord, she descended to particulars, and prayed for her children and husband, and for divine assistance that they and she might act with a becoming and christian spirit in their trying circumstances-- and finally, as if moved by the soul of charity, she embraced her cruel master and mistress, and bore them to the throne of pardon and grace, and continued her prayer for them, until the influx of divine love was so thrilling and potent, that nature yielded to the spirit, and she fell amongst the throng that crowded about her, in a speechless delirium of spiritual scenes and joys. To adopt the style of this class of christians, Cherry became converted, and had "the power." Though covering many subjects, her prayer, on this occasion, was not long, but direct and earnest, in the simple but touching words of an unlettered slave.

        The angel of mercy which had smitten Cherry down, like a mighty contagion, marched through the crowd, numbering as his victims, blacks and whites together in his course. For days and nights, the groans of sinners mingled with the songs of converts and the shouts of saints. The great assembly swelled hourly by the attraction the awakening produced, and the whole country around was convulsed by the divine spirit. In the progress of events, the hard and stubborn heart of Manasseth, first touched by the prayer of Cherry, relaxed in the fervor of the excitement, and melted into penitence, and his harsh voice also mingled in the cry, "What shall I do to be saved?" His wife, also, was soon flooded with convictions of her

awful sinfulness, and the husband and wife trembled and groaned together, in view of the eternal and awful Hell the preachers hung out before them. Long continued habits of intemperance, but just abandoned, left their nerves in a state eminently susceptible of the impressions which the skilfully selected words of the preachers employed to play upon them. So soon as their minds received the fearful picture of their depravity, and the startling horrors of the damned which awaited them in their then condition, a flood of emotions bore them into the vortex of the mighty maelstrom, in which they sank to come up saints.

        We are as much in the dark as to the number of converts on this occasion, as we are to the evidence their after lives of the reality and genuineness of their conversions. Nominally, they were blacks and whites--slaves and slave-holders--rich and poor, of both sexes, and in great numbers. Had they all been truly christian converts, the valley of the Tombigbee, by the power of God displayed in the camp, would have been changed into a picture of almost universal regeneration, and presented no faint image, of Heaven. But alas for repentance without a change of life, and for conversions which leave the converts where they were.

        That some of the converts, with the help of The Lord, commenced a life of combat with inherited and welcomed evils, there is little doubt. That such was the case with Cherry was never doubted by those who knew her. Nor could it be denied that the lives of others were essentially modified and improved

by impressions received at those meetings. Such, obviously, was the case with Manasseth Logue and his wife. If the impressions they received did not serve to clench the nail upon the compact they shortly before made at the burning distillery, it did effectually bend the nail in the right direction. But, alas, as a general truth, in a few weeks after the noise of the multitude, and the eloquence of the preachers died on the ears of the people, there remained on their memories and on the morals of society, no greater effect than was produced by a bygone thunder storm.

        In stating such conclusions, it is not to be understood that the number of religious professors was not greatly increased, and that there were not many praying men and women where there were none before. Multitudes, of all colors and sexes, made open profession of religion, and engaged in public and private worship. Among those, and in the same church, were Cherry and her owners, who were baptized together in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

        From that time forward, so long as Jarm remained in Tennessee, Manasseth daily assembled his family and slaves in the evening for Scripture reading and prayers, and himself and wife and Cherry were in good standing in the Methodist Church. With what propriety he was classed with Christians, the reader will judge from what follows.

        Such changes had been produced in the Industrial and pecuniary affairs of Manasseth, by the loss of the distillery, that he hired out, or mortgaged, a few

of his slaves to a neighboring planter, as a matter of personal economy, or as the means of raising money. Among the slaves thus leased or mortgaged, were Jarm and his mother. This occurred in the spring after her conversion. The precise length of the term of the lease, or the condition of the mortgage, Jarm does not remember. At any rate, it was determined, so far as they were concerned, in a short time, and they were returned to their master.

        This temporary change in the condition of Cherry and Jarm is worth noticing only for an incident which occurred therein.

        It was early in the spring when they were transferred to Mr. ----. As regards severity of labor, a hired or mortgaged slave, in possession of the mortgagee, is always in the worst condition. The interest of his owner of course regards his health and strength as of the greatest pecuniary importance, but if he is held by a mortgagee or lessee, the interest changes from the person of the slave to the amount of labor to be obtained from him. This Mr. ----, therefore, through his overseer, sought from Cherry and Jarm the greatest amount of labor he could consistently realize from them. Whether so directed by the proprietor, or not, it was obvious to Cherry that such was the aim of the overseer, and she bore with as much patience as she could the increased hardships upon herself and son.

        Some two months after they had been in the employ of Mr. ----, Jarm was doing a man's days work, with all the hands, hoeing corn. The overseer

stood a reaching distance behind the drove of weary laborers (it being the latter part of the day) with his heavy long lashed slave-whip in his hand. Fancying that Jarm was slighting his work, and while he (Jarm) was altogether unawares, the overseer brought the lash down upon his almost naked body, with a--"Look out, there! you black rascal! Do your work better, or I'll take your hide off! Take that!--and that!--and that!"--raising his arm to repeat the blow. Cherry rushed between the overseer and the boy, hoe in hand, and told the overseer he should not whip Jarm, for that he was not to blame.

        This but increased the rage of the mad coward, and he again brought down the lash with increased force, which Jarm easily dodged; and then, changed ends with the instrument, to inflict a blow on Cherry with its leaded butt. She raised her hoe and made toward him. Knowing her amazonian strength, and cowering before the resolution which was manifest on her features, the craven rascal turned and run.

        By this time the indignant spirit of Cherry was at its height, and she ran after him, and put forth all the speed she could to overtake him. For a time it was doubtful which was getting ahead, but at the moment he was passing out of the field, Cherry, because she supposed she could not overtake him, or because she was weary of the chase, threw her hoe at him, exclaiming--

        "I'll learn you to strike a boy of mine, when he is

not to blame, and is doing the best he can!--do it again at the peril of your life!"

        Should the reader infer ought against the Christian character of Cherry from this act, they should remember that her religion was not of the passive sort, and as yet had not taught her to discredit the first doctrine she found among the instincts of her nature, to wit, "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Of course she belonged not to the non-resistant school.

        It would be natural to suspect, that, according to the usages and laws of slavery, Cherry now would be the subject of some terrible chastisement. Had not Manasseth interfered, and had she remained at Mr. ----'s she probably would have been. As before said, it was the latter part of the day when the above transaction took place, and the overseer did not that day again return to the field. On that very evening Cherry and Jarm were returned to their old master, Manasseth Logue.

        About three days after their return, an event occurred too terrible to record. Indeed, it was so shocking in its details and in its results--so internally and spiritually diabolical, that the material world has no symbols, or letters, or figures, to give but a faint idea of it. The skill of the painter, poet and historian is displayed in portraying the features of the soul to outward nature. After all, their best efforts are poor sketches of internal realities. The symbols which nature and language present to the mind through the natural sense, are but correspondences of thoughts and affections, which are rarely

seen by the spiritual senses until the mortal coil is put off. The simple facts in the case are all that will be given. They are, perhaps, as gentle a picture of Manasseth Logue's christianity in particular, and of southern christianity in general, as we can give, or as genuine charity will be willing to look at.

        It will be remembered that Manasseth Logue, his wife and Cherry had been baptized at the same time, into the same Church, and on the Sunday previous to the case to be related, had partaken of the holy sacrament together; both being in good and regular standing in the Church. The family and slaves, after supper, assembled, as usual, at the family altar and listened to a chapter from the Bible, read by Manasseth--and then Cherry, with her little children by her side, fell on her knees with him and his wife, and joined in prayer to the Father of Mercies, for his pardon and blessings on their souls, and a copious influx of that love which binds together the Church on earth, and the Church in Heaven.

        The next morning, Manasseth sent the adult negroes (including Cherry) into the fields at their labors, detaining all the children at the house. The arrangement, though unusual, was made in such a manner as to excite no surprise. Nor could they have supposed, that in his change of character and relations, his heart was susceptible of the diabolical intents he must have cherished over night, and felt in midst of his impious devotions.

        Some hours after the mothers had gone into The fields, and while the children were sporting in the

yards about the premises, two or three men on horseback rode up, and at the request of Manasseth dismounted and came into the door-yard. The occurrence was rare, and the appearance of the strangers so marked, that they attracted the notice of the children who left their sports and stood at a respectful distance to eye them.

        After a short conversation with the strangers, during which time the eyes of Manasseth and his companions were turned toward the children, he called all of them into the yard, and commanded the oldest of them, in a stern voice, to stand perfectly still, and say not one word unless spoken to, while the strangers examined them. In giving this injunction, Jarm noticed the eye of the master particularly bent on himself, who was one of the oldest and stoutest of the boys. After this order to the children, he then told the men to examine the children and take their choice.

        The elder children instantly knew the men were negro traders, and the horrors of the scene at Manscoe's Creek flashed upon the memory of Jarm. Now it was apparent that some of them were to be sold to these traders, and that their mothers had been sent out of sight and hearing in the fields, to avoid the scene the separation would produce if they were present.

        The rude men immediately began to examine the bodies and limbs of the children--who had been taught by their mothers that the touch of such men was more dreadful than the touch of wild beasts.

They soon selected Jarm's brother and second sister--the former about thirteen, and the latter about eight years of age. They were beautiful and lovely children, and unspeakably dear to Jarm. They had been the objects of his affectionate care during infancy, and were his companions during childhood. He had taught them to walk and sing and play; and the happiness of his life had been cherished by their attention and caresses. He had never been separated from them, and their society seemed inseparable from his existence. The sister not daring to move, on hearing the fatal decision, turned one imploring look at Jarm, and then broke into tears and sobbed Aloud. They were immediately brought together, and the wrist of the right arm of one fastened to the wrist of the left hand of the other with a strong cord.

        So soon as the ruffian put his hand on the little girl to bind her, no longer able to repress her terror and anguish, she shrieked at the top of her voice. The voice of the terrified girl sank into the souls of all the children present--and they rushed through the enclosures, screaming with fright; and in spite of the commands of Manasseth, fled into the fields and woods in the direction of their mothers, and the valley echoed with their cries. Jarm, only, remained with his poor brother and sister, as if be had been rivetted to the spot by speechless sorrow and dispair.

        The mothers heard the wail of their children, and came running through the fields to know the cause and relieve them. Learning, by the way, that the slave drivers were at the house binding the children,

and as they approached, seeing, at a distance, a long coffle of little children (to which Jarm's brother and sister were to be attached) marching towards the house, they broke into howls and screams and groans, which filled the air.

        "We'll have a fine time of it, now!" said Manasseth.

        "I thought you was going to put those black b----s out of sight and hearing."

        "I thought I had done it."

        "They always make such a muss, when we take their children, that it is often quite an incovenience. Never take the calf in sight of the cow."

        "You will find this the worst case you ever had, I fear. That she devil ahead, there, is the mother of these children. She is an amazon in strength--knows no fear--loves her children to madness, and will fight like a tigress, if she takes a notion, come life or come death; but she is of great value as a worker, and is a breeder No. 1. And mind you, I don't mean to have her disabled or killed--I can't afford to lose her."

        "A few cracks of the whip, and it will be over. There are seventy-three children in that drove, picked from about twenty-five families. We had three or four scenes, but in most cases dealt with the children only, and got along easy. These two (pointing to Cherry's children) make our complement, and we can afford to have a frolic with the black devils--though I had rather avoid the trouble. It is incident to the trade--let it come."

        "You will have a nice one now--that drove of children and these crazy ones, with Cherry at their head, meeting here, will make a hell not easily managed--and here they are upon us!"

        Manasseth had just completed the delivery of the children, with the bill of sale, to the trader, who had mounted his horse and held the rope fastened to their hands, as Cherry bounded into the yard, and throwing her arms about the children, in a plaintive but firm voice, said--

        "They shan't take you away!"

        This new scene opened the wounds in the memories of the little sufferers all along the coffle, and their sobs, chiming with the groans and sighs of the surrounding negroes and children, and the moans of the agonizing mother, and the harsh voices of the traders, made a concert which, in connection with the parties, presented an exhibition not to be described.

        "Let go of those children!" said Manasseth, "they belong to that man.

        "They shan't go away from me!--they are my children!" said Cherry again, in the same sad voice.

        "Get away, you black b----h!" said the trader, seizing her by the hair, and attempting to pull her away, and dragging the children along with her.

        "They shall not be taken away from me!"

        "You will have to use force," said Manasseth.

        The trader then raised his terrible lash, and repeated the command--"Let go, or I will cut you in two." The command and the motion had no other effect on

the frenzied mother, than to make her repeat the same sad words--

        "They shan't be taken away."

        The trader then let fall the heavy lash upon the naked shoulders of the unhappy Cherry. The blow produced a gash from which the blood flowed freely. But so fused were the mind and love of Cherry with the minds and love of her terrified children, that they were as one spirit which felt only the danger of separation. Her senses were all absorbed by the danger of the crisis and the greatness of the outrage, and the lash was no more felt than if it had fallen upon a corpse. Blow after blow followed, but not a motion of the muscles--not the least appearance of pain was produced, or the least relaxation of her hands--linked, as they were, like iron upon the backs of her children. The single garment which she wore was saturated with blood, which flowed down her limbs upon the ground. Still she stood there, holding her children in her strong arms, and leaning her head upon their heads, repeating the same soothing, moaning words--

        "They shan't take you away."

        Finding the whip made no impression upon the woman, the ruffian fell into a rage, and was about to give her a dreadful blow upon the head with the loaded butt of his whip, when Manasseth, fearing that his most valuable chattel would be disabled, and perhaps destroyed, interposed, and told the trader he would separate them without disabling her.

        He then commanded two of his stoutest men, who stood at a distance, to come forward and release the children from their mother. The blacks came forward, but hesitated to obey the cruel command. He charged them to obey, at the peril of their lives. Forced by a fear of consequences, they set about the work, and failing to succeed without mechanical aid, they pryed her arms apart, and released her children. Finding herself separate from her children, she fell into a frenzy of grief and passion. Charged by their master to hold her, with great effort they succeeded to do it--while the hardened trader led the screaming children to the coffle, and fastened their bound wrists to the large rope that ran through it. Then, after the coffle had started, because she took advantage of the carelessness of the keepers--or because they were willing she should again embrace her children--she broke from them, and, ere she could be retaken, flew to the coffie and locked her children in her arms again--repeating the same moaning words--

        "They shan't take you away from me!"

        Again were they pryed apart as before, and the caravan of children, fastened in front to a large wagon, were dragged along in one direction into the darkness of the evening which was coming fast on, while Cherry was dragged by main force in another direction. The former were soon lost to the sight of the frantic mother forever.

        That he might not follow her children, Cherry was now taken into the room which was used for weaving coarse cloth for the negroes, and fastened

securely to the loom, where she remained, raving and moaning, until morning.

        This scene, which is now as vivid as life in the memory of J. W. Loguen--whose words are as truthful as any man's living--was witnessed by him, without the possibility of remedy. Upon being asked what were his feelings on the occasion, he said to the writer--"So overpowering was my sense of the wrong and cruelty of the transaction, and so desperate my helplessness, that I was dead to all consequences. I was willing to be sold away, or die upon the spot." It is not difficult to see that such must have been his state.

        It is philosophically true, that a man's love is his life. If it were possible for the slaveholder to destroy all the objects of the slave's love, he would have no will or motive of thought or action. He would be naturally and spiritually dead--and when this poor boy saw the objects of his affection tortured and crucified, he was necessarily driven to the verge of vitality. Motive, the wick from which life's flame derives its oil, was perishing. But because the slave is a spiritual as well as a natural being, the extinction of his natural or external motives, often flings him a stupor which is akin to death, or into a desperation which prompts him to terminate his natural existence, that his mind and heart may have scope and indulgence in another world.

        The reader will wish to hurry over the denouement of this horrible outrage. Cherry, stiffened by confinement, and covered with wounds and gore, was

no more reconciled in the morning than in the evening. She refused all food and rest, and raved and mourned for her children. The reflection that the voices which so sweetly answered her call, were wailing in that dreadful coffle--or that their bodies might be bleeding from the lash which drew her blood--that she could not go to them, or they come to her, almost made her crazy, and overcome every other feeling, and deprived her of food and comfort, until exhausted nature sank under the load of oppression, and she fell into a brief oblivion of sleep; then awoke, burdened with sorrows, and tortured by pain and burning fever--which deprived her of strength, and laid her upon her hard couch for days. A kind-hearted old slave woman washed her wounds and nursed her, and by the soothing attentions of her oldest child, Maria, and the affectionate sympathy of Jarm--who occasionally saw her--she was restored to health, and sadly took her place among the hands in the field--to her, the only place of sympathy during the day.

        This was the first time Cherry was compelled to part with any of her children. The terrible circumstances under which she was robbed of these, obviously affected her mental constitution--and she was occasionally melancholy, and always nervous and suspicious of danger. The separation, with its aggravations, made a perpetual wound upon her spirit, which time could not heal. Her heart clung to her remaining children with tremulous earnestness. Her daily labors were performed with usual strength--but

without the self-possession and sense of security, which, even in servitude, extract from labor its evils, and impart to life its blessings.

CHAPTER X.

        We will not dwell upon the sad particulars of the life of Jarm during his stay in bondage. We sketch them as features of life in a slave land, which, becoming rapidly visible, are multiplying results beyond its limits. They present a rude picture of the school in which the multitudes who flee from it are trained, to invigorate the growing sympathies in their behalf, at the North and elsewhere. Fugitive slaves are now objects of general regard. The public eye is turned towards them, and public feeling extended to them as they pass through northern thoroughfares. Crippled as are their minds, and scarred as are their bodies by lashes and wounds, they present a sample of a strong and hardy and bold race--whose manly qualities the severest tyranny cannot subdue. It may be doubted whether, in like circumstances there is another people on the face of the earth who could preserve their nature less impaired or subdued than they.

        It is this sort of hard discipline which accounts for all their offensive peculiarities, and forces upon our notice the grand specimens of mind and courage which occasionally flash from their more gifted ones amid the cultivations of northern freedom. Disgusting

as is the story of their wrongs, they are a necessary and important part of history. They are generating a new element of life, which is rapidly infusing and regenerating the masses, and lifting them to a higher and holier sphere of thought and action.

        Jarm was now approaching manhood, with a body sound, strong, and active, and a mind capable of appreciating treatment and calculating for the future. He had come to the age when the slave is subjected to the severest process of being subdued by hard service and cruel discipline. But he was one of the class which it was not easy to subdue. Given to the unrestricted dominion of a tyrant like Manasseth Logue, it is easily inferred that his case was a hard one. Passing a multitude of examples of such discipline we sketch one now, only to show the character of his condition, and open a view of its miseries, and leave the reader to imagine what the full picture must be. Though Jarm might not have been faultless on this occasion, the measure and quality of the discipline he received will show his early training, and shed light upon his encouragement to fidelity[.]

        It was in the fall of the year when the process of fattening the hogs was given to his charge. The corn was scattered in the ear upon the ground, which at this season was damp--and the place where they were last fed was often made muddy by the nuzzling of the swine after the last kernel of the meal.

        One rainy Sunday morning, Jarm proceeded to feed the hogs as usual; and judging that the place where they were last fed was as fit a place to feed

them as any--or not caring whether it was or not--he poured down his corn upon that spot. The consequence was, it became dirty and muddy, and the animals fished for it under unfavorable circumstances. Manasseth, learning the fact, fell into a frenzy of passion. He seized the hominy pestle--a thick, solid, heavy wooden instrument, used to pound the corn in a mortar into hominy--and rushed upon Jarm. He did not strike him transversely with the instrument, which would be comparatively harmless, but bolted the end of it against his head and knocked him down. Jarm attempted to rise, but Manasseth bunted his head again with the pestle, and continued thus to bunt his head until he was helpless and insensible.

        Before his senses left him, Jarm thought from the repetition and heft of the blows, that the wretch intended to murder him, and that he was in the act of dying when he became insensible to feeling.

        Jarm awoke from death, as it were, and found himself, at evening, lying in the loom-room--his mother washing the blood from his head and face with cold water. The water restored his senses, but the pain in his head was so great, that he was nearly crazy, and he groaned sorrowfully.

        "Hush!" whispered his mother; "don't groan!--your groans will make him mad, and he will come and kill you!"

        The sound of his mother's voice fell upon his ear like a drop of comfort upon an awakened sorrow. His head was covered with wounds--the blood flowed from his ears, nose and mouth, and run upon his

face and neck--but Cherry wiped it away and staunched it to the best of her ability. He could not repress his anguish--and his mother repeated most earnestly her prayer that he would not groan; for that his groans would certainly bring on him again his mad master, and she feared he would kill him.

        "I'm almost dead now," said Jarm, "and I had rather die than suffer the pain I do!"

        "For my sake--for the sake of your poor mother--don't make a noise--don't bring him on you again--he has been drinking, and he will certainly kill you."

        Though Manasseth did not make whiskey now, and though he and his wife were under a solemn compact to let it alone, and though they were in good standing in the Church, they occasionally procured whiskey, and drank it and became partially intoxicated--but by no means as often and deeply so as before. But a small quantity of whiskey was needed to drive the malignant passions of Manasseth to the unfeeling excesses which he had just perpetrated upon the body of his slave. There was no place for compassion or reason in his head or heart on such occasions; and his unresisting and helpless bondsmen were exposed to his unbridled fury. Cherry was familiar with his symptoms, and by no means mistaken as to his present condition, or the effect of Jarm's groans upon his irascible nature. Therefore, she urged upon Jarm the utmost care not to disturb him by a groan--well knowing it would again irritate his hatred, and drive him to uncontrollable excesses.

        For the sake of his mother, Jarm suppressed his groans, though they seemed the only relief to his almost intolerable pains.

        After the evening had set in, Manasseth eat his supper and called his family and slaves around him for family worship. Manasseth and his wife had been absent all day at the Sabbath meeting. The sacred time spent in holy worship should have sufficed to cool his passions, and fitted him for the prayer he was about to make in the presence of his family and slaves.

        It was dark and still as death in the room where Jarm lay--and Cherry, that her absence might not remind the tiger of her almost dying boy, retired to the praying circle. Of course it was compulsion, not choice, that led her there--and while Manasseth was reading his Bible lesson, her ear watched intently in the direction of Jarm, to catch the least sound that might proceed from him.

        Some considerable time elapsed--the chapter was finished, and the heartless monster was paraded on his knees before his family and high Heaven in mockery of prayer, and Cherry fondly hoped Jarm would live out the desecrated moments without a moan, when she knew Manasseth would retire, and the horrid stillness be succeeded by the usual motion and noise--under cover of which she might protect her son from the dreaded passions of her master.

        The room where Jarm lay was attached to the negro house, a little distance from the habitation of Manasseth. Cherry, desirous to imprison his aching

breath, had prudently closed the door upon him, and would have closed the only aperture through which light and air entered his room, had she the means to do it.

        Manasseth had but begun his form of prayer, amid the most perfect stillness--when Cherry fancied a sound floating on the brooding silence and indistinguishable therefrom, which awakened her auricular nerves to painful intenseness. Again, and again, and again, the sound came at intervals, with increasing distinctness, until it was certain it entered the ears of the praying man, and diverted his thoughts from God to the suffering boy in the negro house. His voice was choaked--and his words, at first indicating embarrassment from distracting objects and contending emotions, were finally silenced by the overpowering devil within him, and he cut short the impious formality with an abrupt "Amen."

        Hate is love perverted; Hell, the love of angels inverted. In the act of opening his bosom to the influx of divine affections, Manasseth suffered the tempter to interpose between himself and his Maker, and set him on fire of Hell. He rose from his knees, bloated and burning with infernal fires. His anger against Jarm was swollen to a burning torrent, which rushed him in blind rage, through the darkness to the negro house, and bounding into the room where Jarm lay, he muttered--

        "I'll make you grunt for something, you black devil!"

        "Kill me, master, and put me out of pain!" groaned the boy, at the same time.

        "That is what I intend to do," said his master, grinding his teeth with rage, as he kicked Jarm with all his force against his shoulders--and he continued to kick him, sometimes stamping his heel upon his head and breast--while Jarm, unable to evade the blows, only repeated his prayer, "Do kill me--do kill me!"--his voice growing fainter and fainter--when, suddenly, a flood of light filled the room, and the cry of "Fire! Fire!" from many voices without, alarmed him. He sprang to the door, leaving the motionless and voiceless Jarm in his gore--the sight of which, by the terrific glare, stamped its horror on his memory as the Hell fires that produced it sank back to their source, and another fire, equally intense broke out from the same source, to wit, the fire of mammon. "Fire! fire! fire!" he cried, as he saw the blazing column above the top of his house, on the opposite side, spreading sparks and cinders on the dark clouds, and showering them upon every thing that was inflammable about.

        Cherry, with a pail of water in her hand, stood most conspicuous, with two or three other negroes, a little distance from the fire, when her master came up. So soon as she saw him, she made one cry of "fire!" which arrested his notice, and brought him to her.

        "It is too late," said Manasseth; "don't waste your water, but watch the sparks, and see the house and barn don't take fire. Every one of you be ready

with water, and keep your eye on the corn and wheat. Take care are of that cloth," pointing to a large quantity of coarse cloth, which Cherry had herself manufactured for the negroes' wear.

        Cherry handed her pail of water to one of the standers by, and ran to the cloth and filled her arms with it, and took it into the cloth room. The greatest confusion now prevailed. The whole family, blacks and whites, were spread in different directions about the premises, watching the falling fire, and extinguishing it when it fell in places to do damage, guided by their own discretion.

        Cherry's expedient worked to a charm. She was in agony for the life of her child. She knew that Manasseth, when he got up from his prayers, was an intoxicated madman, and that Jarm's life was no more safe than if a mad bear was springing upon him. Therefore, to divert his attention from Jarm, and to extinguish one passion by another, she set fire to a load of straw that lay on the opposite side of the house, to the intent, that, so soon as the storm which it would produce was up, she might hasten to Jarm and save his life.

        When she had deposited the cloth, she did not leave the room--which was light as day--but hastening to her bruised and bleeding boy, who lay in his blood as still as a corpse. To her great joy, she found him yet alive, but in a state which greatly alarmed her. He could not speak, and was insensible to her attentions. Again she procured water and cleansed his wounds, and took him to his bunk. After some

soothing attentions, his sensibility was partially restored, and fancying his cruel master still with him, he whispered--

        "Kill me! kill me!"

        "No, my son, you must not die--I am with you, and you shall not die," said Cherry.

        The sweet sound of his mother's voice restored him, but so great was the pain in his head and body, that he was bereft of reason--and in spite of his mother's affectionate attentions, he raved like a madman.

        "Kill me!--do kill me!" was his loud cry.

        The attention of Manasseth was too much engrossed by the fire to think of Jarm, or hear his ravings, for a long time. It was late in the night before the fire was so far extinguished that it was safe to leave it. Manasseth and his wife, children and servants watched the decaying embers and sparks, which the wind occasionally blew about--while Cherry, unminded, watched her boy, and in vain strove to quiet him. At a late hour of the night, Manasseth, now perfectly rational, approached his wife and began to enquire into the cause of the fire.

        "How do you suppose this fire came?" said Manasseth to his wife.

        "It is the visitation of God."

        "Could it be possible that any of the negroes intentionally set this load of straw on fire?"

        "If so, they did it as ministers of God," said his wife. "God is angry with us both, for breaking our solemn compact to drink no more--and is especially

angry at you, for getting drunk and beating Jarm as you did--and he would not hear you pray, and sent Jarms groans to drive you from your knees, and sent the spark into this straw to divert you from a murder, which would have kindled a fire in your soul to burn forever!"

        "I believe it," said the repenting wretch.

        "Hark!--what sound is that?" said Manasseth.

        Cherry was greatly terrified when she could not prevent Jarm's loud ravings, and hoped her master would be so occupied as not to hear him until his (Manasseth's) reason was fully restored--when she hoped his interest, if not his compassion, would be awakened for Jarm. Such was the state of things in the negro house, when the ravings of the boy reached the ears of his repenting master and mistress, as they stood by the fire and heard him cry, "Kill me!--do kill me!" &c.

        "My God!" said Manasseth, "it is Jarm still crying 'Kill me.' He thinks I am with him yet--the boy is crazy--where is Cherry?"

        "I don't know."

        "I am bound she is with him. Go in a hurry," said Manasseth, "and see how the case stands; I can't go there. Take the remaining whiskey with you--it may be useful to heal the wounds it has made. I have almost killed him, I suppose. We cant afford to loose him--he is worth a good deal of money--go, quick! I will stay here and try to make peace with God--for I verily believe he is angry with me."

        A complete change had come over Manasseth. He was in deep concern for Jarm--the horrible impression which the last sight of him made on his memory--the consciousness that he had been driven by intoxication to the verge of murder--that he had violated sacred pledges, and angered God by misusing the power which the law gave him over the person of his slave--in the light of the providence which spoke from the ashes around him, and howled in his ears from the negro house--produced an overpowering reaction, cast him into the profoundest penitence, and convulsed him with a tremor of excitement in the opposite direction. Most earnestly did the poor man beseech Heaven's mercy for himself, and help for Jarm. So great was his agony and concern, that he did not think of retiring to his bed, but waited for his wife's return, that he might learn how the case stood with Jarm.

        After a time, Mrs. Logue returned to her husband, and informed him that the boy was dangerously bruised and wounded, and insane by internal and external pains--and that he must have a physician without delay, or they must loose him.

        With all possible expedition, Manasseth sent for the doctor. In the mean time, Cherry and her mistress watched the patient, and bathed his wounds with whiskey, and tried in vain to soothe and quiet him.

        The doctor found his patient in the condition before described, and immediately took from him a large quantity of blood, gave him a soothing opiate,

which quieted him, and he fell into sleep. Cherry and her mistress watched by his side until morning.

        We will here close the details of this chapter in the slave's life. It is needless to specify the trials and watches on the part of his attendants, and the bodily and mental sufferings Jarm endured during a protracted illness, before nature assumed her place and composed his frame to her undisturbed dominion. The moral effect of these transactions upon Manasseth and his wife was decisive--at least for a time. The following day was celebrated by a new covenant between themselves and their Maker, thus:--

        "It is just a year," said Manasseth to his wife, "since the distillery was burned."

        "Yes--and just a year next Wednesday," she replied, "since we made public profession, at the camp, that we were converted to Christ."

        "In the first place, we vowed we would drink no more whiskey, and in the second that we would be true to the Lord, who had mercy on us."

        "And most unmercifully have we broken both of those vows," said Mrs. Logue.

        "We made the first vow over the ashes of the distillery, and the second at the camp," said Manasseth.

        "And now," said his wife, "we must renew them over these ashes, and confirm them at the camp on Wednesday."

        "Yes," said Manasseth, "and may the Lord have mercy on our souls."

        "But the Lord will not have mercy on us if we don't have mercy on others."

        "That is the very thing this terrible lesson has taught me," said Manasseth.

        "What is mercy?"

        "I should have thought that a very simple question, but for that blessed tract which Joseph sent us some time ago, which, in my folly, I laid on the shelf for a more convenient season. I took it down and read it this morning, and found in it the very thing I needed," said Manasseth,

        "Does it tell what mercy is?"

        "Yes--and I will read the definition given. It struck me with great force--and it seems as if I had proof of its truthfulness constantly in my inmost soul. since four o'clock this morning.

        Manasseth took up the tract and read as follows:--

        "Mercy is God in us--God is mercy itself, and love itself, and goodness itself, and they constitute his essence."

        "But if God is mercy only, how can he be just?"

        "The Book answers the question thus:--

        "A poet hath said, 'A God all mercy is a God unjust.' The sentiment is neither poetry nor philosophy. Justice is an ingredient of mercy, and cannot exist with out it. A merciful being cannot but be just. Mercy seeks the good of others with all the light it has. Infinite mercy, therefore, is infinite wisdom and infinite justice. By separating wisdom and justice, from goodness and mercy, the truthless poet adopted the absurdity of a cotemporary and degenerate theology, which dissects the indivisible God into three equal persons, and crucifies the good and merciful one to appease the anger of a just one. It was the infinite mercy that propagated himself on his own image and lived among men in the person of Jesus Christ, whose

inmost was Jehovah or Father, and whose external derived from the mother, was the Son--who possessed all the infirmities and lusts of humanity without sin--because they were overcome by the Father and the God within, to whom the Son was conjoined when the conquest, called his glorification, was complete. Thus the child prayed to the father until he was merged in him and became one in spirit with him."

        "But if God is only love and mercy and goodness, why are not all saved?--why is he angry with us when we do wrong?--why do you become drunk and cruel?--and why is Jarm beaten to a mummy, and left to groan in the negro house?"

        "Here your question is answered again," said Manasseth, taking up the tract and reading--

        "God is life itself. All men, animals and things derive their life by influx from him--the source from which all life proceeds every moment. Coming from him, it cannot be less pure than his own love, which is his life. It is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. But man's freedom perverts it to selfish uses and he thereby becomes a beast, and gives himself to the control of angry, selfish, lustful and cruel passions. It is man, not God, who changes. The latter loves alike the evil and the good. His sun and rain are shed a like on all. Good men receive his love into unperverted wills, and are like him. Bad men receive it into perverted wills, and become satans and devils. Hence, it is obvious that God, being love itself, loves his enemies, and cannot hate them, or be angry with them--for his word teaches that anger resteth in the bosoms of fools. And he further teaches us to love our enemies; and he would not prescribe a rule for us to live by which he did not obey himself. Men are led by their ruling loves to Heaven and Hell. Hell is a condition of perverted love, and

men progress into it, not because God puts them in it--but because they love its horrible evils, and choose to go into it in opposition to his love."

        "O, how truly that pictures my case! I, not God, was angry. Yes, I was in Hell yesterday--and all these evils are the result. I bless God that I am a changed man, and that he has not changed--that he loved me when I was angry and murderous--and now I pledge myself never again to drink a drop of liquor, and to love and obey my Savior. Will you join in the pledge?"

        His wife made the same pledge.

        Poor creatures! They had not begun to comprehend the depths of their selfishness, much less to look it in the face and overcome it. Conscience, which is the touch of God's finger within, had called their attention to evils they had eyes to see--but could not alarm them by the sight of still greater evils to which they were blind. They had not begun to think that their slaves were equally entitled to life, liberty and happiness with themselves--and that by holding them in slavery, they cherished in their hearts the complex of all evils, which must break forth in varied forms of evil life, and torture them with infernal fire, which all the love, and wisdom, and power of God, without their repentance, could not quench.

CHAPTER XI.

        During the year succeeding the events of the last chapter, Manasseth and his wife were measurably true to their agreement to abstain from liquor. Their attention to the forms of religion were regular, their habits generally natural and stable, and life on the plantation was as endurable as its inverted order would allow. He was a hard man in his best states, but the slaves might now anticipate their treatment, and regulate their conduct by his usual and known temper and life. The curse of their condition was more than half relieved by being disburthened of uncertainties. Jarm was treated with special indulgence, and he grew to man's strength, and became his master's most trusty and reliable slave.

        Alas for the frailty of humanity! As the year was drawing to a close, Manasseth and his wife occasionally yielded to the liquor demon, and they and their servants were in danger of sinking to their former state and habits. Those occasions were not frequent, however, and their dependents, most of the time, were in the hands of a surly, selfish man, instead of a drunken beast.

        Cherry, nor Jarm, however, during this period, suffered special injustice from his harsh temper. Indeed, the outrage upon Jarm, detailed in the last

chapter, wrought a change in his conduct towards him. He not only refrained from abusing him, but allowed him privileges and favors, as a sort of atonement for the murderous outrage. Now, for the first time, he had a hat and shoes, and a Sunday suit--which he was allowed to earn by extra labor and small trafficking on his own account. Verging on manhood, with a fine person and social temperament, he begun to feel the pride of youth, and indulge his social propensities with young companions, of both sexes, in the neighborhood.

        Though depressed and degraded beyond measure, the social instincts of the slave cannot be subdued short of the destruction of his ability and usefulness. Therefore, opportunities of social enjoyment, under harsh restrictions, are allowed from necessity. Of course such enjoyments, though eminently social and affectional, are, as a general thing, merely animal. The slave's education is the remains of destorted nature left to sensual indulgence, and farthest removed from mental or moral culture. Slavery cannot extinguish the affectional qualities God implanted in the African's bosom--though it crushes his intellect and robs him of moral motive. In the circles of rustic gaiety, for a brief hour, the negro dismisses sorrow--and though he emulates the civilities of the whites, he has no motive to regulate the indulgence which nature prompts and tyranny solicits. It is rare that the male or female slave seeks a higher level of chastity and purity than their masters. But notwithstanding those virtues are sins in slave life,

there are instances in which they are cherished in spite of education. In the slave's bosom, God's voice is not always so hushed, that its demands are disobeyed in respect to domestic relations. It is not possible, if it were profitable, for slavery to reduce the blacks to the level of the animal herds--and it is forced, therefore, by policy and economy, to obey the plan of Providence and sanction a distorted relation of husband and wife.

        Jarm had now arrived at that period when the only personal freedom allowed a slave is to debase his spirit by demoralizing instincts. Bereft of all other gratifications, he would doubtless have plunged to the bottom of the abyss, but for causes to be developed. For the last eight years he had not listened to words of kindness, friendship or compassion from a white man or woman, and was forced to regard them as enemies. His hopes had been crushed in every direction. On the verge of manhood he stood on the brink of moral desolation. But an event occurred at this time, which set him right, and rescued him from danger.

        The season of the year came around, again, when it was convenient for the slave owners to attend to religion. The fall fruits were harvested, and the immortal camp-ground was to swarm again with worshippers. It was fitted up with cabins great and small to receive them. Free negroes and poor whites, as well as slaves, had prepared their booths, and filled them with meats, and melons, and fruits, and liquors for the occasion. The poor whites and free

blacks ever look forward to it as a market for the surplus products of the little patches of land which they hold by lease or in fee, that they may have means to keep their families through the winter. The slaves look to it as a market for the products of like patches, which some of them improve, by the will of their masters, to get them extra clothing and comforts.

        Jarm was on his way to the camp, in his best attire. It was one of those beautiful autumnal mornings, in Tennessee, when the spiritual world reposes on the surface of external nature, and gives an etherial impression to each sound and scene--which surrounds the soul with a mysterious aura, and infils it with a tranquillness which forgets earth. He was alone, and precisely in that state when the mind turns from objects without to undying thoughts and things and forms which open upon the spiritual senses in the vast world within him, where the kingdom of God is.

        Little did the poor slave think--little do the rich and wise and learned think--(pardon the digression)--that they live in two worlds--the external and the internal--the natural and the spiritual; and the only reason they do not recognize the latter as real and more substantial than the former, is, because they have fallen from the spiritual state in which God placed them, into a sensualism that acknowledges nothing real that does not respond to bodily senses. Little do they think that their spiritual senses sleep, to wake when they merge from their bodies among the ever living thoughts and objects and forms which

they now regard as visionary things. Little do they think that the flowers and fields, animals, birds and insects, and all material things, are external forms of the thoughts and affections that devised and projected them--and that they will remain in the atmosphere of thought and affection, and their significance be studied as the word of God, and their qualities loathed or loved, as they correspond to things of Heaven or Hell after time and space are forgotten. All unknown to himself, Jarm was in that world where the despot's arm cannot reach, and where the free soul is left to its own undisputed wanderings.

        He had scarce entered the border of the woods which encompass the camp ground, and was out of sight of the cleared land in the rear, when he heard happy voices and sounds of horses feet behind him[.] He inferred that a cheerful party was approaching, on their way to the great gathering. The voices harmonized with the silence of the forest and his own emotions.

        He stopped a moment, to look and listen, and a lady on horse-back appeared at the bend of the path, a few rods behind him--while the voices of her companions indicated they were not far off. She was travelling on a slow gallop, evidently exhilarated by the exercise, and the soft breeze that swept the locks from her forehead and exposed a beautiful face. She was of the superior race, and of course out of the reach of Jarm's aspirations--nevertheless, he thought her the most beautiful person he had ever seen. To appearance, she was about eighteen years of age,

of graceful and full proportions, and rode her horse--of which she had perfect control--like a queen.

        Jarm stopped only long enough to daguerreotype the delightful vision upon his memory, and then passed along. In a moment she was by his side, and the slave boy with a more willing heart than ever before, raised his hat, slave fashion, to the charming apparition. She checked her horse into a walk, and in a sweet voice, which was evidently natural, compassionate and harmonious with every expression of her face, enquired:--

        "Are you going to the camp meeting?"

        "Yes, madam."

        "How far is the ground from here?"

        "About half a mile, madam."

        "I will be there in four minutes," said the girl--and she applied the whip to her spirited horse.

        At the second bound, the animal made an unusual effort to overleap a gulch in the path, and the girth of the saddle broke by the swell of his strong muscles. The girl felt the breach, and a terrible sense of danger drove the color from her cheeks. With a convulsive effort she pulled the reins upon the bounding animal, and checked him--but a motion transverse the centre of gravity slid his body from under her, and she fell, screaming with fright, into the arms of Jarm--who, quick as lightning, sprang for her security. Disburthened of his load, the horse passed on a few paces, and commenced browsing the bushes--while the fainting girl, unable to stand, clung convulsively to the bosom of her deliverer, and was

borne to a small bank by the road side, whence issued a spring, whose waters, in crossing the path, occasioned the mishap.

        With all delicacy Jarm laid his precious burden on the bank, and remembering, from his own experience, the beneficence of water in such cases, dipped his hand into the cold, pure element, and sprinkled it upon her face. The beautiful girl instantly recoved, and turned her large blue eyes upon him, with an expression of unmistakable thankfulness. By this time the other portion of the company came up, and the dilemma and the denouement were told them by the artless girl, emphasizing the part Jarm had taken in the transaction, as worthy of something more than thanks, which she expressed with evident sincerity and generous simplicity.

        It was a company of two brothers and three sisters, some older and some younger than Jarm, but not far from his age--who were on their way to the meeting. After they were informed of the facts, they warmly seized Jarm's hands, ladies and gentlemen alike, and overwhelmed him with kind emotions, which were as visible as their lips and faces. Besides, they contributed from their limited purses two dollars in cash, which they said was a trifle far be low his deserts--and begged him to take it, with the assurance that they would gladly give more, if they were prepared to do it.

        Jarm was thoroughly confounded by the naturalness, frankness, familiarity, kindness and humanity of their uncorrupted and loving hearts. They treated

him as if they had no suspicion of difference of caste and color, and made him feel that he was on the level of friendship and brotherhood with them. It was the first time in his life that he had seen the sun in that direction. So unlike anything before seen was this company of brothers and sisters--so unadulterated were they by vulgar and corrupting habitudes and passions, that they seemed more like angels than like men and women. Poor and needy as he was, the money they offered him--which in his sight was a large sum--bore no comparison in value to the soul treasures they emptied from their overflowing bosoms into his. In spite of all efforts to suppress it, the fountain within him broke and dashed its waters on his eye-lids.

        Jarm accepted the money, and the parties separarated, with mutual and undying good will. But the moral of this transaction lives to-day in Jarm. The innocence, purity, sincerity, kindness, justice and charity so transparent in his new acquaintances, impregnated the germ of his being, and it budded and swelled upwards--and aided by events hereafter related, gradually uplifted the cold and massive rock which lay upon it, and rolled it away--and broke into the free air and sun light. His life and character are much indebted to this transaction and its sequents.

        Jarm soon arrived at the exterior of the camp, among the rude saloons where refreshments are sold by poor whites and free blacks and privileged slaves, to the mixed multitude. He was in the midst of the

crowd of eaters, drinkers, gamblers, prostitutes and of every class, who swarm around these places. The most rude and lawless of the male portion of this motely mass, are the scions of the large proprietors in the neighborhood, who are the oligarchs of these ecclesiastical purlieus. Next to them in influence and power are the petty slave merchants--backed, as they are, by their masters, whose interest is to make the slave feel that his condition is preferable to that of a free black or poor white man. The free blacks and poor whites are the lowest grade of society in a slave State--and if either has advantage the other, it is so trifling, and the grade of both so contemptible, as to be unworthy of notice.

        "Glad you have come, Jarm," said a stout, fat and sleek negro, who thrust his arm through the evergreen boughs that surrounded a space of a rod of land, enclosed on all sides but one, and plentifully stored with melons, whiskey, &c.

        "What do you want of me?" said Jarm.

        "I want to get rid of that black nigger there. His stores are larger and better than mine, and he takes all my custom."

        "Well, how do you expect to get rid of him?"

        "I am determined he shall be driven off."

        "What have I got to do in the matter?"

        "I mean to set the young Massas on him--and what I want you to do is, to speak to Massa James, and get him to put Massa Charles and others upon the black rascal, and break him up."

        James was a rowdy sprig of Manasseth, and ripe

for a scrape of that kind. But Jarm was not in a state to entertain such a subject. He immediately replied:--

        "I shall do no such thing. That is Jacob, the free negro that occupies the little patch near Col. Pillow's plantation. I know him, well--he is a clever fellow--and I shall lend my hand to no such thing."

        "What business has the poor devil to come and pile up his melons by my side, as if he was somebody? Such poor scamps should keep a respectful distance, and not crowd among gentlemen--it is an insult, and he shall budge!"

        "Isaac," said Jarm, firmly and sorrowfully, "I shall do nothing to disturb that poor man. He has spent the summer to gather those stores from his little patch of land, and depends on their sale to take his family through the winter. It will be very cruel to disturb him--you must not do it. You have nobody to provide for, and are better off than he is--why, then, disturb him? I want you should let him alone to sell his things."

        "By Gippers!--I'll rout him," said Isaac. "Poor folks have no business here. There comes Massa James, Massa Charles, &c.--I'll set them on to him they will want no better fun than to use up his pumpkins."

        Massa James, Charles and two or three others row reeled into the enclosure. Isaac immediately entered into a low conversation with them, and Jarm saw they were already sufficiently liquored for a cruel frolic. Having finished their low talk, they poured

each a glass of whiskey and drank it, and with flushed faces, started for the poor colored man's booth.

        "He'll catch it," said Isaac, looking significantly at Jarm.

        "It is mean," said Jarm, "and you ought to be ashamed to injure that poor man."

        Slaveholders, especially those of this stamp and in this condition, are always mad when they have a mind to be. The rowdies bounded into the poor man's booth, seemingly in a rage, exclaiming:--

        "What are you doing here, you d----d black rascal?"

        "I'll learn you to be civil to gentlemen!" &c., &c.

        "In such like language each of the rowdies addressed the poor fellow, who was astonished by their fierceness--and in the humblest manner plead his innocence of any wrong or intention of wrong--and begged them to say what he had done to offend them or any one else. But such as they, when they propose to teach a free negro that he is beneath their slaves, don't wait to hear his supplications. One of them began to pommel him over the head and shoulders with a stick, and the others to kick and stamp upon his melons--the negro begging all the while--

        "Pray, Massa--Pray Massa!"

        In two minutes the poor fellow's fine melons, bottles and liquors were all destroyed, and his booth prostrated--and the gallant olligarchs turned away, saying:--

        "Clear out, now, you black rascal--and don't be seen about here again!"

        The poor fellow stood a moment, looking upon the ruin of his hopes and labors--with his eyes downcast, he seemed the picture of desolation. The large tears started into his eyes--and he turned and wiped them away, and retired. Jarm was deeply grieved at this injustice, and was about to proceed after the poor fellow and attempt to comfort him--when he felt a tap upon his shoulder. He turned, and saw his master at a cane's length from him, in the crowd.

        "I want to see you," said Manasseth. "Follow me."

        Jarm followed his master from the crowd, and then his master said to him:--

        "I want you to return home immediately."

        "Won't you let me stay here until evening, massa?" said Jarm, anxiously--greatly disappointed by such a command.

        "Don't make any words--go directly home, I say. I shall be there in the evening, and tell you why. I can't talk about it now."

        "The villainy perpetrated upon Jacob, and Jarm's pity and resentment thereat, immediately sank in his disappointment--and he turned sadly in obedience to his master, and retraced his steps to the Tombigbee. He was grievously downcast. He had reckoned much upon seeing his new acquaintances at the camp, and could not relinquish the idea without regret--which was aggravated by the fear that this strange order of his master boded some new calamity.

CHAPTER XII.

        Jarm was in painful suspense until the intent of his master was explained--nor did the explanation set him at rest. There was nobody at home when he arrived there, to sympathise with him. Cherry, and all hands but his mistress and the children, were absent. On the way home, the burden on his mind annihilated space and time--but there was nothing to kill time after he got there, and the moments were wofully long. He could not relieve himself of the thought that something bad was to happen to him.

        At last his master came, and Cherry also. Immediately his master told him to make ready to go the next morning to live with Mr. ----. (He shall be nameless now.) The order was given with the indifference that he would order him to feed the hogs.

        "Am I sold to Mr. ----?" said Jarm.

        "No--you will work for him until I call for you."

        "Where does Mr. ---- live?"

        "About fifteen miles from here. Put on your best clothes, do up your duds, and come to me in the morning--and I will direct you on the road."

        As a general truth, there is no confidence between master and slave in any matter relating to his sale. The slave knows, as well as the contractors, that they

are controlled by money considerations, as certainly as if they were dealing in hogs or horses. If there are exceptions to the rule, Manasseth Logue was the last man to vary from his interest in the matter of selling, mortgaging or hiring a slave, and Jarm knew it. Hence, any assurance he might give in the case, could not quiet Jarm's anxiety, which was intense.

        Bound to such a wretch, it might be supposed he would be willing to risk the consequence of an exchange of masters, upon the presumption that he would not fall into worse hands. But Jarm had no experience of other hands. He esteemed all slaveholders unjust and cruel, and did not suppose a white person could entertain a fellow feeling for a colored man, until he came upon his white friends in the last chapter--and those he considered exceptions among the entire race. Besides, he had always lived with his mother, brothers and sisters, and was bound to them by the strongest love. The African is the most affectional of all God's creatures, and the slave the most affectional of that affectional race--for the reason that the love of kindred is the only indulgence spared him--and that is spared only because slavery cannot take it away. It is a great annoyance. Manasseth's command to prepare to leave his mother, brothers, sisters and companions, and go he knew not where, touched Jarm where he was most sensitive--and he went aside and wept like a child; and his mother, brothers, sisters and companions came and wept with him. They feared a trick to get him away from them into a trap, where he might be seized and

taken to the dreadful south, as his little brother and sister were. Such fear worries the slave all the while, but most intensely when an anything unusual occurs, as in this case. He worries of it when awake, and dreams of it when asleep. It is the Hell that haunt and tortures and shapes his spirit into an embodied fear, that startles and trembles at every point.

        Of course Jarm's case required little preparation. In the morning, after breakfast, he packed up his working clothes, and appeared before his master in his best suit, according to order, and said:

        "I have come, massa."

        "Take this pass and go to Mr. --'s. He lives about fifteen miles from here."

        He then gave him directions as to the road. It was the same road he travelled the day before, to the woods where the camp was, and there he was to cross the track of his kind young white friends. He had hoped, when he found the direction he was to go, that he might fall into their path, and perhaps see some of them on the way. But that was eclipsed by the order to cut their path at right angles. His master also told him to make enquiries of anybody he might meet after passing that road, and they would direct him.

        "Go there directly--don't stop by the way--I shall hear from you to-morrow morning. Your new master will be looking for you, and if you are not there by two o'clock, he will be after you, and call you to strict account--and I shall, too."

        "How long am I to live with Mr. ----?" said Jarm.

        "I don't know--it is uncertain. I shall come after you one of these days."

        These were designed for the last words of the hard hearted uncle to his sad and outraged nephew on this occasion. Jarm returned to the negro house, where were his mother, brothers, sisters and companions, prepared to take a final leave of him. With aching hearts they clung together and wept together, until their savage master broke in upon them with his slave whip, and laid it over their bodies indiscriminately--and drove Jarm into the road upon his journey.

        Of course he left his friends with no good will to slavery. Could he have taken his kindred with him, he would gladly have gone anywhere out of the reach of all slave-holders. Every day of his life repeated the lesson of unbearable wrongs, and much as he loved his kindred and friends, he had long since resolved to leave them to the care of Providence if a chance of escape occurred. His eye was ever open in that direction--but all was dark around him now. Could he have seen the path to freedom though clouds and darkness covered it ever so densely, he was in a mood to rush into it. But he could see nothing. He knew the north star, and that freedom lay that way, --but there was no light on its path. All was black as night. He knew darkness was light to the human beasts that guarded the negro's path to freedom, and that he was as liable as other runaways he had seen

to stumble upon them, and be brought back and tortured and sold to the cotton fields.

        It was a heavy heart he took with him that morning--and all alone as he was, it drew around him dark shadows. But dark though it was without, the life of his childhood stirred in him, and like a morning star, inspired his sickly hopes. He could see nothing externally but the cold walls of his prison house. His case was sad indeed.

        For three long hours he dragged his heavy chains. They had never felt so heavy as they did that morning. He came to the road where his young white friends turned into the woods the day before. It was ten miles from his starting point, and he was weary and thirsty and heart sick. The spring which revived the frightened girl was but a few rods off, and he went to it, drank of its cold, fresh water, and sat down for a moment's rest and reflection.

        The place was identified with the persons, transactions and sentiments of the previous day. The natural scenery was beautiful--but it was dead, and and cold, and unmeaning, and unnoticed, in the presence of the original scene, which opened to his mental eye in all its parts, significance and freshness. Jarm saw nothing but the interview of the day before, and that stirred the depths of his soul. For the moment he was entranced by it, and knew not that he was in the body or out of it. He stretched himself at full length on the green sward by the pure fountain, and the circumstantials of that interview passed before him. Plainly as before he heard again

the same happy voices and sounds of horses' feet, and saw kind and joyous faces about him. But his natural senses soon felt the touch of material objects, and he awoke to see the same natural and material faces about him, radiant with kindness and delight upon finding him so unexpectedly.

        Jarm immediately rose to his feet and took off his hat, as is the custom of slaves in the presence of white persons.

        "Put on your hat, my friend--we will not allow you to take off your hat to us, unless we take our hats off to you."

        Jarm bowed confused--but they insisted he should put on his hat, and he did.

        "How happened it we did not see you at the camp?" said two or three voices at a time.

        "I went to the camp, but my master immediately sent me home."

        "Then you are a slave?" said the artless girl who met with the mishap.

        "Yes, madam."

        "How sorry I am for you--my father will never own a slave."

        Jarm did not reply.

        "You made no effort to find us at the camp, then?"

        "I thought much of seeing you at the camp. It was my intent to make it my first business to find you--but so soon as I arrived I was ordered home."

        "We were all anxious to find you--we looked everywhere through the grounds yesterday and to-day to find you--and as the meeting was to be dismissed

at three o'clock to day, and we were obliged to return to help our father and mother, who left on important business yesterday morning before we arrived--we gave up all hope of seeing you, and are most happy now to find you here. But how came you here--and where are you going?"

        "I am going to Mr. ----'s, about five miles from here, to work a time for him."

        "What!" exclaimed all of them.

        "Here is the pass my master gave me," said Jarm, putting it in the hand of one of the company. "He gave me this pass, and directed me to go to the house of Mr. ----, and work for him until he called for me--and as I did not know the way from this spot, he directed me to make inquiries of whosoever I should meet after I crossed this place, and they would direct me--and I shall be pleased if you will tell me the way."

        They all exclaimed at a time, "Mr. ---- is my father, and you are going to our house!--how happy we shall be!"

        Jarm was confounded, and for a moment silent, then he inquired:--

        "Have you any colored people at your plantation?"

        "None," said one of the young men. "Our father and mother work themselves, and we work. With the help of the sons and occasional hired help, father does all the field work--and with the help of her daughters, our mother does all the house work. We have nobody to attend to but ourselves, and have plenty of time for study and amusement. We are

very glad if you are to live with us. If you are as good as we believe you to be, we will share and share alike in our labors and pleasures. But how come it about?--let us hasten home and find out about it."

        Jarm knew not what to say in such unusual circumstances. Nor did he say or do anything. He stood confounded, thrilled and mute. Overjoyed at the turn of things, he dared not give expression to his feelings. He yielded passively to the circumstances, and was translated as in a dream of delight to the plantation of Mr. Preston.

        Hitherto we have left a blank for the name of the gentleman to whom Jarm was consigned. We have filled the blank with a fictitious name. The reason for so doing is, the persons are real persons, and the transactions to be related, however fabulous they may look to the reader, are true in substance and matter of fact.

        For aught that is known, all the parties are now living. They were the kindest and best people Jarm ever found anywhere. The parents he loved as his parents--the brothers as his brothers--two of the sisters as his sisters, and the other he loved better than a sister. Public opinion at the North nor at the South would sanction the intimacy, familiarity and affection which grew up between Jarm and Alice, (the girl Jarm saved from falling,)--chaste and delicate and refined as an angel's love, and known and approved by her brothers and sisters though they were. It is because this record may be read by their friends and acquaintances--and we sincerely hope it may--

that we withhold their real names--that their generous and noble natures may not suffer from the distorted public opinion of the country. Nor would these delicate secrets be spoken at all, but to illustrate the respect to color in a slave land--and for the still more important reason, that the intimacy, familiarity and affection that grew up between these young people, and especially between Jarm and the beautiful Alice, cultivated his self-respect--brought forth the manly qualities of his nature--overcame every tendency to gross indulgence--brought him into love with virtue, chastity, purity and religion--refined his manners--elevated his aspirations, and armed him for the unseen trials and conflicts that were before him.

        We name these young persons John, Charles, Susan, Alice and Charlotte Preston. On their return, they took a path transverse the one which entered the forest, and thus undeceived Jarm as to the direction of their habitation.

        "Here is a singular case," said Alice to her father on their arrival. This stranger met me in the woods, and saved my neck from being broke--and you, without knowing the fact, immediately take him home to be one of the family."

        "What!" said Mr. Preston.

        Alice then related to her father and mother her peril in the forest, and the service rendered by Jarm on the occasion, together with the particulars that followed.

        The affections of the father kindled at the recital--

he embraced his daughter fondly, and stretched out his hand to Jarm.

        "Welcome, my good fellow," said he. "I little thought I was providing for the deliverer of my child when I took a conditional assignment of you, yesterday, from your master."

        Jarm bashfully and awkwardly yielded his hand to the warm and hearty grasp of his new master. He was quite unprepared for it, and knew not how to behave. The act was in tone with the treatment from the children--and though he shrank from the familiarity--its earnestness, sincerity and kindness thrilled through his nerves.

        Each of the young persons now took part in the conversation in lively terms--giving some fact or feeling they wished to express--while Jarm stood a silent, confused, awkward and delighted listener.

        Mr. Preston was a red haired gentleman, of middling stature, and about fifty years of age. His frame was strong and healthy, his forehead high, his complexion light, his eye mild, bright and searching, and his countenance marked with sincerity, kindness, mental activity and energy. His appearance and address convinced the stranger at once that he valued public opinion only in subordination to principle--and though his temperament was ardent and active, he was little influenced by the fashion of society around him.

        Mrs. Preston, also, might be taken for about forty-five years of age, of dark-brown hair and face, of robust habit--gentle, affectionate and confiding, and

evidently marked with the simplicity of a country which carefully avoided a mixture with the world.

        These people made their own society, educated their own children, and did their own work. Their religion was as peculiar as other things about them. They were educated Methodists, and attended Methodist meetings--nevertheless, their opinions and lives were quite independent of sects and creeds. Their domestic and social habitudes, as well as their labors and aims, were evidently obedient to interior forces that the people around them knew nothing about, and cared not to know. The centre and circumference, and every part of their religious philosophy, was use,--use to others, and use to self for the benefit of others, was the beginning and end of their creed.

        "God's kingdom," said Mr. Preston, "is a kingdom of uses, and is spiritual--that is, it is within us,--in the affections, the understanding, and the will. The human body, as a whole, corresponds with it as a whole--and the parts of the body to all the parts of that kingdom. Each part of the latter, like the parts of the body, works for every other part. The brain labors for the foot, and the foot for the brain--and each part for every other part, in perfect obedience to the law of heaven, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Every muscle and part of the body (which is an image of God's body,) is performing uses for its neighboring muscles and parts. And so every inhabitant of Heaven, which is but a muscle thereof, and every society of Heaven, which is but a combination of muscles thereof, work, not for themselves,

but for every other person and society in conformity to the aforesaid law of charity. That law is the basis principle on which all nature and all Heaven reposes--the law of all laws--the soul of God's government of both Heaven and Hell. If you wound your flesh, God within, is in instant effort to heal the wound. If you wound your spiritual body by sin, he is in instant effort to accelerate repentance, or a return to the law of charity, which is its only cure. God is love, and he works by love in Hell as in Heaven. He loves his enemies, and it is this principle which makes enemies neighbors, and works for their good--that keeps in motion and life the material and spiritual universe."

        Such a man, of course, yielded nothing to the claims of slavery, and only conformed to its externals, to such extent, as was consistent with his residence in a neighborhood of slave-holders. Of course there was no negro house on his plantation; but the family residence, though made of logs, seemed to Jarm a palace; for as yet he had seen only log houses. The number, convenience and neatness of the rooms and furniture, plain as they would appear to him now, surpassed his then conceptions of architectural excellence and provision for family comfort. It was surrounded with a green court yard, which was enclosed, and separated from a garden in the rear by a neat picket, and ornamented with flowers and choice shrubbery and fancy and fruit trees.

        "All for use," said Mr. Preston. "I would have nothing in my house, or on the heritage my Heavenly

Father gives me that is not useful. The useful only is beautiful. So it is in God's great home and domain, and our affections should copy their features and provisions in the little world we make for ourselves. What is useful represents charity to the neighbor, and is a correspondence of Heaven. What is not useful, represents self, and is a correspondence of Hell."

        We are particular to give the character of this man, his family and possessions, because, among them Jarm's thoughts and affections first felt genial influences, and began to take on a new life.

        As near as he can judge, there were about sixty acres of cleared land in Mr. Preston's farm, surrounded by an unbroken forest. How much of that forest belonged to it he knows not. In approaching the messuage for a quarter of a mile, it seemed to him that he was leaving cultivated fields in the rear, and going into the bowels of the wilderness. The sun was completely intercepted by the frost-bitten foliage which shed its cold shadow on his track. The farm was a sunny spot in the dark woods. It broke upon his view like the light of the morning, when one awakes from sleep. The contrast of light and shade was more than equalled by the contrast of the industrial picture before him with that he left behind. The fields were perfectly and neatly cleared and fenced--the pastures and meadows green and beautiful, and finely stocked--the orchards of apples and peaches, some of which still hung on the branches, were a treat to the eye as the fruit was to the taste.

Nothing was neglected--everything cared for and truly spoke of use.

        To his companions, these beautiful surroundings awoke the sensation of home scenes only--but they came upon Jarm's soul like a vision of paradise, and he could not help whispering to himself--"O that my mother, brothers and sisters might live here with me and these good people forever!"

CHAPTER XIII

        Jarm's arrival at Mr. Preston's was beginning a a new life to him. All the time he lived with Manasseth, he had been driven along from day to day by dread of physical suffering, and the hope of escape from it. His affections were not allowed a moment's repose. It was ever a fearful looking for of outrage of some kind, attended by an impracticable determination not to bear it. His highest aim was to dodge the lash of a tyrant--his daily prayer, that his mother, sisters and brothers might not be subjects of new wrongs. So habited was he to wrongs, that he met them without disappointment, and endured them without complaint. Steadily looking for an opportunity "to stake his life on any point to mend it or

git rid on't"--without an effort on his part the scene was changed, and his affections found a home. Kind hearts and smiling faces greeted him in the morning, met him at noon, and blessed him at night.

        "Your name is Jarm?" said Mr. Preston.

        "Yes, master."

        "You must not call me 'master,--call me Mr. Preston. Well, you have come to labor with me a spell--I don't know how long. If you do well, you will live as well as the rest of us. I hope and believe we shall like you. We shall have to show a deference to the habits of the country. I never owned slaves, though I occasionally hire them. You will have a table in the same room with us, where you will take your meals; but you must go to work and make your own house to live in. Your table will be as well provisioned as ours, and the goodness of your house will depend on your taste, skill and desire. Do you know how to make a log house?"

        "Yes, master."

        "You call me 'master,' again. I am no man's master--you forget. Well, you shall have a team and all necessary implements and help--but you will do the hewing, chopping and fitting, alone. Remember it is for yourself alone--and yet it will be well to make it sufficiently large for two or three others. While suiting present use, it is well to regard future convenience. You are used to team and tools, of course?"

        "O yes, sir."

        "Here is the place for your house, and yonder the

oxen--you will find tools in the barn. Your first business is to build this house. Being at work for yourself, you will need no overseer--and now come to breakfast."

        This conversation occurred on the morning after Jarm's arrival. The remark about his being his own overseer, was said with a significant smile, as Mr. Preston turned and walked to the house, and Jarm followed him.

        Jarm found a small table set for himself, apart from the family table, in the same room. It was covered with linen white as snow, on which was a plate, knife and fork, coffee cup and saucer, milk and sugar.

        "You will sit here," said Mrs. Preston, addressing Jarm with a pleasant smile, and placing her finger on the little table at the same time.

        The family placed themselves around the large table, and Jarm sat down at the little one. They then bowed their heads while the father repeated a brief prayer, of which the Lord's prayer was much the largest part. When the prayer was concluded, the two oldest young ladies brought the bacon and potatoes and coffee to the table, and at the same time divided a portion to Jarm from the main dishes, and poured out his coffee.

        There were no little ones in this family. All were old enough to take a part in its sociables. Indeed, their religion cultivated the social as the means of ultimating good affections. The shadows which popular religion too often shed on the innocent enjoyments which come up spontaneously in the path of

life, were never seen by them. According to Mr. Preston, men build their own life, and he taught his children that the life they loved at death, they would always delight in. If it was bad, God would never interfere with it, only as he now does to prevent injury to others--that God's providence and government in the spiritual, were the same as in the natural world. "Men change their states," said he. "God and his laws never change, in this world, or in that."

        Educated as Jarm was, his condition was very embarrassing. He had been taught, in the severest school, that he was a thing for others' uses, and that he must bend his head, body and mind in conformity to that idea, in the presence of a superior race--and that it was treason to aspire to the condition he was then in. Of course he never believed in anything of the sort, but he supposed white people did. Whether they did or did not, it was all the same--for they ever acted upon that absurdity, and he was compelled to shape his life to it. Therefore, he knew not how to act in this new condition. He would have been glad to slink away with his breakfast to a private place, that he might eat it out of sight of those kind people. Hungry as he was, he hardly knew how to eat in such circumstances.

        "Take hold, my boy," said Mr. Preston. "You have a job that requires strength, and you will be good for little if you don't eat. A man's breakfast is a part of his day's work--and if he don't do that up well, he will be likely to come short in the other

parts. Remember, you are at work for yourself to-day, and you had best make a good beginning."

        Jarm received the words as a command, and commenced eating. The charm being broke, he lost his reserve in the conversation of the family, who he supposed were occupied with themselves alone, and he ate heartily. His inference was precisely what their kindness designed--but so soon as he had finished his coffee, Alice was by his side filling up another cup--a fact which showed that their seeming inattention was a benevolent regard to his embarrassment, and that he had been really kindly watched. Thus he found that instead of being a waiter upon the family, they were in fact waiting upon him. This inversion of the rule of his life did not please him--but there was no help for it for the present.

        Mr. Preston was a plain man, and in common acceptation, uneducated. Yet a stranger hearing him converse, might esteem him learned, and on some abstruse subjects--and particularly the philosophy of religion--class him with the profound in wisdom and science. He had but few books, and they treated mainly of such matters, and he studied them attentively. They professed to explain the literature of the Bible and the philosophy of Christianity, as taught by a great master. They represented the Bible as a revelation of God's thoughts, affections and intents, in the creation, preservation and regeneration of mankind. Its literature, they claimed, was hieroglyphical, symbolic and correspondenital, a mode of writing adopted by the Ancients when things

were known and visible representations of thoughts and affections before letters were known or needed. Every tree and plant and flower--every mountain, hill and valley and wilderness--every stream, lake, sea and ocean--every animal, bird, fish and insect--every other thing, simple or complex in nature, was an expression of a divine idea, which was read and understood by the most ancient people--as they are now and ever will be by angels, who "see thoughts in the trees, sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and God in everything."

        "God's Bible," said Mr. Preston, "is in his own language, not in man's. It is composed of pictures of his ideas, translated from external nature. Its letter, thus translated, is of course human--and the secret of its meaning is not in the words, for they express men's thoughts and affections--but in the symbols, historicals and parables described, which are God's letters and words, and express his thoughts and affections."

        Mr. Preston's books maintained that the Bible has an external and literal, and at the same time an internal and spiritual meaning--that the internal dwells in the external, as the soul in the body--that it is divine--that it is God. The Apostle had his eye on this fact when he said, "The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive." And again--the whole Biblical literature and philosophy is expressed by Paul in these words, "The invisible things of him, from the foundation of the world, are clearly seen--being understood by the things that are made." Not the letter,

then, but "the things that are made," infold the spirit and intent and life of the word. The most ancient people were born into a knowledge of this science of things, called by them "the science of correspondence." As they became sensuous, or in other words, aspired to know good and evil through their senses, and to be governed by their own king, they invented and adopted their own literature and laws. That is, as they gradually fell from the state in which God placed them, they gradually lost that science. It lingered long in Assyria and Egypt, and finally disappeared, and was buried in scientific inventions adapted to a race whose spiritual senses were closed, and who received knowledge through their natural senses only--whose thoughts and aims were outward --who saw the exterior earth and heavens without a perception of the sublime thoughts and affections that gave birth to them, and to which they correspond as language does to thought--and which, with their inhabitants, are a complex embodiment of the divine mind. Mr. Preston's books professed to reveal this lost science, and open the way to the internal truth of the word--making the clouds, that cover it and refract its rays so that they fall in different angles on mental eyes, glow with glorious light--and bend and blend various opinions by the law of charity into the beautiful bow of Heaven. Indeed, the "bow in the cloud" is a hieroglyph expressing that idea.^*

        "Now, Children," said Mr. Preston, "You have told us some things about your meeting expedition, we should like to know if there is anything more you can give us."

        "Beside the mishap," said one, "we had a beautiful time on the road--the birds sang, and we sung and laughed, and enjoyed ourselves--and converte the occasion and the rich sunlight to our uses. 'Everything for use,' you say."

        "Very well--it becomes us to harmonize with nature. The joy of the birds comes of the fact that they are in harmony with the laws of order. They in their heaven, and may sing and be happy. True joy, in man or other creatures, is the fruit of harmony with the divine plans. When you are in unity with the divine heart, as the birds are, you will be as happy as you can be--because you will delight in divine uses."

        "The little birds have nothing to do but sing and be happy," said Lotte, a bright girl of fourteen, and the youngest of the family. "Every thing is provided for their support and comfort, and they have the sweetest sun to play in."

        "Those externals are essential to their comfort, and of course, to their joys--but do you suppose their joys are derived from those external things?"

        "Certainly--their little bodies being well and needing nothing, how can they be other than happy?"

        "Ah, my dear child, your conclusion is quite natural, and no doubt is approved of popular science and christianity--but I am satisfied it is a mistake.

These external things which appear to make the birds happy, are only conditions for the reception of divine love--and it is the influx of divine love itself into those conditions, which makes them happy, and makes them play and sing in the trees and skies. Those conditions are dead things, and impart no feeling--it is the life within them that makes their joy--and inasmuch as that life inflows from God's life (which is love) every moment, when the conditions for its reception are perfect, therefore their happiness is perfect. It is divine love, or life, stirring in all their internal receptivities which creates their joys. It comes from internal perception and life, and cannot come of external matter, whatever its conditions. Don't you see it must be so?"

        "I must admit that what you say is very natural," said Lotte; "but does the same rule apply to men?"

        "Of course it does. God has but one law of life, and all life flows from him constantly."

        "Then what is the difference between man and other animals?"

        "The difference is precisely this--man is born with a faculty to know, and an inclination to love, but without either knowledge or love. Other animals are born into their particular love, (which is their life) and into all the knowledge necessary for the gratification, of that love--and of course cannot progress beyond such knowledge and love. The implantation of knowledge and love at birth sets boundaries to progression--but the implantation of faculties and inclinations only, sets no such boundaries--

therefore, a man is capable of growing more and more perfect in science, intelligence, and wisdom forever:--that is, he is capable of growing more and more a man forever. But a beast must remain in the knowledge and love which nature prescribed for him. His intellect attains its perfection with his body. The spider makes his web--the bee her hive--the bird her nest--and the fox his hole, with as much science the first time they attempt it, as at the hundredth--while man begins in absolute ignorance, with only the faculty and inclination to learn, and therefore progresses through eternity."^*

        "There is another important difference, it seems to me," said Susan. "The bird and beast being limited to their particular knowledge and affection, which they possess in perfection, they of coarse have neither freedom or rationality--they are shut up, in their own state, and can by no possibility change it. Their particular love and knowledge are the internal condition of their lives. Not only can they not be happy, but they cannot live in any other. On the other hand, men are gifted with freedom and rationality--and make and change their spiritual states as they will. Therefore, the latter are responsible for their spiritual conditions, while the former are not."

        "Well said, Susan," said the father. "I would

have said the same as an inference from what I did say--but you have happily done it for me. I only add--men are responsible, not for life itself, which flows into them from God, but for the quality of their lives. Not so with other animals--they do not have ideas and think as do men. Their acts flow spontaneously from the influx of life or love from the spiritual world; that influx is called instinct. Their heads and brains, the habitations of life, are so formed that the spiritual influx is precisely adapted to the particular natural, sensual, and corporal love which belongs to each."

        "I see where you are coming," said Lotte. "The birds and animals are vessels, or organs, shaped for the reception of the natural love or life peculiar to each--which flows into them from the spirit world. And man, also, is an organ or vessel to receive the influx of life--which he shapes as he likes. Is this influx what is meant in the Bible, by God's breathing into man's nostrils 'the breath of life,' and 'he became a living soul?' "

        "Certainly," said Mr. Preston. "In a normal and regenerate state, man is an image and likeness of God, and receives in finite proportions, all the qualities or attributes of his Heavenly Father. Unlike other animals, he has freedom, and therefore power to close up some of the avenues through which some of the qualities of the divine life enters his soul, and so becomes a devil or beast, as the Revelator calls him. He excludes a portion of the qualities essential to humanity, and becomes a personified self love, like an

inferior animal, and lives only for its gratification. Such are the covetous--the licentious--the drunken, and all other profane persons."

        "Men, then, form their own lives or loves," said Lotte, "but other animals have theirs given them."

        "Yes--but I want you to understand that God's life or love is equally present with the evil and the good--the good receive him, and he enters and abides with them in his fullness--whereas, the wicked exclude him from a portion of their habitation, and become monsters, not men."

        "My life, then, is not my own," said Lotte.

        "By no means," said the father. "It seems so--but it is not so. Life or love is uncreated. The Lord only hath life in himself--he, therefore, only gives life. Hear what he said:--"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.' Were your life your own, you would be independent of God, and could live without him--could you not?"

        "Why, yes--but if life is uncreated, then all the life of the world flows into it from God--that is, if I understand you correctly, God's life or love flows into minerals, vegetables, animals, men and angels--all of which, in their external forms, are organs receptive of life from the spirit world. Indeed, the universe is a complex receptacle of divine love."

        "Certainly,--you remember the Lord said--'I am the life,'--'he that followeth me shall have the light of life.' And how John said--'In him was life, and the life was the light of men.'"

        "How is it that minerals have life? I thought stones, rocks and the like were merely dead matter."

        "So the philosophers have taught; they find their premises in nature, and to them 'the things of the spirit' 'are foolishness.' They walk by sight, and not by faith--that is, by the senses, not by internal and rational principle. They recognize only the external forms and properties of stones, rocks, &c., which affect the senses. They have not attempted to find the invisible forces which hold them together. The stones and rocks and mountains are held together by God's laws, as truly as the universe. Those laws are spiritual and invisible, and have force from the divine presence and mind. Every particle of matter, therefore, is vital with the Omnipresent and Omnipotent life of Deity. In the antediluvian literature--which is the literature of the word--a stone stands for truth--a rock for the Lord himself--and a mountain, for the highest spiritual state. Hence, Christ is called 'the corner stone,' and the place where God dwells is uniformly called a mountain. The foundations of Heaven are living stones. Since you are so interested in this conversation, I would be glad to extend it. Indeed, I am as much interested as you are," said the father--"but our day's work is before us--our co-laborer, Jarm, has finished his meal, and we have finished ours. The food we have taken into our bodies and spirits, needs digestion, and the best help for digestion is work."

        "There is one question I would like to ask," said Lotte.

        "Put it, then--we must be brief."

        "If all animals and birds correspond to affections of the mind, how are we to know what those affections are?"

        "Your question has a large circumference. I will briefly say--before the fall, every thing in nature was seen to be the immediate outbirth of the divine mind, and to be 'very good,'--every mineral, vegetetable, insect, fish, bird and beast was, and was seen to be, an expression, each, of a thought--one of God's thoughts, and of his love, too--for there is no thought without an indwelling affection. At that time, men had as free use of their spiritual faculties as of their natural faculties, and could see not only the external and material quality of things, but their internal and spiritual qualities. When they saw a flower, a tree, or an animal, they not only knew it was an expression of one of God's thoughts, but they knew what that thought was. They did not need letters and books then. They are induced by the fall. The earth and the heavens were radiant with truth. The light and charities of Heaven were seen in 'the things that are made,' and sparkled before their eyes like precious stones of the New Jerusalem."

        "Is this what is meant by God's bringing all the cattle and fowls to Adam, and his naming them?"

        "Precisely--to name a thing in antediluvian language, was to express its quality or essence. Names of men, or animals, or any other thing, corresponded to and expressed quality only, in the infancy of the

world--and men saw the quality in the name as well as in the thing itself. The Bible is written in that language. Hence, Christians are said to be 'baptized into the name of the Father,' &c. Hence the expression--'A cup of cold water in the name of a Disciple'--'A prophet in the name of a Prophet'--'Justified in the name of Jesus'--'A name above every other name'--'Whose names are in the Book of Life'--'Keep through thine own name,' and a thousand like expressions. Hence, also, the different woods and precious metals in the ark, the tabernacle and temple--all expressive of spiritual and celestial goodness and truth, qualities of the Lord. Hence, too, the animals sacrificed by the Jewish code.^*

        * The clean animals and birds offered or sacrificed, represented pure and innocent affections. The ceremony of sacrificing them was a lesson in an ancient language, that we should hold the affections symbolized sacred, and live them, in our actions and lives. The Ancients knew well enough that God "desired mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. (Hos. vi. 6. Math. ix 13. xii. 7.) But the Jews were so thoroughly sensuous that they lost all the significance and intent of the sacrifices, and thought God was pleased with the literal transaction only. And there are some Christians who have no higher opinion of those ancient ordinances than the Jews had, and really believe they are done away by the advent of Christ--and are of no use either in their letter or intent. Whereas, in truth, they are as binding now as they ever were. "Love God and thy neighbor, for that is the law and the prophets," is only a transcript or translation of those ancient enactments.

        Jarm heard all this talk, but it was Greek to him. He had been bred in darkness, and his faculties were all undeveloped. This was his first day with his

new master, and it seemed to him as if he had been taken away from devils and placed in Heaven. He had formed no higher conception of God and happy beings than this family. If their talk, which he had just heard, was beyond his ken, he could feel the aura of their pure and blessed spirits, and wished no higher enjoyment or better companions.

        Never did mortal man go to a day's work with greater good will than Jarm did that morning. Mr. Preston went with him into the woods, and described the limits within which to fell his timber.

        "I make no blows upon the forest," said he, "except where I intend to clear. To do so, would be to invite the birds and winds to sow wild grass and weeds in the openings, and expose the standing timber to the tempest--it is bad farming."

        Jarm marked a few trees with his eye, and fell to chopping. Few men in Tennessee had a stronger arm than his, or could wield an axe with greater skill. Mr. Preston stayed with him to witness the beginning of his work, and then left him, with the charge to trim the tops of the trees and pile the brush.

        He was not disposed to be long in getting the timber to the site of his habitation--for the treble reason that he wished to confirm the favorable opinion his new master had of his fidelity and ability, and to shorten the period of his separation from his co-laborers, for whom he cherished great respect and attachment--and for the further reason that he wished to come into the possession and enjoyment of a house

he was to call his own, and use as his own. Of course, with his ability and means, the materials were on the spot without delay, and he was busy hewing and fitting them for building.

        "Jarm, you don't do that work as well as you should do it," said Mr. Preston, as he was chipping and hewing the logs for his house.

        "Why, sir?"

        "Can't you finish it off nicer than that?"

        "O yes--but this is nice enough for a poor slave.'

        "No, no, no,--you should do work for your own use as nice and well as if you were doing it for my use. Remember it as long as you live--be as particular to do your work nice for yourself, as for me, or any one else. Never slight anything. I say this for your life-long benefit. Will you remember it?"

        "O yes, sir."

        This was a memorable lesson to Jarm. It had a revolutionary effect on him. He bad been bred to believe anything good enough for a black man--that his condition allowed nothing to taste or ambition, and very little to comfort--but here was a concession that the poor slave had the same claim to any and all these as his rich master. It was seed sown in his understanding, that set him to reasoning in a way that awakened and encouraged his self-respect, and made him begin to think not only, but to feel that he was a man. He thought of that remark all day--went to sleep with it in his mind--and there it still is, strong in its growth and rich in its fruits. It awakened a consciousness of his individuality. It was a concession

to his manhood, and he felt more and more that he was a man as he dwelt on it.

        It is scarcely necessary to say Jarm's work was no more slighted. The small house was soon finished, with a skill and neatness that surpassed his master's house. The growth of a young and unbroken spirit is rapid when the weight that crushed it is taken off. A few days, only, sufficed to give Jarm's body and mind a manly shape and bearing--and he entered his humble cabin with a keener exaltation and greater gratitude than a monarch feels when he takes possession of a new palace. Here his bed was placed, and other things for his comfort, as if he had been of the blood of the Prestons.

        When he sat about the job, he wanted to complete it, that he might retreat to it from his friends and be at ease. But his nature was eminently susceptible and social, and ere he finished it, he was not only at home in this dear family, but his soul was knit to them all by reciprocal kind feelings and growing intimacy--and the thought of leaving the same roof over night, even, was unpleasant.

CHAPTER XIV.

        Though the Prestons had a qualified title to Jarm, and, in contemplation of slave law, he was a thing for their uses, nevertheless, he was indulged no less than the sons. Do unto others as you would have others do to you, was the rule of life to the parents and to the children. Under such influences, Jarm's spirit quickly developed into manhood. The sense of servitude and danger which bent his soul and body to degrading forms, passed away, and he stood erect in the manly proportions of his nature. On Sabbath and holydays, when young and old appeared in their best attire, he was dressed as well as the rest, and rode by their side to the meetings. The religion of the Preston's did not condemn the sects as wicked.

        "It is not heresy, but an evil life that is condemned. A man may err in doctrine and live a life of charity--and he may know all truth and live an evil life. It is the life that determines his religious qualities and state. Worship is not attention to Sabbath and religious forms or ordinances--it is obedience of the commands--it is life."

        Such were their views of the substance and forms of religion and religious worship. They attended religious assemblies, therefore, not in respect to creeds

and sects, but in respect to the charity which is the soul of all religion.

        It is said above, that Jarm rode with the Prestons to the meetings, but it was not every Sabbath that they all rode, or that they all attended meetings. Whether he rode or walked with them, though a slave in law, he became master of ceremonies in fact. He was particularly attentive to his personal appearance and address, and no body-servant handed a lady from his palm to the saddle with greater ease or grace. The slaveholders looked upon him as a liveried slave--the brothers embraced him as a boon companion, the sisters admired his personal appearance and kind attentions. Caste, and pride, and prejudice of color were given to the winds, in the house and in the field. Nor did they make any concessions to slavery in their intercourse and habits, except that Jarm eat and slept separate from the family. The Preston family and estate were a little commonwealth by themselves, which shed their influence upon society, but received nothing in return. No family in that region was more respected, few more wealthy, and none so distinguished for morals and happiness.

        It was not strange, therefore, that Jarm was happy in his new condition. He was living, in the order of Providence, upon an oasis in the great Southern Desert. Alone, among white people, his color, instead of excluding sympathy, attracted it, and was a guarantee for the freedom of his faculties and rights. The children had even less regard than their parents for southern sentiment and society. The parents felt their

pressure and influence; they did not. For the sake of safety, the former were compelled to respect their forms, while the latter, educated in the domestic circle, found nothing without that circle so genial to their young hearts, and therefore lived and loved it, thoughtless and fearless of the hostile elements that ruled and ruined society around them.

        "You will go without your dinner to-day," said Susan playfully to Jarm, on a time when Mr. and Mrs. Preston were absent, "if you don't eat at our table."

        "Yes," said Alice, "and supper too, and breakfast and dinner to-morrow."

        "Why, you have not set my little table to-day. No matter, I will be a good boy, and wait upon you, and eat when you have done. It will be a pleasure to me."

        "You shall do no such thing," said John; "come along and sit here and eat with us. We will adopt our own customs now father and mother have left us to our own responsibilities."

        "I would do nothing to displease them."

        "Neither would we," said one and all, "but acting on their principle in a thing like this, we should displease them, did we not live out our own sympathies, wishes, and convictions when left to ourselves."

        "How is that?" said Jarm.

        "Take a seat here and we will talk the matter over."

        "I submit to authority of course," said Jarm as he smiled and took a seat between John and Charles at the table.

        "We will have a fine time now the government is in our hands," said John.

        "Of course we will," said Susan.

        "And now let us eat, and talk, and each one free their own mind," said John, as he fell to carving the meat and handing it around.

        "But don't we always free our minds?" said Lottie.

        "Why yes; we are pretty free to speak and do what we think is about right; that is, we are."

        "Who then is not free?"

        "To be frank, with great respect to father, I think he lacks a little freedom."

        "How is that?"

        "I believe if he acted his opinions and wishes he would not have one table for us and another for Jarm."

        "Why then does he do it?"

        "It is in complaisance to the laws and customs which use and abuse colored people."

        "Do you believe that father has any respect for those laws and customs, or the people who make them?" said Lottie, with some spirit.

        "By no means; father believes the laws are wrong, and that the people are wrong, and because the people are wrong they make bad laws. So wrong are they, that they do not always regard law or right; as a matter of caution and prudence, therefore, he defers to the customs and prejudices of his bad neighbors, for the safety of his person and property, as well as other things."

        "It is hardly just to say that father lacks freedom

in the premises. I would rather say he acted from motives of wisdom and prudence."

        "But is it wise and prudent to do anything that appears to countenance so bad a thing as slavery?"

        "Father does no such thing, we all know. And here we see how unsafe it is to judge a man for a single act or omission, without a knowledge of all the motives that induced it. Our father makes no distinction between Jarm and us, except as our relations or merits vary; and hating slavery as he does, he gives him a table by himself as a seeming concession to the enemy, but as a means in fact of annoying and destroying the enemy."

        "How so?"

        "It is well known in the country around that father disapproves of slavery; but were he unnecessarily to war with it at points where it is most sensitive, he would gain nothing for freedom, but would lose all opportunity to befriend it; he would destroy the wheat with the tares. An enemy has done this thing, and God's plan is to let them grow together until the judgment; or, in other words, until the means of destruction are certain. That is the order of Providence; it is wise."

        "What is wisdom?" said Lottie.

        "It is the form of love; in other words, it is the form of which love is the substance."

        "But is there no wisdom without love?"

        "No, indeed."

        "Why not? We have great and learned men, who

supply the world with knowledge, and facilitate the business and comforts of life; are they not wise men?"

        "If love to man prompts them to communicate the light they get, then are they wise; but if they employ genius to get wealth and fame, or for any other selfish end, then may, they have wealth and fame, the thing sought--but the rewards of wisdom, however great the good that results to society, belong to another. They are due only to the influx of divine light which formed and conducted their powers, and of which they were all unconscious. The end of wisdom is good; it is but the external form of love, as truth is the form of goodness, and as faith is the form of charity."

        "Knowledge then with charitable ends is wisdom, is it?"

        "Certainly. A man may have all knowledge; if he has not charity he is only a tinkling cymbal. He is like light without heat; like the light of winter, which locks nature in ice and glistens on its cold tomb; like faith alone. But wisdom united with love, or faith united with charity, which is the same thing, are in the spiritual world what heat united to light is in the natural world; the heat diffuses a genial warmth through nature, the buds open, the earth teems with vegetables and insects, the birds and beasts marry and multiply and fill the air and fields with life and joy. Love, unregulated by wisdom, would consume mankind with its heat. So Light, untempered by heat, would reduce the material universe to a vast ice-berg. They must be united, or the spiritual and natural world will perish."

        "But if it is wise and proper for Jarm to eat at that little table, and we at this, when father and mother are here, how is it proper he should eat here, now they are gone? Mind, you, Jarm, I would consent to no other arrangement than this, but I want to understand this affair, that is all," said Lotte.

        "All right," said Jarm. "I know you all mean to act properly, and as I am a learner, I am glad you put these questions, for I also want to hear the answer. You will remember that your family is the first school I have been in that had any real regard for me."

        "I will answer the question," said John. "It may be as proper for Jarm to sit there now, as when father and mother are at home; but their absence is brief, and the government is in my hands, mainly, while they are gone, and I don't feel bound to violate my feelings or wishes, or yours, in this matter. There is an impropriety somewhere. Father is not responsible for my course. Nobody can make complaint, but the wronged one, and if Jarm's old master don't like it, let him help himself."

        "You need not be scared, my good fellow," said Jarm, "If I see any body coming here, I shall certainly arise, and put myself in a position that will not subject my friends to harm."

        "You might do so if you pleased, or sit if you pleased, it would please me that you should sit here with us, in such case & but if any such thing occurs, it must be after this, for I now declare this meeting adjourned to evening."

        The above is a sample of the conversation of these

young people the first time their parents left them alone at home. There was no guile in the young Prestons. They were intelligent and generous and brave. They had no secret in the premises, but duly informed their parents of everything important for them to know.

        "Here is a good long winter evening, and how shall we improve it?" said John, after they arose from supper and gathered about the large fire.

        The light of day had already disappeared and the candles were lighted. "Give me your pocket handkerchief," said Alice, addressing Jarm. The fair girl bound the handkerchief close about the eyes of its owner, so that she believed he could see nothing, and said:

        "There; let us see how expert you are at Blind Man's Buff."

        "And what am I to do, Alice?"

        "You are to catch one of us and tell the name, and then the one caught will be blinded and yourself released; and now do your best."

        Although Jarm was nearly domesticated with his young friends, he was not so perfectly so as to be free from embarrassment. Under any circumstances he could not address Alice but as a superior being. For so humble and degraded a thing as he, purposely to put his hand on her person, seemed to him like trespassing on an angel. Nor did he regard Susan or Charlotte with less veneration. Such a commission from the lips of Alice, the most beautiful of the three girls, confounded him. He stood awkwardly for a moment to gather courage, when Charley cried out:

        "Stir about my good fellow! You must make an effort or never see the light."

        Whether so intended or not, the suggestion had a talismanic effect; it fell upon his ear like the voice of prophecy; his condition as a slave came upon his nerves like a heavy hand upon a stringed instrument. Just at that moment he felt a soft hand upon his back which was instantly removed, and his ear followed a light step and girl's laugh into a corner of the room.

        "By the heavens above me!" thought he, "these are delivering angels. Why should I fear?"

        He immediately began to move about slowly in the direction of the sound. The bird had flown though and twittered in another place. He then began to feel about and acquaint himself with the room, and becoming used to it, he spread his hands and moved intelligently after his game, which was active and skillful, sometimes dodging under his arms and hardly escaping his touch, until finally practice made him expert, and he had them all fleeing before him, and then at his sudden diametrical move, the girls screamed, finding there was no escape, and Charlotte, and Alice, and Charles were enfolded in his strong embrace. Jarm could not mistake their persons, but as Lottie was the first named, it was voted that she should next be blinded.

        The little party now became crazy with excitement, and Jarm, as if in a dream, forgot his condition and embarrassment in the general delight, which was as new to him as visions of a new world. The play was continued--until wearied with its monotony, they took

another, and then another, and tried all the child's plays within their knowledge. The fact that Jarm was not of the family, and was a novice in such things, of amiable temperament, and fine appearance and address, though ignorant of letters and society, subjected him to many penalties, and made him the instrument of redeeming many pledges which were forfeited by the rules of these homely amusements.

        At precisely ten o'clock, with one accord, the young Preston's dropped their plays, in obedience to the rule on such occasions, and after a brief relaxation and small talk, they all retired to their places of rest.

        The experience of a few weeks, ending as the week just passed by Jarm at Mr. Preston's, was like a dream. The rays of the morning, after the scenes just described, had life in them, but it was new life. It entered his soul through those rays, as they softly crept into his eyes and produced sensations such as infants feel, when new light shines into them--with this difference, his mind was intoxicated and dizzied by the effulgence that sped him through the track of lost time towards a tangible, intelligent, and lofty manhood. He could reason, they could not.

        Jarm did not as usual drop to sleep that night almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. The facts of the evening stirred in his memory like living things, and combined in his imagination in exciting forms. When morning came, it was difficult to say he had or had not slept; though dreamy and unreal as his state seemed, his energies swelled with delirious power, and he leapt from his bed at an early moment,

to restore the order of his brain by actual contact with material things.

        "How did you sleep last night?" said Alice, as they were approaching the breakfast table.

        "It is difficult for me to say I slept at all."

        "Why so?"

        "I was playing Blind Man's Buff and other plays all night."

        "Of course you were dreaming; did your dreams break your rest?"

        "O, no. I could have rested in my dreams until now, if the light had not pried my eyes open."

        "Persons as active and robust as you, are generally sound sleepers."

        "I rarely know anything two minutes after my head touches my pillow."

        "Now, Ally, let me ask you a question. What is the use of the frolic we had last night?" said John.

        "You call it a frolic. Well, there is no virtue in terms. You may as well ask what use for children to play in the nursery; the lambs and calves and colts to play in the fields; the kittens to play in the barn; and the chickens in the yard. Our play last evening was obedience to the innocent instincts of nature; an external response to the influx of divine love into the soul; things to be varied or restrained only by sinful loves or harsh tyranny. There! are you answered?"

        "How happened it, then, that it kept Jarm awake or plunged him into dreams? There is no use in dreams."

        "No use in dreams! Brother, you forget yourself,

are not yet quite waked up. Have not our father and mother taught us; do not those books on the shelf teach us; does not the Book of books teach us; and does not our own reason confirm the truth, that there is nothing in Heaven or Hell, nothing in the whole kingdom of God, be it good or bad, that does not perform uses; is it not the fundamental principle of the government of God? Dreams are useful, to prove that the spirit is a substantial, living and acting thing, that the flesh clothes."

        "Is that all they prove?" said Lottie.

        "No. Among other things, they demonstrate that it is the spirit and not the body that sees, and feels, and smells, and hears, and tastes, as well as thinks and reasons; and that the body, in itself, is as senseless as a corpse. It is the house the spirit makes to live in. If a man's spirit is all sensitiveness when the flesh that covers it is locked in sleep, so also is it when the flesh is locked in death. They are an argument that man never dies. They are daily witnesses of immortality; a constant declaration that the life of man is in the spirit only; that his flesh has no more life in it than the clod on which he treads."

        "But if our play was useful and innocent, how happens it that it kept Jarm awake, against the demand of nature for sleep? You have not answered that question yet."

        "It may be a necessary experience to teach him what you and I already know. Jarm himself, has told the story; his life explains it; life is not natural with him yet. But if Jarm was kept awake by a new

aspect of life, did not you and I sleep the sounder? Did not we not give our hearts to our heavenly father with a sweeter confidence for having yielded to his laws?"

        "But I want to know, if it made Jarm wakeful to play as he did with boys and girls he never played with before, why did it not also make you wakeful to play with a boy you never played with before; If it made him dream, why did it not make you dream? Many a young lady has been made a dreamer by more trifling incidents than those within your knowledge last night."

        "I see what you are at, brother. I appreciate your compliment; but I think it too comprehensive and significant to consist with delicacy for the feelings of others. I hesitate not to say, that, to us, our amusements last night were as truly the bread of life as this toast I am now eating.

        "Pardon me, sister. You have gallantly triumphed over my thoughtless badinage. I acknowledge myself defeated and instructed. You are right, and have been all the way through; and since you have done so well, you must instruct to the end. You have now touched a most important point in science as well as theology--and for the sake of your naughty brother and our juniors here, I hope you will say 'What is the bread of life?' "

        "It is Goodness. To eat it, is to incorporate it with the spirit or life. Hence, the Lord said, 'I am the bread of life.' 'He that eateth me even he shall live by me.' 'He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him'--and except ye

thus eat and drink 'ye have no life in you.' Flesh and blood correspond to truth and goodness, and those qualities constitute the Lord himself; they are the uncreated substance of God. To eat goodness and truth is to live them and make them ours. Goodness, which is the bread of life, belongs not to a man until he does it. Then he eats it. It forms his will, which his life. It is incorporated with his spirit."

        "But I don't understand," said Lottie, "how our amusements last evening were truth--the bread of life, and all that."

        "Whatever is in divine order is good, and of course true. Our amusements last night were in divine order--that is, they were spiritually good--therefore they were true. If you would ascertain whether a thing be true or not, whether it be good--if it be good, it is true--if it is not good, it is false--for truth is but the form of goodness--that is the test. Our amusements were in harmony with every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, and are therefore a portion of that word. 'The word was made flesh,' the nutriment of the natural man, that we might know there is spiritual substance, life, nutriment, in every word that comes from it."

        "Do you mean that God's words are really to be eaten?"

        "To be sure I do--not that they can be eaten as we eat flesh. The spirit is nourished by thoughts and affections--the will receives them and lives them out. God's words are truths embodying divine affections,

which are the life of angels and good men--the flesh and blood of the scriptures."

        "I never could see what nourishment there was in words."

        "It is because you don't understand the spiritual body."

        "Do make me understand it, then."

        "Well, I'll try. If you had been wicked, and told your mother her a fib, to keep the truth from her, do you not feel that your spirit would be faint and weak?-- that you would be a very coward?--and that innocence and truth only could give you strength to appear before her?"

        "Certainly."

        "You must come to relish goodness and truth in such case, and receive them into your will, and act them, before you would feel a restoration of courage and strength--before you could present your face to your father on earth, or your Father in Heaven."

        "I begin to take the idea. If I love goodness, my heart will take in the elements that compose it, and they will become a part of myself--my spirit will be formed of them, and I shall will and live them all the while. They will be my strength, my life--or, rather, the bread that sustains my life."

        "That is it."

        "Is that the meaning of the Lord's prayer--'Give us this day our daily bread?' "

        "It is nothing else."

        "Well, now I understand it--it is beautiful."

        "The blessed feature of it is, that God is constantly

giving us this bread, and we only eat it when we give it away."

        "What?"

        "The bread is God's--it comes down from Heaven. It is ours when we live it, do it. Faith without is dead, and charity seeks not its own. Hence the bread is never appropriated until we give it to the hungry."

        "O yes, yes, yes! The more you eat of it--that is, the more you give to others--the more you have to give. Is that what is intended by 'the loaves and fishes,' and the 'seven baskets of fragments,' and the 'widow's handful of meal in a barrel,' and 'a little oil in a cruse?'"

        "Of course it is."

        "But were they not real miracles?"

        "Very likely. As regards the truth taught by them, it matters not whether they were or not. They are hieroglyphs--pictures of ideas, or truth in alegory, in the ancient mode of teaching--before letters were used. The greatest miracle is, that the words have an external and internal meaning--and the entire word being so written, makes it an entire miracle."

        "Are miracles good for nothing?"

        "They compel natural belief, but not rational and spiritual belief, or faith. They cannot be forced. The Jews were so natural and sensual, that they would have profaned the word had it been given them in their own language. Therefore, Christ spoke to them only in parables--the literature of the Ancients,

or truth in correspondences--to the intent that the record might be preserved by the few to whom it was 'given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven,' and to them he explained the parables as they could bear them."

        "How do we know that the divine ideas of the Bible are expressed in the pictorial language of the most ancient people?"

        "Christ says so, in effect--'I will open my mouth in parables--I will utter things that have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.' These are the mysteries that were buried in the fall. Besides, the lost science of correspondence has been found, and modern scholars have corroborated it by the hieroglyphic literature of Egypt and mystic images of Nineveh--a science which exhumes the temples of ancient learning, and deciphers the symbols by which the truths of Heaven were known before the fall. This discovery, shows the Bible to be written according to this lost science, and can be truly understood only in its light--a light which melts the sects into one by the heat of charity, and forms the letter of the word which divides men's minds, into a harmonious and heavenly philosophy."

        "According to this, every person must feed from the dish, and eat the same morsel--and each one's appetite increase in proportion to the food he appropriates."

        "Certainly--that is the law of charity. The spirit grows in strength and capacity in proportion to the good it imparts. It is that which makes the angels

so strong that 'one can chase a thousand (wicked ones) and two put ten thousand to flight.' Spiritual food and natural food differ as spirit and matter; the former is affectional, and of course occupies no space or time; the latter is natural, and subject to the laws of matter. The former is substantial and imperishable --the latter material, unsubstantial, without life or motion. But we must defer the conversation for the present."

        These young persons now departed to their daily duties--nor did any of them need an overseer, to compel them to perform them.

CHAPTER XV.

        In Mr. Preston's neighborhood lived a planter by the name of Wilks. He was wealthy, and owned many slaves. He was proverbial for his humanity-- particularly for his humanity to colored people. He was thus humane from religious principle, and was as tenacious of the external letter of the Bible as Mr. Preston was of the internal spirit of it. According to Mr. Wilks' notion, the spirit of the word actually lay in the letter. So scrupulous and conscientious was he in this regard, that he maintained the duty of Christians to wash each other's feet, as Christ washed

his disciples' feet, related in the 13th Chap. of John. He was a man of eminent sincerity, and by the attractions of his wealth and singular religious persuasions, he drew around him a short lived Christian sect. He built a small chapel for public worship on his own estate, and placed in it a large basin; and every month took his family, slaves and all, there, and they washed each other's feet in the water in the basin for that purpose--literally following the example of his Lord.

        In this ceremony of feet baptism, there was no distinction of master and slave. The ablution was mutually performed with equal respect to all conditions, colors, ages and sexes. The master washed his slave's feet, and the slave washed his master's feet--and altogether, they obtained in the neighborhood the sectarian title of 'The feet-washing Baptists.'

        When it was reported that a slave was about to be separated from his kindred, by a sale at a distance, it was quite common for this good Mr. Wilks to purchase him (or her) and bring him into this church.

        But this church was not composed of Mr. Wilk's family alone. It embraced the whites and blacks all around, bond and free, who were permitted and willing to come into it. It would have covered the whole black population, but for the slave-holders. They despised a sect which condescended to forms so humbling, and which was a manifest reproach upon their lives. The principle obviously demanded a common brotherhood which they could not allow between themselves and the negroes. For such reason,

this feet-washing--sect was unpopular with slave-holders, and for the further reason that slavery in this church was nominal only--and it was generally understood and believed, that Mr. Wilk's will emancipated his slaves--a sectarian feature eminently odious to the slave owners.

        Not many months after Jarm's arrival at Mr. Prestons, Mr. Wilks died, and his church, with its charities, died with him.

        On opening his will, in lieu of giving freedom to his christian brothers and sisters, a provision was found in it, ordering that his slaves be sold by families, and not singly, if sold at all. The disappointment of the negroes in not being set free, was pacified by the consideration that they were not to be separated from family connections--the prospect of which fills them with more terror and distress than all the calamities incident to slavery. Death to them is not so terrible. If they become fugitives, they hope to hear from their kindred, and even to see them again--but if they are sold away, hope is extinguished in absolute despair.

        In process of time, the Executors of the Wilk's estate advertised its personal property, cattle, horses, hogs, slaves, &c., for public sale. As his personal property--particularly his property in slaves--was known to be large, multitudes from far and near attended on the day of sale. Jarm was there with Mr. Preston, assisting the Executors to collect the dead articles at the auction block. There, too, were the notable slave dealers of Tennessee and Alabama.

They had a seat by themselves, and were indifferent to everything until the negroes were brought to the stand.

        Among those dealers, Jarm saw the identical fellow who brought him from Manscoe's Creek. His gray hair, and other marks of age did not conceal the antitype prefigured on Jarm's memory. There, too, he saw that other wretch, more hateful still, who purchased and tore from his bleeding mother his little brother and sister.

        The poor negroes were chatty and cheerful while the auction was going on--not doubting that they would be sold in families when their turn came. What, then, was their horror and agony, when they found the direction of the will utterly disregarded, and themselves forced on to the block and sold singly. Such shrieks and misery were never before heard, of children, and even babes, torn from their mothers-- husbands and wives, parents and children, separated forever!

        Col. Wilks, the acting Executor, venerated his father; but he regarded the direction in the will as advisory only, and there was no legal power to enforce it. He was a man of susceptibility and sympathy and predominant love of money. He retired a little from the scene of sorrow, that his eyes might not see it, as the Ostrich hides his head to get away from danger. Thus was this little church of feet-washing Christians broken up and scattered to the winds.

        There was one of this ill-fated number who made

his mark on this occasion, and deserves a place in history. His name was Jerry. He was about thirty years of age, over six feet high, of the most critical beauty of proportions, quick of motion, of iron muscle and gigantic strength. Shakespeare would say he had the eye of Mars, the front of Jove, and the arm of Hercules. He was a husband and father, but his wife was free, and of course his children, also. Put upon the block, Jerry saw he was about to be struck off to an Alabama trader. He told the trader, in a solemn manner, not to buy him, for that he would never leave his wife and children, and be taken to Alabama.

        The trader made no account of Jerry's warnings, and bid him off for the sum of $1250, and handed one of his bullies a set of irons to put on him. Cases of this sort are often met by the bullies and disposed of in short order--for the reason that the slave has too much prudence, or too little pluck, forcibly to assert his manhood.

        The bully paid no attention to the threats of the insulted negro, and proceeded at once towards him to iron him. So soon as the bully came within the reach of Jerry's arm, he fell from his fist to the ground, and lay as lifeless and senseless as if he had been kicked under the ear by the hoof of a racer. To all appearance he had fought his last battle, and was taken up for dead. His defiant conqueror now braved a host of enemies, led by his new master, who rushed on him with bludgeons.

        Bravely and powerfully did the lion-hearted black

man carry the war into the dense ranks of his opposers. At Jarm's stand point, he was seen over their heads, his eye flashing fire, and his strong arm mowing them down and piling them in heaps about him, doing his best to sell his life dear; and, if possible, from their broken bones and bruised bodies, force upon them the lesson, 'He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword.' But, alas, the heavy blows he received from all quarters were too much for him. Covered with gore, he was about to fall under a dozen heavy and probably fatal clubs, when Col. Wilks, who was also a strong and brave man, learning the condition of his heroic slave, rushed among the assailants, with streaming eyes, exclaiming:--

        "Hold up!--for God's sake, hold up!"

        "What do you mean, Col. Wilks?" cried a dozen voices.

        "I want to compromise this matter, and save this man--there is no use in killing him."

        "He has done his best to kill us, and has nearly killed many of us."

        "There is nobody killed yet, and the poor fellow now can do no harm," said Col. Wilks, pointing to Jerry, who was bending under his wounds against a post for support, while the blood dropped down his limbs. "Let me see you a moment," he added, turning towards the trader who purchased Jerry.

        Col. Wilks was a man of influence, and greatly respected. With one consent the battle ceased, while the trader and the Colonel held a conference apart from the crowd. The conference was soon closed,

and they returned and took a position beside the bleeding man, where the trader proclaimed that the affair was amicably adjusted--that he had sold Jerry to Col. Wilks for $1350, and hoped that all parties would be satisfied with the arrangement.

        Upon this announcement, a murmur of applause went through the crowd, and though there was no demonstration, it was evident the tables were turned, and that the bearing and bravery of this noble slave had told largely on the sympathies of the multitude.

        It was gratifying to Jarm to see respect and homage, so bravely earned, instinctively bestowed upon a fellow slave by white people. It was a lesson to his pride, and helped to nourish in him the already growing American sentiment, 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.'

        Poor Jerry, bleeding and wounded as he was, came off victor in the battle. Every gash upon his body, and every drop of blood therefrom, testified to his manliness, and furnished aliment to the ceaseless terror of slave insurrections. Jarm, therefore, felt the victory was partly his own, and almost envied poor Jerry when he saw Col. Wilks supporting him to the little cove in the brook, where the foot-washing slaves performed ablution preparatory to the sacred washing in the temple. There the good Colonel, with his face literally bathed in tears, washed Jerry's wounds until the cove blushed all over with his blood. "When the slave is brave," thought Jarm, "his liberty is secure."

        After Col. Wilks had cleansed the poor fellow, he

led him to his own house, provided for him nurses and comforts, until his wounds were healed, and then placed him upon an estate--telling him that so soon as he should return $1350, his cost price, he should be free.

        "A shocking day this has been on the Wilks estate," said Mr. Preston, while at supper With his family that evening.

        "Why so?" inquired Mrs. Preston.

        "Don't you believe," said he, "that all the slaves on that estate are sold in different directions, without regard to families?--the children one way and the parents another; and the brothers and sisters another --perfectly regardless of the mind of the testator? And such a scene of distress I never saw before, and never intend to see again."

        Here Mr. Preston commenced and detailed all the particulars of the day to his deeply sympathizing family. When he came to the case of Jerry, whose wrongs and manliness he described minutely, particularly emphasizing his noble daring, Susan broke in in upon him with the exclamation:--

        "Poor, brave fellow!"

        "How cruel and wicked to treat people so!" said one and all.

        "Ah!" said Mr. Preston, "neighbor Wilks made a bad mistake."

        "Why so?"

        "At one time he really did intend to emancipate his saves; and at last, perhaps innocently, because ignorantly, he changed his intent into a plan to keep

them together in families, as being the only practical blessing; and now, every good he designed is lost, and their condition is dreadful. His duty was to emancipate his slaves himself He had no right to intrust their freedom to any being under heaven. God made it a sacred trust to him, and he was bound to execute it--he had no power to transfer it. This blunder has cast a burden upon his spirit which will be difficult to bear."

        "Do you believe the spirits of departed men know what is going on in this world?--think you old Mr. Wilks saw the shocking things you saw at his old homestead?"

        "To be sure I do. That is the world of causes--this of effects. Angels or good men rejoice when men repent, and do what they can to make them repent. Of course they know what is going on. Devils or bad men in the spirit world feel and work the other way. Don't you remember that the angel, John was about to worship, said to him, 'I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren?'&c. Good men in the other world are companions and co-laborers with good men in this world--and so with bad men. We are unconscious of it as a general thing, because we are gross and sensuous, and have sunk our spiritual in our natural senses--which is the fall. Now, men look outward through natural organs only, and see exterior and natural objects alone, and have no faculty to perceive the principles which constitute the interior life and essence of those objects. They hardly know that they are spiritual beings--but death

will open their eyes, and show them where they are, and who are their companions, co-laborers and servants."

        "Did a bad spirit, or devil, as such are called, put it into the head of old Mr. Wilks to change his intention to free his slaves, or did he do it of his own accord?"

        "Most undoubtedly it was the work of a bad spirit."

        "How, then, is it the work of Mr. Wilks?"

        "It is not his work, nor is he responsible for it, unless his love or life harmonized with the love or life of the devil who suggested it. Death separates a man from his sins of ignorance. If his spirit does not approve them, the impassable gulf lies between him and such sins. Sin adheres to those only who love it--it has no hold of those who hate it, though they have been misled to commit it."

        "Why, then, should it be difficult for Mr. Wilks to bear it? If he is a good man, will not a consciousness that he is good make him happy--though he be a guiltless instrument of mischief?"

        "My words deserve qualification. I said Mr. Wilks had burdened his spirit--the burden may be a blessed one, after all. It is not difficult to see that the greatest joy of the righteous consists in nullifying evils they have done, and in bringing good out of them, from a spiritual and heavenly stand point. The happiness of Mr. Wilks does not result from his own conscious innocence of intent, but from the good he does for the injured. But mind you--the Goodness

is God's goodness, not his. It is uncreated, eternal, and flows into men as they are willing to receive and use it. Every good gift comes down from Heaven. It is the essence of such goodness to heal wounds and repair breaches. It is never passive, because God is never passive. If Mr. Wilks is a good man, as I take him to be, then God is in his will in proportion as his will is good. In such case, God, who is goodness, works through him to accomplish his ends. So, you see, a good man is armed with the power of God himself to combat the enemies of goodness; not the man--he is impotent to combat evil; but the divine omnipotence incident to the goodness he welcomes into his soul, that does it. God does all the fighting--The fact that Mr. Wilks was thus mislead, stimulates his will, which is his life, (for he who wills much lives much) to extinguish slavery--for God always inflows where there is a will to receive him. And thus the devil unwittingly brings slavery under the weight of the divine omnipotence. The devil can do nothing that is not useful--God permits nothing in his universe that is not useful, and the happiness of the good (so called) is in the act of performing uses. The present happiness of Mr. Wilks, therefore, consists in fighting slavery; and he is, as you see, propelled to fight by the devil himself. 'In vain do the heathen rage!'"

        "Then what you call a burden to Mr. Wilks, is only a motive to influence his action?"

        "That is it. It is a burden from the fact that he was instrumental to the mischief. So you see, the

very burden is itself instrumental to the only happiness of an angelic spirit, to wit, doing good to others."

        "I want to know one thing," said Lottie. "What is the reason Mr. Wilks was not right in his form of worship? He did as the Lord did and commanded."

        "So the Lord commanded we should eat his flesh and drink his blood."

        "What did the Lord mean, then, by washing his disciples' feet, and commanding them to wash each other's feet?"

        "Ah, my dear little one you are just as wise as Peter was. When the Lord would wash his feet, he said to Peter, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but shall know hereafter.'"

        "But Peter told the Lord he should not wash his feet."

        "Just because he was ignorant of the meaning of the thing, as you and most people are."

        "Well, what did it mean?"

        "Precisely what the same thing meant in the Jewish Church and from Adam down. Jehovah reinstituted it for the Jewish Church, and they did not understand it any better, nor so well, as you and Peter--for they really supposed there was merit in the ceremony. The fact is, it is the expression of a great truth in the symbolic language of the most ancient people--a language which is preserved in both the Old and New Testaments, and from Adam to John the Evangelist. The corporeal man walks with his feet. They are the instruments of his will. Therefore,

the term 'feet' among the Ancients, symbolized his spiritual walk or life. So water corresponds to truth--and if a man's walk or life is in obedience to truth, his feet are said to be washed by the Son of Man, who is the Divine Truth itself. In such case, his will being the motive power of the feet, directs them in charity. Therefore the Lord said, 'He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet--but is clean every whit.' And therefore he replied to Peter, 'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.' If a man's will is right, he will walk or live right-- he will keep his feet clean. If men attend to their feet, they may be sure their heads are right. Not the opinions or doctrines, but the walk or lives of men, makes them partners with Christ. There is much head religion now, but precious little feet religion. Men are careful of their brains, and let their feet go to the devil."

        "Why could not the Lord have told Peter and the others what the thing meant in plain terms? Why not say it right out, and not use signs which he knew they did not understand?"

        "The disciples themselves were not prepared to receive the great truth this hieroglyph contained. It was therefore a cloud to their minds. They had not received the influx of the Holy Spirit which was to illuminate them and show them all things. The Lord, therefore, preserved and protected 'the word' in the antediluvian language. This is the reason he so often says, 'Clouds and darkness are round about him.' He is 'the truth,' and for wise reasons he

'makes the clouds his garment'--that is, he covers the truth of the word in letters which are a cloud to the minds of men. In this sense, innumerable passages, such as these, are intelligible--'The glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud,'--'The Lord descended in a cloud,'--'The Lord appeared to Moses in a a cloud,'--'His strength is in the clouds,'--'He bindeth up the waters (which are the truths of the word) 'in clouds,'--'He makes the clouds his chariot,'--'The Son of Man will come in the clouds,'--'A cloud received him out of their sight,' &c., &c. Very few people now believe that Christ comes or goes in literal clouds; but great multitudes begin to see that when they quarrel about the letter of the word (the garment of Christ) the Lord himself disappears in the clouds. The progress of knowledge has opened the understandings and wills of many to see 'The Truth,' THE SON OF MAN, illuminating the letter of the word, which to them is his second coming 'with power and great glory.'"

        "You say he makes the clouds his garment--had the Lord allusion to that fact or symbol when he said, 'They parted my garments among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots?'"

        "Precisely. The garment is the letter of the word. This, 'the soldiers,' the sects, divide among them; but 'the vesture' is the true internal sense and meaning. They gamble for that, or in Scripture language, cast lots for it, and thus disperse the truths of the Church; but they cannot reach it--therefore it remains unprofaned and seamless."

        "That is very beautiful!--but how are we to see Christ coming in the clouds?"

        "It is a perception of the internal and spiritual truth which the letter of the word encloses or swathes. Perception is a divine coining or influx into the understanding or intellectual faculty-- illuminating, the letter of the Scriptures, awakening genius to discoveries in science, prompting inventions to benefit industry, and stimulating humane combinations, for the relief of the poor, the drunken and the enslaved, and the like. These are the tender branches of the budding fig-tree, indicating divine illumination. The fig-tree, in Bible language, represents the natural good of truth, as the Olive does the celestial and spiritual good thereof. Because the fig-tree bore no fruit--no natural good--the Lord cursed it. So when 'her branch is tender and putteth forth leaves,' he has taught us that these temporal blesssings will manifest his coming in the clouds or letter of his word. Christ comes to the minds of men, and is seen by mental eyes. The clouds are in the way now, but they are lighting up."

CHAPTER XVI.

        The last two chapters give a character of daily life at Mr. Preston's, for the two or three years Jarm lived

there. It was a regular succession of industry, amusement and instruction. Before he came there, he delighted to spend his evenings abroad with young colored people in the amusements and dissipations of slave life; but now his inducements were at home, and he wanted no companions but those he found there. Manasseth Logue had so long neglected his claim to him, that his demand was becoming stale, and the Preston's hoped he had abandoned it. Jarm made up his mind to be a fixture in this good family for life. Alice had just taken on herself the duty of teaching him letters, and it seemed to be mutually understood that he had grown into the family, and was not to be separated from it.

        On a fine spring's morning, some two and a half or three years from the time Jarm came there, very near the conclusion of one of those table-talks, such as is given in the last chapters, three large and rough men rode to Mr. Preston's, dismounted and fastened their horses, and, after knocking at the door, were invited in. Their aspect and motions were of the bully stamp, veneered with the artificial civilities of southern manners. There was a monitory shuddering felt all through this innocent and happy family. Jarm, especially, felt their presence as a touch of evil. Their looks indicated violent men, associated for a violent end; and though no weapons were visible, it was obvious they were prepared for war.

        "It is Mr. Preston, I suppose," said one who seemed to be spokesman of the trio.

        "My name is Preston."

        "You have possession of a boy called Jarm, who was mortgaged to you by Manasseth Logue, to secure half or the payment of $550, with interest, some two and a half or three years since."

        "Yes, sir."

        "I have come to pay the mortgage for Mr. Logue, and take the boy back to him. There is $550 in gold and silver, the amount of the principal. The services of the boy, by the terms of the agreement, you were to have in lieu of interest; the money has been counted by these two gentlemen, and it is the true sum."

        "Pardon me, sir," said Mr. Preston, "I am not acquainted with you, and though what you say may be strictly true, in a matter of this importance, I ought to have legal evidence that you are the agent or attorney of Mr. Logue, before I commit property of such value to a stranger."

        "Very right, sir; there is my authority to represent Mr. Logue in this case," said the man, at the same time putting in to the hands of Mr. Preston a paper, which he opened, and read as follows:

        "To whom it may concern. Know ye, I have appointed, and by these presents do appoint the bearer, James Nesbit, my agent and attorney, for me and in my name to pay and cancel a certain personal mortgage, dated ---- which Mr. St Clair Preston holds upon my boy Jarm to secure the payment of a loan of $550. And I hereby authorize my said attorney to demand and receive the said boy of said Preston, and do every thing in law that I can or could do in the premises. Dated, &c.,
MANASSETH LOGUE.

         State of Tennessee, &c--
Personally appeared before me, this ---- day of ---- Manasseth Logue, to me personally known, and acknowledged that he executed and delivered the above power of attorney, for the uses and purposes therein expressed.
JAMES PILLOW, Judge, &c.

        Before this conversation began, Jarm left the room and entered the kitchen, and Charley and the girls soon followed. The disappearance of Jarm awakened the suspicions of the visitors, and at the wink of the leader, his two companions stepped into the court yard and took positions to see any one who left the house. They did not know Jarm personally, but had no doubt of the man.

        The impassioned dialogue of these disturbed and terror-stricken young friends, in the kitchen must be left to the conceptions of the reader. Jarm, however, was silent and tearful. His teeth were firmly set, and his countenance told equally of sadness, determination and resistance. His only reply to their numerous expressions of concern, was,

        "Don't be disturbed; it is impossible to escape now. These bad men are armed with pistols. They are probably provided with irons; it prudent to seem to be submissive. You must not be implicated in my wrongs; alone, I can bear them; half of them would crush me if the other half were on you. But mark me! I will not be a slave. My grief is that I must leave you." Here his lips quivered and his voice fell, but his prudence checked the surging sorrow, and with clenched fists, and swelling bosom, and determined

emphasis, which shook his whole frame, he repeated in a low voice, "if I live, I will be free; I will not be a slave!"

        "When Mr. Preston had finished reading the power of attorney, he returned it to Mr. Nesbit and said, "it seems sufficient. If you take Jarm you will leave it with me of course."

        "Certainly."

        "Mr. Logue let his claim lay so long we began to suspect he had abandoned it."

        "Great mistake. He values Jarm $1,000 at least, and is far from parting with him for half the sum."

        "I can hardly think he will demand all that. My family are much attached to him, and for that reason I would pay any reasonable sum to retain him."

        "Impossible!" said the man doggedly. "To tell the truth, Mr. Logue is displeased with the mode Jarm has been living here, and will not sell him to you on any terms."

        "I am sorry Mr. Logue's feelings are unfavorable. It is true, Jarm has been useful to us and is an excellent fellow. I have treated him accordingly, and my family are loth to part with him; nor will they if they may retain him on reasonable terms."

        "Altogether impossible! you may depend on't; at all events, if it is possible, you will have to treat with Louge. I have no authority of that sort; my duty is to take the boy and return him. That was him I suppose, who went into the other room just now."

        "Yes, sir."

        "Then there is your money and my authority to take him, and I demand Jarm."

        "Of course I submit to the law and wait an early opportunity to confer with Mr. Logue in the matter; my legal rights are at an end, and I have nothing more to say."

        The man bared his pistols, and was about opening the door into the room where Jarm and the family were.

        "Stop," said Mr. Preston, "you will terrify my daughters. Please be seated. I will deliver Jarm to you, and guarantee you shall have no difficulty. Let me go and see him."

        The man bowed politely.

        "Certainly sir. All right sir."

        Mr. Nesbit resumed his seat and spirted his tobacco juice into the fire, while Mr. Preston repaired into the other room, where all the family were collected. He entered in time to catch the last words of Jarm's above speech.

        "I presume you know what these people are here for," said Mr. Preston to Jarm.

        "O, yes. I am to be taken back to my old master. It is a dreadful disappointment; but I made up my mind to submit to it at once, and look to future possibilities for deliverance."

        "Your conclusion is wise; we all love you Jarm, (here sighs and sobs were heard all around the board)-- hush!" said Mr. Preston, "we must not let these men know how deeply they have afflicted us; nor show them any signs of it, if possible." Turning to Jarm,

he said, "You need no other proof than you see around you now, and have always witnessed since you have been with us, that we love you; nevertheless, I have it in my mind to deliver you, if possible, from your bad case. You have gained our hearts by your qualities and conduct, and I shall be prompt to befriend you." Mr. Preston gave Jarm his hand as a pledge of fidelity, and added--

        "Now we must be brief; good-bye, Jarm; my wife and children had best part with you here. I am sorry to say you need to do it at once, and prepare to leave with these men."

        Having said this, Mr. Preston returned to Nesbit, and the family embraced their friend and bade him with tearful eyes and failing voices. The family never left the room until Jarm was packed and started away. They could not show themselves to the ruffians who had robbed them of their friend and companion. Jarm parted with them and appeared before the agent with his baggage, and said he was ready.

        At this moment Mr. Preston said to Nesbit:

        "You are prepared to put irons on Jarm, I suppose?"

        "O, yes. The inference was the boy had been spoiled by you and your family, and might attempt to escape; therefore we brought the tools to secure him; indeed we always carry the tools with us?"

        "I want to ask one favor of you. I know there is no necessity of using those irons. Jarm has been a faithful boy since he lived with us. Mr. Logue will

certainly find him improved, not injured. My family would be very sorry to see him go away in irons, and therefore I pledge you my honor as a man, that I will pay double damages for all losses that may occur from allowing him to return without shackles. He may walk or ride, with you or without you, and I am bound he shall return to his old master with all reasonable expedition. Mr. Logue may suffer no more harm in allowing him to return alone, than he did in sending him here alone. This I guarantee, upon the honor of a gentleman, and the strength of my estate."

        "I am happy to oblige you," said Nesbit. "There is a mistake about this business. You are a gentleman, sir; I am a rough man, but know a hard case as soon as I get my eyes on it. I knew you were none of that sort the moment I saw you, and the short time I have been here give me a high opinion of you. Old Manasseth has made a blunder this time. Jarm shall have a free passage home, and I shall represent his case and your case, so as to restore you and Jarm to his confidence."

        "Thank you. Please accept this," handing Mr. Nesbit a half eagle, "as a signal of good will, and a happy termination of our affairs."

        Mr. Preston understood such fellows, and therefore knew that a trifling bribe would be twenty times its value in restoring Jarm to the confidence of his master, by means of the representations of Nesbit.

        "Jarm, you may leave your duds with us and go ahead," said Nesbit, as he opened the door into the

court yard, "we have an errand a little off the road, but we will overtake you or be home before you."

        Jarm roused all the strength of his heart as he raised his hat to Mr. Preston and said "good bye," but in spite of him the big tear welled up under his eyelids, and his counterfeit voice failed of its intended emphasis; but when he turned to close the gate behind him into the street, and saw in the window the faces he was to see no more, all full of emotions he was attempting to suppress, his head fell by the weight of sorrow, and he turned and wept like a child as he walked away, turning again once only, while in sight, to drink through his eyes a last draft of agony from the loving hearts who were looking after him, from the only spot on earth which was now precious to him.

        "Boys," said Nesbit to the the two men in the yard, "let Jarm pass. It is all right; I have arranged with Mr. Preston that he shall be delivered safely. We have an errand at George's, you know," giving the wink. "Good bye, Mr. Preston."

        "Good morning," said Mr. Preston, as he closed the door and retreated to his family.

        "How is this? Here is quite a change of affairs," said one."

        "This yellow boy is a part of the explanation," said Nesbit, as he tossed the gold Mr. Preston gave him. "It is an ample check for a draft of George's best whiskey, and good evidence that Preston is not the scamp old Manasseth takes him to be. It aint the first time the old scoot has been fooled. Preston is as

good a man as ever buckled; and as for Jarm, he is as true a fellow, you may depend on it. I would trust him for wit or honesty any time, before I would his master. The fact is, Manasseth made a blessed bargain for himself, and Jarm too, when he mortgaged him to Preston. He has made a first rate nigger of him, and Manasseth would have spoiled him, had he kept him."

        "Then you ain't afraid to let the boy go back alone?"

        "Pshaw, no. Old Preston's word is better than the Bank, and the fact that he has given it, is the best indorsement a nigger can have in these diggins. Every body knows him, and he must be a bad nigger indeed who is faithless to him after living with him two or three years."

        "Why so?"

        "Because he is reasonable, kind, just, merciful and everything else a man should be. I have heard the same said of him for years. Old Manasseth is the first I ever heard speak ill of him, and I have no doubt he was poisoned by some rogue. I need no more than the brief time I had with him to know he is not overestimated by the public. To tell the truth, his face, yes, and voice, had so much goodness and charity in them, that I was unhorsed--completely awed and floored. I tell you what, boys, If I was to live with that man two years, I believe I should be a good man myself. I feel that I am a good deal better for this interview."

        "Pshaw!" said one "I saw much more to like in

girls than I did in the old man. I but squinted at him; but by Jippers! I couldn't keep my eyes off them while they staid in the room."

        "O, you rogue; you didn't see enough to get a slight impression of the merits of that family. I tell you a white man or a black man can't live in it without growing good. It seems as if we had been disturbing a little heaven."

        "I guess a drop of George's whiskey will cure all the disturbance it has made upon our souls."

        "D--n the whiskey! To go from Preston's to George's is like passing out of Paradise into a hog sty."

        "Well; here we are! Shall we go in among the swine, or stay here and dream of angels?"

        Nesbit turned the gold in his had and replied:

        "Ah! you yellow rascal! You are the root of all evil! Here goes!" leading his fellow companions into the drinkery.

CHAPTER XVIII.

        "This is too much--I cannot stand it. I could have lived there forever-- I expected to have spent my days there. I desire nothing better than life with those good people. I can think of nothing worse

than to be driven back to my old master and his family. I will not bear it--I will not be a slave. Henceforth I live to escape or perish! Had I supposed I was coming to this, I would have plotted with my friends and fled. I know they would have so advised if they anticipated this--and now, COME DEATH OR FREEDOM!"

        The fore part of the above speech passed in Jarm's mind unuttered, as he was plodding his way to his old home from Mr. Preston's; but the last sentence leaped out of his mouth, and he spoke it audibly and with emphasis--not dreaming any one heard him. Alice often told him 'thoughts are heard in Heaven,' and there he was willing to be heard. But so filled was he with sad and indignant emotions, that he was unconscious of things about him, until awakened by a hand on his shoulder that made him start.

        "Hallo, friend!--a little too loud. There are things a colored man may think, but not speak above his breath, until his eyes and ears assure him he is alone. What is up now?"

        "You scare me!" ejaculated Jarm, as he grasped the hand of Mr. Wilk's Jerry, whose story we told along back.

        "What's the matter, my good fellow? Where are you going? You look sad-- what's up?"

        "Did you hear me say anything?"

        "Aye--aye, I heard you say a great deal in few words. 'Henceforth, death or freedom' is not a long story, but it is a great deal for a slave to say, as loudly and unguardedly as you said it just now. I

only dare repeat it in an under tone--not because I am more a coward than other folks, but because I may be overheard by a poorer friend than you are."

        "Jerry," said Jarm, looking him sadly and firmly in the face, "I know I may trust you. Did you ever think seriously of fleeing to a free State?"

        "Think of it!--I have been thinking of it for ten years. I think of it every day--I am thinking of it to-day. If it was not for my poor wife and child, Tennessee would not hold me a month."

        "Then you have a wife and child? I determined long ago never to marry until I was free. Slavery shall never own wife or child of mine. I pity you."

        "I deserve it--they are the chains that hold me here. The links about my heart are stronger than the irons about my limbs. Were it not for the former, I would say as you did, 'Henceforth, death or freedom.' But where are you going?--explain yourself."

        "I am going back to my old master--and what I want is to get into a free State and be free. I am determined--I am desperate!"

        "I thought you were to live with Mr. Preston always?"

        "I thought so, too."

        "You were happy there?"

        "O, too happy! I could have lived there forever. They are good people. The disappointment is greater than I can bear, and I won't bear it. I won't live with my old master. The worst he and his helpers can do is to kill my body, and that will free my soul.

I learned many valuable lessons with those good people, and that is one of them. I tell you, Jerry, I will make a strike for freedom, if I die for it. I had rather die than be a slave."

        "Well--but your mother, brothers and sisters--will you leave them?"

        "Yes. As your wife and child are the only chains that bind you, so my mother, brothers and sisters are the only chains that bind me. It is bad to be bound to slavery by irons, but it is worse to be bound to it by heart-strings. Those strings will be stronger and sounder when I am clear of the incarnate devil that torments me and my family. I can do my mother, brothers and sisters no good while I am his slave--they can do me none. Life is a constant looking for evil to come. Besides being personally abused and outraged, we are liable to be sold apart forever, any moment. To be of any service to my mother or myself, I must be free; and I will be free, or die--so help me God!"

        "Jarm, you are right. Were it not for my obligations to Col. Wilks, and prospect of buying myself, I would join you in a moment."

        "Why not do it now? What obligation is on you to buy yourself? Necessity may make it a duty and an obligation--but he is a villain who created that necessity. God gave you freedom, and Col. Wilks has no right to make conditions to the grant. You are just the fellow I need to co-operate with me; have prudence, courage, and strength-- together we can make our way to a free State, by endurance,

stratagem, and bravery--I feel certain of it. In freedom, we may contrive for the deliverance of our kindred--as slaves, we see nothing but helplessness and despair. We must be free. Think of this until we meet again, if you are not prepared to act now."

        "That I'll do. Indeed, I cannot help thinking of it, for the proposition sets my soul on fire; but when I approach the subject, another thing stares me in the face."

        "What is that?"

        "Col. Wilks saved my life when those bloody tigers were murdering me."

        "What of that? He ought to have done more than that--he should have given you freedom, after all the money you have worked out for him with your hard hands. Your claim on him is infinitely greater than that he should not stand by and see you murdered. Mind you, Wilks was the man that thrust you in among those tigers."

        "You are right, Jarm. I see it, but he dont--and the white people all around won't see it. It is so, I know; but after all, a sense of honor presses hard on me. I do owe life to him, that is a fact."

        "You owe him nothing, Jerry. You dishonor God who gave you life, and to whom alone you are indebted for it, by talking as you do. Col. Wilks owes you freedom, without which life is a burden--and yet he demands of you money, a most unreasonable sum of money, before he allows you to have and enjoy it. Pretty story, that he and his father may rob you all your life long, and then bring them wild

beasts upon you, and make a merit of saving you out of their paws."

        "Jarm, we must part here--I'll think the matter over. Do you know John, of the Farney estate?"

        "I know him well."

        "He's the man to engage in the affair."

        "Exactly."

        "We'll see him. Good bye,"--and thus they parted."

        Jarm was five miles from the Tombigbee. As a matter of prudence, he must seem to be glad to return--though the thought was hateful, and stirred all the desperate activities of his soul. He was soon there, and went through the ceremony of servile bows and counterfeit smiles to his master and mistress, and other false expressions of gladness. His mother, brothers, sisters and friends greeted him with tears of joy. Nesbit and his party had proceeded him, and given Manasseth a high opinion of his improvement and abilities, and he was readily installed the confidential servant and head man of the plantation.

        Not did he dishonor the station. His stay with the Preston's was to him a school of agricultural education, and he was eminently fitted to the trust. Under him the farm was put in better order that it had ever been--the fences were repaired or built anew--the grounds were prepared in season for the seed, and the budding grain and grasses and fruits promised an abundant harvest. Jarm affected the same care for the interests of the plantation that he would for his own, and this obtained from his master the greatest

confidence, kindness and indulgence that a surly, selfish, drunken man can feel or allow to a cherished and valued chattel.

        Of course all this industry and care on the part of Jarm, was adroitly counterfeited as a means to an end. Under cover of it, he was plotting to run away, and the hope of success only made it endurable. He now felt how unfortunate it was the Prestons had not anticipated his case, and informed him of the way to a free State--a piece of knowledge he valued above all things.

        In the neighborhood of Manasseth's dwelt a family of poor whites, who, originally of Tennessee, had lately returned from Illinois, where they had emigrated, because they preferred Tennessee, or because they had not the means to get a possession and meet the difficulties of their enterprise.

        This family resided some three years in Illinois, and the eldest child, now a boy about ten years old, often came in contact with Jarm. The family were very poor, and though white, had no means to claim superiority to an influential and trusty slave.

        "How you have grown, John!" and Jarm to the lad. "Where have you been this long time?"

        "I have been up to Illinois--we have all been there this two or three years."

        "Where is that?"

        "I shan't tell you."

        "Pshaw! you don't know yourself--there ain't any such place as Illinois." This was the first time

Jarm had heard of Illinois, and he meant to sift the geography and character of it from the lad.

        "I say there is such a place!--don't you think I know?"

        "What kind of a place is it, then? Let us see if you can tell anything about it."

        "All the negroes are free in Illinois--they don't have any slaves there."

        "Did you see any free negroes in Illinois?"

        "Yes, a good many."

        "What were they doing?"

        "Why, they lived with their families, like other folks."

        "Which way from here is Illinois?"

        "Up that way," said the boy, pointing to the north-west.

        "How many days does it take to go there?"

        "We were a good many days coming home--but a man could go there on horse-back in less than a week."

        "Do you have to cross rivers?"

        "O yes, a good many--the Ohio River lays between Illinois and Kentucky. You have to go over that in a boat. It is a great river, and vessels are sailing up and down it all the while, except in the winter--then it is frozen over, and sometimes the boys skate on it, and horses and sleighs pass over on the ice."

        Many other questions Jarm put to the boy, and elicited all he could of life in Illinois. He did not doubt the boy's truthfulness. The story charmed

him, and he made up his mind to prepare to go there, where he might go and come as he pleased, and earn a house and home and farm with his own strength and mind.

        About a mile from Manasseth's plantation was an old building, made of logs and slabs and boards rudely put together, for a school house, and meeting house for the methodists to hold meetings in. The floors consisted of hewed timbers, and the roof was covered with boards--swallows and wrens built their nests and chattered and warbled to their young in the roof and beams--while the bats huddled in the corners or hung in swarms from the rafters in the day time. This site was selected for the rough temple on account of its retired and wild position. The sect who fixed it up have a penchant for the forest, where "nature worships God in solitude, alone." The site of this building was flanked on the West and North by a formidable ridge of rocks, covered with vegetable mould which had been growing for ages, until it sustained stunted vines and bushes. Little, streams of pure water enriched the sunbeams as they danced down its sides and sank into the gloomy woods, and formed a little brook at its base, which small trout played to the very edge of the rocks.

        Some quarter of a mile from this solitary temple, a huge flat rock projected from the mountain and entirely covered little brook. It entered the mountain like a gigantic shaft, and descended towards the earth in an angle of about forty-five degrees, until

its outer circumference dwindled to an edge a few feet from the surface of the brook, and spread over its entire breadth. This rock supported a thick fleece of aged moss, tightly woven with roots of green shrubbery which hung like a heavy blanket from its outer edge, and covered the water two rods or more, the breadth of the shaft. Under this cold roof lay a broad dark cavern, a fit retreat for wild beasts and savage men.

        Some eighteen months after Jarm left Mr. Preston's, in a bright moonlight evening, after the sun had disappeared about half an hour behind the mountain, a solitary man merged from the dark woods and stood before this sylvan sanctuary. The shades of the mountain and forest intercepted the moonlight and concealed his identity and color. His deep, broad chest and frame, erect head, elastic, careful and firm step, evinced a great amount of strength, and his motions indicated that his eyes and ears were on the watch for some expected person or thing. He was about six feet high, a trifle below the height of Jarm, and somewhat broader. His anatomical proportions were compactly bound together with abundant muscle, showing, even in moonlight, evidence of great personal strength.

        The man had been looking about a short time, when he heard the sticks crack under the cautious but heavy tread of another, whose large body appeared in sight, and stood a moment like a black picture on a dark back ground. He looked about him, and then gave a shrill whistle, which was instantly

replied to by the first comer, as a signal of recognition and safety.

        "Well, John, you are here before me," said Jerry as, he heartily locked hands with the first comer.

        "Yes, I have been here some minutes. Where is Jarm?"

        The reader will recognize in John the person spoken of by Jerry when Jarm was returning from Mr. Prestons.

        "Jarm will surely come. The meeting was arranged by him, and he never fails."

        "Of course, nothing will prevent him. If his master does not, he will be here in five minutes."

        "Hark!"

        "There is something coming!"

        "Keep still!"

        "There he is--it is a man--it is Jarm!"

        Whistle answered whistle again, and the parties were immediately together.

        "Here we are," said Jarm, "now for business."

        "Talk low."

        "Shall we go into the house?"

        "No--better be heard here than there. If the white niggers find us there, they will be sure there is something in the wind. Follow me."

        Jarm led them down the brook a quarter of a mile or so, and entered the cavern before described.

        "Here we shall be neither seen or heard," said Jarm, as he struck up a light. "I lead you here because we shall need a place of deposit as well as conference, by and by, where we can be neither seen or

heard by anyone not in the cave itself, and which is probably unknown in the neighborhood."

        "This is a beautiful place for our business," exclaimed both of his companions.

        "If we determine to quit this country for Illinois, or other place where masters can't wrong us," said Jarm, "and my mind is made up and has been a long time--we shall need a place not only to talk about it, but to deposit things necessary for our journey as we may get them. And now, boys, what say you to the main question--SHALL WE GO?"

        "I shall go if I go alone," said John. "Come what will, I am resolved to get out of this country--life is worth nothing here. I had rather lose it in an attempt to escape, than to be eternally dying--that is my mind in the matter."

        "I am with you," said Jerry. "The only trouble with me is my wife and children, and the means to be off, as I have often told you. But I am fixed--my wife and children are free--and if I get my freedom, they may come to me. I can do little or nothing for them here."

        "One point is settled, then," said Jarm. "We are agreed to escape--that point is easy to arrive at--others are not so easy. It remains to know what provisions will be needed for the journey, and how we shall get them, and when and how to get off."

        "We must have each of us a good horse, saddle and bridle, large saddle-bags of provisions and clothing, and an amount of money," said John.

        "Yes, and we will need free passes, if we can find body to counterfeit them."

        In all these respects they allowed they were nearly or quite destitute, and that it would require time to make the preparations.

        Jarm and John said, as to horses, saddles and bridles they were at case. Each of their masters owned a crack young saddle horse of great value, which they much petted, and which were in their special care, and they often rode them in company on short excursions. They were of course acquainted with the abilities and habits of the noble animals. But their clothing, provisions and money, required time, care and industry to procure.

        "May be it will be a year before we finish these preparations In the mean time if our masters sell their horses, they will get others, there are a plenty of good horses among the man robbers all around, and we must take the best we can lay our hands on."

        "It will be hard," said Jerry, shaking his head;--"indeed it is impossible for me to take Col. Wilks' horse--it seems to me I shall forfeit my life if I do it. I owe something to the Colonel for saving me from those murderers. I cannot feel justified in rewarding it by running away with his property. You will take your own when you take your master's horses, or anything else they have--their lives, even. Not so with me--I must get a horse elsewhere. The memory (of what, under the circumstances, would be deep ingratitude) would torture me, and make my

life a burden, did I turn my hands against the Colonel and his property. I could not bear it--I won't do it."

        "All right--there is much reason in what you say. Did you take the Colonel's horse, or anything else of his, (yourself excepted) it would be used as an argument against our honour and justice. We should avoid doing that which will make them regret having done us favors. It will look better if you leave the Colonel's horse from a sense of gratitude, and take the horse of that villain Myrrick, who lives near him, and abuses his slaves so. There will be a meaning in the act which slaveholders will understand The transaction will speak for our virtues. Though Col. Wilks is indebted to you beyond the value of all his horses, you are right, and wise in principle and policy, in your conclusions."

        To the above sentiment all conceded.

        "Well, then, we understand each other," said Jarm; "and for aught I see, the business of the evening is finished, and we may go home and plan to execute it."

        "By the way," said John, "you know Ross, the poor, good old man, who lives on the corner of the woods by Col. Pillows?"

        "Of course I know him--everybody knows him. While one hand was busy pouring a large estate down his throat, the other was equally busy giving it to the poor."

        "He is the black man's counsellor and friend."

        "Yes, and the white man's, too. Poverty will degrade

any other man in Tennessee but Ross--his qualities keep him out of the reach of disgrace. Drunkard as he was, and poverty-smitten as he is, the whites love him for his nobleness, the blacks for his goodness."

        "Won't he counterfeit a pass for us?" said Jarm.

        "Of course he will--I have no doubt of it. But we must pay him for it."

        "Pay him!--yes, liberally. He has wife and children who need bread and meat; and it will cost us nothing--that is, it will cost John and me nothing to get them for him. Our masters have robbed us of the fruits of our labor, and filled their barns and smoke-houses therewith. We have nothing to do but to take it and pay our debts with it. We can afford to supply his family with bread and bacon for six months, if he will make each of us a pass."

        "Now this thing must be attended to. John, you know how to manage the card with Ross--he lives on your land, or near it--will you do it?"

        "Indeed I will; and trust me I will do it right, and neither of you will be committed until the time comes."

        "Now, then, let us go home--it is getting late. We shall meet again on the Sabbath, and in the mean time, if either has anything new, it is easy to find the others and give it to them."

        Thus ended the first conference of these young men in regard to their escape. They walked together a little distance to the highway, and there parted in the direction of their homes. When they arrived

there and lay down on their beds, the reflection that they were committed to each other, and to a measure, which, if pursued, would give them freedom, or send them in chains to the far South, or to the grave, kept them from immediate sleep. As each reflected on the peril of the case, he felt the embryo stir of a noble manliness, which, for a long time, resisted the advance of "nature's sweet restorer."

CHAPTER XVIII.

        The subject that now occupied Jarm's mind was to get money to run away with. One plan was to purchase a barrel of whiskey, and retail it at profitable prices. One afternoon, soon after his compact with his two friends, Manasseth and his wife went to visit their preacher, whose term had expired, and who was to leave for another place on the circuit the next day. Jarm embraced that opportunity to use his master's oxen and cart to bring from the distillery a barrel of whiskey, and place it on the premises out of his master's sight, where he might retail it and make money.

        But the misfortune was, he was unable to complete the thing before his master's return. When Manasseth came home about eleven o'clock at night, he saw

his team and cart were missing; and scarcely had he made the discovery, ere he saw Jarm coming at a distance with them. Supposing he was unseen by Jarm, he skulked in a corner of the fence, to watch his actions and get his secret. But Jarm was familiar with every object about, and with a keen eye on the look out, saw at a distance the black spot in the fence, and scented his condition at once.

        Here was a grave disappointment. He knew he should have a flare-up with his master, but by no means anticipated so serious a flare-up as the one he had. He supposed his master would rob him of his whiskey and get drunk on it--that he had made a bad speculation, and should be badly scolded, and that would end the matter.

        Jarm drove his team past his master, while he was hid as aforesaid, in a natural and usual manner--passed the place where they were to be turned out, directly to the negro-house, and there rolled out his whiskey and deposited it under the floor, and returned to put out his oxen.

        "Where have you been with my oxen?" said Manasseth, getting out from the fence.

        "I have been down to the distillery to get a barrel of whiskey.

        "How dare you steal my team to do your work?"

        "Had you been here I supposed you would let me have the oxen; I did not suppose I should displease you. Had I so supposed, I would not have taken them."

        "I'll learn you to steal my team and go of in that

way! Turn them into the lot--I will see you in the morning."

        And so Jarm did, and went to bed himself--but not to sleep, for he feared the loss of his property, and a conflict with his master more or less serious. Tired nature eventually overcome his senses, and he fell into refreshing slumber--from which he was soon awakened by the light and stir of the morning. He arose and made his master's fire, and went into the field to work without waiting for breakfast.

        While in the act of making the fire, his master got up and left the house, and went straight to the woods and brought a bundle of whips, and laid them by the tree which was his usual whipping post. In the meantime, he sent Jarm's little sister to bring him some ropes. While Ann, all unconscious of the use for which the ropes were intended, brought and deposited them under the tree, Manasseth went to Jarm, who was working with great earnestness, and called him. Jarm affected not to hear. He called still louder, and Jarm, as if suddenly sensible of his master's presence, exclaimed:--

        "Did you call me, master?"

        "Yes, I called you. Why didn't you answer me? I'll wake you up!--follow me into the yard."

        Manasseth passed on to the place of execution, and Jarm followed. When Jarm come into the yard, his mad master stood there, with the cords in his hands, and the bundle of sticks at his feet. The only clothing Jarm had on was his shirt and pantaloons.

        On his way to this place, Jarm reflected upon the

possibility that his master would attempt to tie and flog him, and resolved, come what would, he would not submit to it. He was willing he should take him on the leg and whip as long as he pleased--giving him a chance to dodge the blows. But he firmly resolved not to be tied and whipped by a mad man, or any other man. A few days before this he had a terrible experience on this point.

        A neighboring planter's slave, provoked by jealousy, made a terrible assault upon him; and Jarm was compelled, in his own defence, to give him serious blows that disabled the assailant. Thereupon, the owner of the slave complained to a Justice of the Peace, and Jarm was convicted by the testimony of the jealous and perjured one, and sentenced to receive thirty-five lashes on his naked back, and Manasseth was adjudged to pay a sum in damages. The ridges on his back were still tender, and the agony in that case determined him never again to suffer mortal man to tie him up and flog him.

        "Take off your shirt, you black rascal! I'll learn you to steal my oxen in the night and get whiskey! Off with your shirt!"

        Jarm folded his arms and looked his master full in the face, with a steady and firm gaze.

        "Don't stand there staring at me, you black dog! Off with your shirt, or I'll whip it off--hide and all!"

        Jarm still stared and scowled at his master, but made no move to take off his shirt.

        "You black scoundrel!--don't you mean to take off your shirt?"

        "No!" growled Jarm, with a voice more like a provoked lion than a man.

        Manasseth was now irritated beyond measure, and approaching Jarm with a rope, his face and eyes flashing fire, cried out:--

        "Cross your hands, you rascal"

        Jarm stood firmly and silently as before, his large muscles crawling on his great folded arms, and his eyes fixed boldly and defiantly on his master, who, by this time, trembled with uncontrollable frenzy.

        "Cross your hands, or I'll take your life, you d--d black dog!" roared Manasseth, raising a large gad, and aiming a blow at Jarm's head with all his strength.

        Jarm avoided the blow by a motion of his head and body, and Manasseth, unable any longer to control his passion, flew at his bold and indignant slave to collar him, muttering in his rage:--

        "Won't you cross your hands when I command you, you insolent rascal?"

        Jarm growled out again, louder than before, a defiant "No!" At the same time he seized the mad man by the throat with one hand, and his breech with the other.

        "Let me go!--let me go!" cried the terrified Manasseth, thunderstruck that his slave dare put hands on him.

        "I'll let you go, and I'll go myself!" growled Jarm, both hands still clenched into him as aforesaid,

and placing his right knee to his breech to aid his hands, he raised him from the ground and pitched him half a rod onto his head, turned on his heel, and ran for the woods.

        It is unnecessary to say that this transaction greatly disappointed and embarrassed both parties. Jarm was in no condition to attempt an escape, and Manasseth in no condition to dispense with his abilities and labors. This extraordinary and daring onset on him, opened his eyes to the positive, manly, and uncompromising character of his slave. The onset had not personally injured him, but it brought him to his senses. Jarm fled out of his sight, but his gigantic form, determined look, and courageous bearing, remained daguerreotyped on Manasseth's memory, and awakened his respect. He felt that, though in Jarm's hands he was as a child, he had only put him out of his way--rather rudely, to be sure--under the highest provocation. To pursue and punish him, he saw would be to drive his chafed spirit to a desperate extremity, and that he should thereby lose him. He concluded, therefore, not to pursue him. Left alone, he believed Jarm would wander in the fields until his passions cooled, and then return to his labors, where he was greatly needed.

        Thus was Manasseth disciplined to submission by the decision and bravery of his slave. Should all other slaves, or any considerable portion of them, manifest the same dignity and spirit, their masters would succumb to their manhood and give them freedom, or treat them justly --which, in effect, is to free

them. Slavery can endure no longer than its victims are submissive and servile.

        All ignorant was Jarm of the change in the mind and feelings of his master. On one point, at least, he had made him a sensible man; but Jarm did not know it. He fled to the woods, not doubting Manasseth was stimulated to the highest point of passion, and that he would rally the slave-catchers to hunt and shoot him; or, what was worse, return him to be scourged and tortured, and sold to Georgia. Of course he was in no condition to escape-- he resolved, therefore, to go directly to the cave, the only attainable place of security, and consider what he could do, and what he had better attempt. Though he did not expect his project to escape would be so soon and seriously embarrassed, he did not regret that he had done what he did do. He hoped he had taught his master that to attempt to tie and flog him, was neither safe or wise, if he would retain him in his service. He had counted on the profits he should derive from the sale of his whiskey to increase his little capital to run away with--and he now concluded that the capital and profits together were sacrificed.

        Though some masters were ashamed to get drunk on their slaves' whiskey, he knew his master was afflicted by no such delicacy. Right well he judged on that point. That very day Manasseth filled his jug with Jarm's whiskey and got drunk with it. Indeed the liquor was quite a pacificator, and through its taste and stimulus plead for Jarm. During all the time he continued away, it lay upon his master's mind like

a charm, and held him in a dozy and contented negligence of Jarm and his affairs.

        As has been before said, Jarm was in no condition to run away. He was without money or clothing beside the shirt and pantaloons be had on. The country, as he supposed, was notified of his elopement, and on a look out to take him. After examining the interior of the cave, as well as he could without light, and piling a quantity of leaves near its mouth for a resting place, he threw himself upon it, and began to study what to do. He felt that he was without a master, but his freedom was uncomfortably circumscribed and inconvenient. It would be hard to live it twenty-four hours, as he was nearly destitute of clothing and entirely destitute of food or the means to get any.

        His destitution determined him to find at once some reliable friend to assist him in his emergency. It was now the forepart of a warm day in the spring, but he dare not expose himself in the sunlight, and must wait for darkness to cover him before he sought that friend. He knew hunger would overpower him at noon, and torment him until evening--and he could think of no antidote to its demands but roots and barks.

        Never did Jarm rejoice more to see the sun go down than on that afternoon. So soon as the shades fairly covered the woods and fields, he took his course for John Farney's. John's master's name was John Farney, and he named his slave John. Because he was believed to be the son of his master, the colored people called him John Farney. Jarm started for

John's because he was more accessible than any other friend of his, and because he knew him to be true as steel, and a good counsellor in his case. He might have gone home and awakened his sister and mother and obtained the articles he needed, but he knew it would be imprudent, and that John would do all he needed.

        John supplied him with a tin cup, a blanket, a coat, tinder, flint and steel, (there were no Loco Foco matches in Tennessee then,) and what was more important, a plenty of cold bacon and bread, and promised to see his mother and sister and get his clothes. He also promised to meet him at the cave with Jerry so soon as it was convenient. He further told him there was no noise or stir about his rencounter and escape,--and, indeed, it was altogether unknown at Farney's plantation.

        Farney lived about four miles from Manasseth, and he and his slaves were likely to be soon informed of the rencounter. Their ignorance of it, made Jarm reflect that his master might have taken a different turn from what he expected. He went back to his solitary home, relieved and comforted. After lighting a pine knot with his flint and tinder, and eating a hearty supper of bread and bacon, and washing it down with water, he rolled up in his blanket on his bed of leaves, and instantly fell asleep, and so continued until late in the morning. The last two nights he slept little and his anxiety and excitement were very oppressive, he lapsed into slumber most profound, and awoke not until the music of birds, and the gurgling of the

stream opened his ears, and the silver light on the surface of the brook opened his eyes to the fact, that the day was advanced, and that his bed-room, dark as Erebus in some places, would never be lighter. He was ready dressed, but threw off his garments and plunged into the pure cold water at the foot of his cave, and then stept into the open air to feel the glorious sunlight, ere he sat down again to his solitary meal. His breakfast was the same as his supper, and soon disposed of.

CHAPTER XIX.

        Jarm now began to realize his destitution. Having finished his first breakfast at the cave, after a night of excellent sleep, and a morning of refreshing ablution, he remembered he was a prisoner. It was a dreary day to him. The beautiful sun shed its warmth and light, but not for him--his kindred and friends, driven to their tasks, might not come to him, nor could he go to them. He might not be seen out of his hiding place. The clouds that slavery gathered in his soul were colder and darker than the day-night that filled his dungeon, and he was borne down by a sense of unutterable injustice. He felt that it was bad to be poor, but insufferable to be so poor.

Had he, like the Ocean-tossed Selkirk, been stranded on an Island among birds and beasts which were unacquainted with man, his soul might be content with external objects. Or had he, like the beloved desciple, been thrown into some Patmos, where body and soul were free, he might have been sensitive to the voice and touch of angels. But, alas! slavery fiercer than the winds, and more cruel than the persecutors of the Prophets, had driven him into the earth to shelter in perpetual darkness. Could he have walked out during the day without exposure to unimaginable wrongs--could he by any amount of carefulness have found his way to the Prestons, or even to friends near at hand--was he not obliged to be quiet in his cave, or skulk like a wild beast among the bushes, to avoid human eyes and savage bloodhounds--could he have dimly seen a way out of his discomfort and perils--if, to break the circle of present embarrassments, would not leave him in an impenetrable outer circle of woes on the plantation-- if slavery had not, seemingly, driven him to the last extremity, and piled its insurmountable billows around him, he had not been cast down as he was. It was, indeed, a dreary day to Jarm; and when the sun went down, his soul reached the bottom of its troubled waters. He could stand it no longer. The fountain of feeling and tears burst open, and he fell upon the earth and prayed--

        "O God, how long must I suffer? Pity, pity me, O my Father, and deliver me from these wrongs. Is there not mercy in Heaven for a poor slave? Help!

help! O God, for I am helpless! Leave me not thus wretched!"

        At this point, perfectly absorbed by his afflction, he was startled by a strong hand on his shoulder. At the same time a kind and familiar voice said to him:--

        "Hallo! pretty boy! Here, you are, praying the Lord for help, and he has sent me, a poor creature to do the trick."

        Jarm immediately sprang up and grasped the hands of Ross and John. The clouds departed, and the sunlight cheered his soul again.

        "How glad I am to see you!" said he.

        "Well, we come to make you glad. But what was you blubbering for when we came in?"

        "Mr. Ross, I have some pluck, and can bear grief as well as most men, but I can't endure such a case as this. I think I can look my enemy in the face, and die fighting for my rights; but to die in this way--to perish on the rack of my own mind, is impossible. Oh, I have had a wretched day, and could stand it no longer. Therefore you found me as you did, crying for help. I had no companion or comforter on earth--why might I not seek one in Heaven?"

        "You did right, and no doubt you found that companion and comforter, and he sent me, a forlorn old scoundrel to help you."

        "Don't call yourself hard names--you are not a 'scoundrel.' If God uses scoundrels in works of goodness and mercy, it is in spite of them, and not

because they delight in goodness and mercy, as you do. If you have the heart to do good, you have the heart of a Christian; and the good that is in you will overcome your evil, and rid yourself of it in the end. So I learned of the Prestons."

        "But don't you know the Scripture says 'no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of Heaven?'--how, then, am I a Christian?"

        "What does that mean?--is it an unpardonable sin to get drunk?"

        "It is unpardonable so long as the man drinks. When he ceases to drink, and is a sober man, he is pardoned--he pardons himself. That is the way all pardons are granted. The truth about it is, that text applies not to alcohol drinkers--for, bad as they be, they may reform--in other words, be pardoned, for reformation is pardon. But the Scriptures tell us there are those who 'are drunken, but not with wine,'--who 'stagger, but not with strong drink.' They are those who are wiser than the word--who are drunk with self-intelligence--who are not sick, and therefore need no physician--who are righteous, and need no Saviour. The sin is in the spirit, the life, the affections. They are spiritual drunkards, drugged with self-intelligence, righteousness and wisdom They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man--their sin is unpardonable. There, can't I preach?"

        "I wish all preachers would preach and practice as you do," said John. "But we must talk about earthly things. What is to be done with this poor

Gentile? (pointing to Jarm)--and how are he and I and Jerry to get out of the hands of these christians, and find freedom?--that is the point."

        "The best thing Jarm ever did in his life was to pitch his pious old drunken master heels over head." Turning to Jarm, he said, "I have been on the lookout to-day, and find the old hypocrite begins to think you are a boy of sense and spirit, and fit to have the charge of his business. He values you higher than ever, and will set no dogs on your track to chase you out of the country, mind that--at least so I think. But I will examine the case further, and in the meantime, prick up--don't be cast down. In three days I will guarantee you will be on better terms with him than you ever was before."

        "For the sake of getting ready to run away, I want to get back to him. My means are in his hands, and they were hard earned. All I live for now, is to get freedom, and if I can't get that, I don't care to live at all."

        "That is just my case," said John.

        "Well, well, boys, keep quiet--it will come round. In a short time, you, Jarm, will stand better with the old man, and have a better chance to get the means you speak of, than ever before."

        "About those passes?"

        "O, I'll write each of you a pass when you are ready to start. John and I have talked that matter over."

        "Well, I must make some money. I can make

$50 by my patch this year--but not if I am shut up here."

        "How large is your patch?"

        "About an acre."

        "How do you find time to work it?"

        "O, I work nights only, of course--but the patch has the credit of raising a great deal of cotton, which I get by my wits. My master's son, John, is friendly to me, and I do things for him, and he steals his father's cotton and pays me liberally. I dicker with the slaves and they steal their master's cotton, and I put it all on my pile. So my crops depend quite as much on my skill at trade as upon my labor. By the way--have you given Mr. Ross any bacon yet?"

        "O, yes--I handed him a ham yesterday."

        "Give him another, on my account."

        "That I'll do."

        "We shall need to use you a great deal, Mr. Ross, and will pay as well as we can. We have no scruples to take property which our masters call theirs, because it ain't theirs--it has been earned by us and our kindred, and not by him or his. We would do no injustice to them, and so far as we can we are determined they shall do no injustice to us. The reason we escape from them, is, because they rob and wrong us all the while. We have well considered these matters, and are satisfied we are right."

        "Of course you are right. No man ever lived that did not reason as you do--men are men because they so reason. And they are the more men as they get out of slavery. To take your own is just, as everyone

knows by interior perception. Such perception is God, in every man, whispering--'get your rights and keep them.' By such interior perception God spoke to Adam, Noah, Moses, &c.--and this is what the ancients meant when they said, 'God spoke unto Adam'--'The Lord spoke unto Moses,' &c., &c. He never spoke to any man but by an internal perception, and his words are heard in the soul, not in the ears. A man's spirit never mistakes God's voice, saying, 'Get free--get your own.' And this voice every slave as distinctly hears, by his spiritual organs, as he hears the thunder by his natural ones. Go on, then, and be free. Take with you your earnings--horse, clothing, money--everything you need. You have a 'Thus saith the Lord' for it;--it is the command of God."

        "That is the stuff--that is religion. It is full of charity and blessedness. If your preachers and class-leaders preached in that way, their awakenings would be of a different sort--they would howl to a different tune."

        "Yes, indeed. If Christ should come in a new Jerusalem and preach that way, your master would kill him. Men no more know him when he comes in the spirit at his second advent, than they did when he came in the body the first time. They then thought he would come as a king--now they think he will come riding on a cloud or a white horse. The truth is, they don't understand the Bible. If they did, they would see him here now, separating the sheep from the goats, and setting the world in order."

        "When shall I see you again?"

        "In a day or so," said Ross.

        "I hope you are right in regard to my master. I will submit to my fate a little longer for the sake of freedom--but I will not submit to be tied and flogged, nor will I go to him like a tamed and sneaking slave--I will be killed rather. I will go to him like a man, and he shall know he has gained nothing by attempting to tie and flog me."

        "Right as a book!--you are an exception in slavery. Your master feels his dependence on you too much not to respect your manliness. He can't get along without you, and he knows you know it. From prudence and interest, he will not, as some masters would, drive you to despair. If I don't err, experience has taught him what you will and what you will not bear. Your manhood will raise you in his esteem and confidence. He values you at this moment higher than he did three days ago--at least that is my opinion--but I'll understand the case better in a day or two. Of course, you will be discreet, and approach him respectfully and frankly, as if you confided in his generosity and good sense--but I'll see."

        "So I made up my mind to do--but I have no respect for his generosity or good sense."

        "Neither have I," said Ross. "I rely upon neither the one or the other. I calculate on his discrimination in respect to his interest, only. I think he has sense enough to see that a quarrel with you won't pay. Manasseth Logue was never dull to scent a shilling, drunk or sober."

        "You are right there."

        "I have been telling you how to play the game with your master--for it is all trickery between master and slave. He that cheats most is the best fellow--if, being a slave, he is not found out in his cheating, So when you come to escape, if you do escape, and I have no doubt you will, you must be bold, and not fear to stop at the best house while in the slave states--you must act as freemen act. It is not enough to say you are free--you must act free. You are to get out of the country, of course, with all reasonable expedition--but, mark me; you are to go with heads up, and in the most public roads. If you go dodging and shying through the country, you will be suspected, seized, imprisoned and advertised--but if you ride boldly through, like freemen, you will get through unmolested."

        "Do you say we must stop at the big houses?"

        "Yes."

        "Why?"

        "Because it is the last thing a slave would do--and because again large houses are the most willing and able to entertain you."

        In this way the parties talked until the evening was consumed, and then parted, mutually pleased--Ross, because he thought he had done something for the good of the poor fellows,--and Jarm and John, because they were encouraged and instructed by him. Jarm immediately rolled into his bed of leaves, and in the act of revising the conversation just passed, fell and woke not until the birds peeped on the boughs, and the gray light on the water, and the

shade in the mouth of his dungeon disappeared. Then he awoke to repeat the ceremonies of the previous morning.

        When evening came again, pursuant to arrangement with John, he started for the Farney plantation, and arrived there about nine o'clock. Perceiving there was yet a light in the great house as it is called, though it was about the size of an ordinary log house, he waited in the skirt of the forest for it to disappear. He had not to wait long before the house was all dark, and no sound of human life was heard but one soft, female voice, carroling a slave's song at the door of her cabin.

        Jarm stepped lightly from his covert, and approached warily the spot where she sat, and by a token not new between them, made himself known. The voice of the girl sunk lower and lower, as she neared him, until the sound ceased to be heard, and and she was in the arms of her friend. Quickly she she flew back to the shanty and picked up a bundle of clothing, and hastened to the side of Jarm and delivered it to him, and then leaned on his strong arm and strayed into the forest. She was a beautiful slave, and Jarm was her favorite--but his heart was spoiled at the Prestons for love affairs. He was pleased with her company, person, and character, but his intent went no farther. He had long resolved never to be a husband or father, until he and his children could be free. He therefore discharged his obligations to the girl, by acknowledgements and caresses which

were common to kind, young hearts of their class, and a disregard of which would seem cold and ungrateful.

        "You have been over to our people?" said Jarm.

        "Yes--I went this evening."

        "Did you see mother and the rest?"

        "Yes."

        "Are they well?"

        "Yes. Mr. Preston was there yesterday to buy you. He pressed Manasseth very hard, but the old wretch was unwilling to part with you at any price, and refused to name any sum that he would take for you."

        "How did you find that out?"

        "Maria and your mother both told me."

        "Did Mr. Preston enquire for me?"

        "Yes--he was very anxious to see you."

        "How glad I should be to see him! He is a glorious, good man. Slavery would be nothing if masters and mistresses were like him and his wife and daughters. I never expect to enjoy myself as I did with those good people. O that I could go and see them!"

        Supplied with clothing, Jarm shut himself in the cave and woods during the day, again, and visited his colored friends on the neighboring plantations, or entertained them in his rocky home, during the nights. His life was easy and social, but unnatural, constrained, and fruitless of preparation for a better country. His spirit tired of it, and he determined to put on a bold face and go to his master.

        We pass over several interviews with Ross, John, and Jerry, in which their joint concerns, and his individual

case, were talked of, and come to the interview between Jarm and his master. He had spent the previous evening with his friends at the cave, and was emboldened to take the step which would test the question of reconciliation. Early in the morning he fitted his dress for work, and took a circuitous route for home. He took a circuitous route, that his approach should not hint the direction of his concealment. He arrived just as the hands left for the fields, and found his master in the yard. For the first time in his life he approached him with his hat on his head. He touched it with his thumb and finger, bowed, and said, respectfully, as one equal does when he meets another,

        "Good morning, sir."

        "What do you want?"

        "If you have anything for me to do, I will go to work."

        "Have you been to breakfast?"

        "Yes, sir."

        "Go into the lot to making fence."

        This brief colloquy was all that passed. But the tone and manner of it, signified to Jarm's mind, that the reconciliation was complete--Manasseth, who knew so little how to conceal passion, had not the least show of it. Jarm was satisfied his master was glad to see him, and that he entertained no intent to flog or injure him. If Jarm was tired of wild life, Manasseth was tired of filling his place on the farm.

        From that day forward there was peace between Jarm and his master-- not because they were really

reconciled, but because it was the only means to secret ends. Jarm was peaceable as a war measure, and his master was peaceable as a measure of economy and policy. Like all slaves and slaveholders, (as a general truth,) they fell into a forced, hypocritical and false position, in which Jarm had the advantage, for he read his master's mind and motives like a book, while he was to his master a sealed book.

        Jarm was very attentive to the interest of the plantation, and his master's eyes were effectually blinded thereby. The latter trusted the management of his farm to him, and allowed him many privileges. What remained of his whiskey, Jarm sold, which, with his little patch plantation, made sufficient capital to pay his way to the free north.

        But notwithstanding Jarm's importance to his master, and the fidelity and industry of his mother and sisters, he was destined to experience another of those terrible blows upon his heart, which are ten thousand times more painful than death. His sister Maria was a young and beautiful slave mother, who lived in the smiles and caresses of her husband and three lovely children, one of whom was a babe at her breast. Her loving heart was bound to the hearts of her mother, brothers and sisters, by cords woven of heaven, and which could not be broken without impaling the very life of the whole family circle.

        In the latter part of the summer, Jarm found himself in the midst of the following circle: a bluff and strong built man, having the dress, manners, voice and expression of a ruffian, with a pistol in his bosom

and a whip in his right hand, attended by two three like ruffians, with Manasseth standing by, and two of them attempting to tie the hands of the beautiful Maria with a rope,--she resisting screaming and praying,

        "Let me have my children--do let me have my children!"

        "What you make such a d--d fuss for? Shut up, or I'll make you bellow for something--you have got to go--what is the use?"

        "Give me my children and I will go anywhere--only let me have my children--I can't go without my children!

        The coarse and hard labors of Maria had given her great strength of muscle, and in the desperation of her affections it was no easy thing to secure her hands. The hard man who was attempting it, irritated by her screams and struggles, struck her on the mouth with the back of his hand.

        "Shut your mouth, you d-- d----."

        The blood flowed freely from the mouth of the girl, and ran down her chin and neck, and she cried the louder--

        "Give me my little children!--I can't leave my children!"

        Internal agony gave desperate strength to her natural energies, and she resisted the united strength of all the men--screaming all the while, "Give me my little children!--O, take my little children with me and I will go--I can't go and leave my children!"

        But the strength of the cruel men finally overcome

the wretched slave mother, and she was forced into a wagon with them-- her hands were tied, and she was held to her place, and driven screaming away. So soon as she found she must go, and there was no relenting, she prayed only for her babe.

        "O, do give in me my babe!--my little babe--I can't live without my babe. What will the poor little baby do?--do give me my babe and I will go with you--do let me have one child--I can't go without my babe!"

        Crack went the whip, and just as expressive of sympathy was it as the curses and oaths of the wretches who made it crack--and the clattering of horses' feet, and rolling of the wagon, and oaths of the drivers, and moans and screams of the miserable Maria, mingled together, until they died on the ears of Manasseth and his wicked household. It was the last time poor Maria ever saw her children, mother, brothers or sisters, or any one of them. She was driven off alone, and left them to a like fate.

        The lion-hearted Jarm was obliged to look on, riveted in his tracks by a sense of impotence and desire of vengeance. Nothing but a conviction that he would soon escape from the power that was wrenching his heart in pieces, held him from dashing his blood against the blood of the incarnate devils who were eyeing their gains amid the unutterable agonies of all his kindred.

CHAPTER XX.

        The terrible experience of the last chapter increased the impatience of Jarm. It was a stirring admonition, "that thou doest, do quickly." He hastened a meeting of his friends, to make final arrangements, and they determined to be ready with horses, clothing, provisions, money, arms, and passes, to start under cover of the first night of the holidays. The thought of remaining where he could be tortured by such unutterable outrage, was intolerable.

        Manasseth Logue had four or five good horses. The one which Jarm appropriated was a young, high spirited, well-broke, beautiful animal. For fleetness, endurance, strength and beauty, it may be doubted whether there was a superior in the State. Having full charge of the horses and their feed, he petted and fitted this one for his purpose. Though perfectly orderly, he was often in the best meadows, oat and cornfields. Manasseth grieved that this good horse was being thus disorderly, little dreaming that his trusty Jarm pulled down the fences with his own hands, that he might have ingress to the best feed, and be fitted, at his master's expense, to carry his best slave out of the country.

        The fall work was finally completed, and the religious season came round again, when it was convenient

for these Christian slaveholders to have a time of taking care of their souls at the anniversary camp-meeting. There the three friends met again, for the last time, and their friend Ross met with them,--while their pious masters were mouthing their prayers and shouting their "Amens," they retired to hold a slaves' caucus in the mountain cave, and plot their escape.

        "We must be ready to start the first holiday night," said Jarm.

        "Agreed," said John; "I shall be ready."

        "I'll try to be," said Jerry.

        "It won't do to pass the holidays--we must go to Illinois before winter--and now about those passes?"

        "There is one for each of you. I have dated them on the first of the holidays," said Ross.

        Each of the parties then paid into his hand $10, in cash, and promised, before their departure, to deliver him flour, bacon, and other necessaries for his family,--a promise which they faithfully fulfilled. Of course, these articles were all secretly taken from their masters. Theft is the basis principle of slavery, and the little world in which the slave's mind and body moves, compels the conclusion that it is right to take from his robber every thing he can safely lay hands on. Nature and heaven know no law for the slaveholder. He is as much an outlaw in the slave's eye, as the slave is in his eye, and, therefore, justly exposed to every act of secret or open war, that the slave fancies may aid his freedom or convenience.

        "Now, boys, remember what I tell you--nobody

has a right to see your passes but a magistrate, and you are to deliver them to nobody but a magistrate," said Ross.

        "But what if they stop us, in case we refuse to deliver them?"

        "Knock them down--fight like lions. But you are not to seek a fight. You are to enquire if they are magistrates, and if they say "nay," tell them you are ready to show your passes to a magistrate,--but are not willing to deliver them to anybody you may chance to meet. Tell them you will go with them to a magistrate, and deliver your passes. Be civil--state your rights, kindly and calmly, but maintain them boldly and to the last extremity."

        "We'll blow their brains out."

        "Not until the last moment must your enemy know you have pistols. Your pistols must be your friends only in extreme cases. When you are driven to the point where you are to be seized or your adversary be shot, shoot him without compunction. Until you arrive at that point, keep your pistols covered up. If he won't give you food, rob him: if he wont give you freedom, shoot him."

        "Lord speed the day!--freedom begins with the holidays!"

        "Amen!"

        "And now let us go and see what that bawling in the camp means."

        Evening had already set in, the meeting was commenced, and the voices of the preachers and the shouts of the hearers echoed through the woods.

        "I wonder if there is any religion in that noise?"

        "Pshaw, no," said Ross. "Religion is willing and doing good to others--this is only bawling. The delights of religion result from doing good--the delights of this affair is in the excitement of self. Religion is merciful and rational--but this excitement is produced by the Evil One, to shut the eyes of their understandings to the unreasonable and merciless character of their own hearts. Look yonder--there is old Manasseth on his knees, now. Hear him cry aloud. Louder than that, old man!--Baal's deaf. That's it--beat the ground with your fists--take out your knife and cut your flesh and make the blood run, as your predecessor did at Carmel. What an old wretch he is!"

        "What makes you say he is crying to Baal?--he is crying to God. What is Baal?"

        "He is praying to god, to be sure--but it is a little shriveled-souled god, of just his own soul's size and quality. The ancients called that god BAAL--its true name is--self. All persons who worship from self love are worshipers of Baal. He thinks, or pretends to think, he is praying to Jehovah--but in fact he is belching out the desires of his selfish heart--he is pleading to Baal for the benefit of his own infernal lusts. I'll bet you a guinea he has got a pistol in his bosom--and their it is--I see it sticking out, now--and if he saw you getting your freedom, he would jump up and shoot you."

        "Of course he would shoot us, or otherwise murder us, if we attempted to get our freedom. Were it not so, they would not hold us long--you may bet your

life of that. Pretty religion, that! I don't like Baal, if that is their god--he may do for slaveholders--I am determined to flee from their god and his worshipers."

        "You will have to get out of the slave states, then. To use Bible language--those states "are the high places of Baal." Your master, Jarm, is well named, for his namsake of old built up the high places of Baal, and your master does the same. Like Manasseth of old, he has shed innocent blood. Hear him--what a reckoning he will have with his crimes some day.

        "I wish I understood the Bible as well as you do," said John.

        "So do I,--and I mean to understand it, when I get my freedom," said Jarm.

        "You understand it now better than your masters," said Ross.

        "How is that?--I can neither read or write."

        "You can't read or write the external letter of the word,--but you do read and speak the internal letter and intent of the Bible--and your master knows no more of the latter than his horse, if we are to judge from his life. You understand this, don't you--'all things whatsoever you would that men do to you, do ye even so to them--for this is the law and the prophets?'"

        "Why, I understand that I am to do to others as I would have them do to me--but that other thing, 'this is the law and the prophets,' I don't understand."

        "It means that that rule of action is the sum of all the teachings of all the Bible,--'the law and the prophets'

are the total of the Old Testament, which teaches only that sentiment--it is the pith and substance of the Bible, of all true religion--it is God's rule of life for himself and all his angels--in holding men to the same law, he does as he would be done by--for it is the rule of goodness and truth."^*

        "O, that everybody would teach and live such religion as that--we need not be here plotting to get away from these devil-deacons into Illinois, if they did. If I ever get to a free country, I mean to get learning and preach that religion, as the means of putting down the religion of the slaveholders. What a wicked thing it is, that our mothers, brothers, and sisters cannot be delivered until this religion is put down."

        "They make a great fuss about religion, as if it required much learning and study to get at it. The truth about it is, it requires skill and study to give it a false face and cover it up. The children understand it better than the minister--it is to live right--it is to do justly--to do good to others, from a love of doing good, not because you are afraid of God or afraid of hell, but because it is your delight and life to do it. Afraid of God! Afraid of hell you may be, because hell is a perverted affection--it is self. If you suffer, your suffering is self-inflicted. Men never feared God until they fell--then Adam said, 'I was afraid.' Fear thyself, but don't fear God--rush into his blessed bosom

rather, that is ever open to receive you. Now, boys, don't forget this injunction. I trust it is one of the last I shall give you--this may be the last time I shall see you--I would impress it upon your memories, have no fear of God--fear only yourselves and the devils, in the shape of men, who would enslave or corrupt you, and make you your own enemies. Yourselves and brother men are to be feared--God, never. He will be your friend whether you will or not--he never can be anything else-- he loves his enemies--he loves even those cruel men that are praying there for mercy for themselves when they have none for you."

        "God love his enemies! God not to be feared! Ain't that a strange thing to say?"

        "It ain't common talk, I'll admit,--but it is true, notwithstanding,-- and it is the true intent of the Bible, too. The Bible says, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' and that he is 'angry with the wicked every day'--but it must be remembered that the Jews, for whom it was written, had lost all spirituality--they were the swine of the Scriptures--they were inverted men, and saw things in a false and inverted order. To them, therefore, the Lord, instead of being loving and forgiving, was angry and implacable. They could only be influenced by fear,--and God, in mercy, ruled them through their fears and delusions. To them, truth was inverted and false--to them God was, of course, love inverted, and therefore angry, jealous and revengeful. The Book was written according to such false appearance, or it had

been useless to the Jews. The fear that taught lessons of duty and wisdom, and the anger which appeared in the face of God, were seen through the inverted and perverse loves of their own souls. They had changed. God was the same never-changing, ever-loving being."

        "Well, I love to hear you talk," said Jarm; "but those bawling hypocrites disgust me. I can't hear them any longer. By the way, I think I shall learn very little divinity until I get where I can think and act freely. As to Manasseth Logue, and all yonder crew, may God deliver me from them and their religion! Good bye."

        "That's it, my lad! The angel of the Apocolypse is now saying to every slave, 'Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely;' and 'let him that heareth say, come;' and 'let him that is athirst come.' Flee, then, and slake your thirst freely!--the angel declares and God commands it; and no man may forbid it with impunity."

        Jarm strayed into the woods, and came across his pet horse. He raised and curved his beautiful neck, and saluted Jarm with his usual whinner, and Jarm answered him by patting him and talking nonsense. He soon turned and examined a strange horse near by, whose points were not so good as his own. But the stray horse had a new, rich and beautiful saddle on his back--whereas, the saddle on his favorite was inferior and worn. It was not only new, but it was beautifully quilted, and its guilded stirrups reflected light like polished gold. Not doubting that the saddle

was the property of some of the christion slaveholders who were carrying on in the camp, or carousing in the groggeries, he raised the question whether he had best appropriate it for freedom--and finally decided to take it by way of reprisal for slave piracy, and part satisfaction for its wrongs. As before said, in the eye of the slaveholder, the slave forfeits everything to his master;--so in the eye of the slave, the slaveholder forfeits everything to his slave.

        He immediately took off the saddles and put his master's saddle on the stranger's horse, and then stripped the bridles off the horses' heads--leaving the throat latches buckled--and turned them loose--having previously fractured the girth of his master's saddle, so that he was sure it would be brushed from the back of the horse, and seem to be done by the horse himself,

        Jarm left the bridles as he found them, fastened to small trees, and tossing the new saddle upon his back, he took a circuitous tramp to the old meeting house, and deposited it for his use.

        The horses returned naked to their homes; and their owners, finding the bridles as aforesaid, inferred that they had stripped the bridles off their heads, and lost their saddles in the woods. Search was made for them the next day, but Manasseth's was the only one that ever came to light.

        After Jarm deposited the saddle, he returned to the camp and met his friends again.

        "Not gone yet?" said Ross.

        "Not yet."

        Jarm now explained to them what he had been doing.

        "Let us go one side," said Ross. "These noisy Jews may overhear us, and it would be as bad for me as you, should they do so."

        "What do you think of my saddle affair, Mr. Ross?" said Jarm. "You see, of course, what I think of it, by the act; and now I want to know whether you approve it as a just and right transaction."

        "Exactly--exactly. 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.'"

        "What do you mean by that?"

        "Why, that is the law of retaliation--the law of mercy and Heaven. 'He that taketh the sword, (against the right, of course) shall perish by the sword.' If a man does good to his neighbor, he does good to himself--he does evil to him, he does evil to himself. When Christ told his desciples not to judge men, he added, 'for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged'--'tit for tat.' In common language, that is the law of Heaven and Hell. If these christian rascals steal your freedom and bread, they forfeit to you their own freedom and bread. When God was about to rescue the Israelites from their masters, he told them to borrow their gold and silver and jewels, and take them along. Heaven knows no other law but this 'tit for tat' law."

        "But we are told not to retaliate upon our enemies."

        "Neither do we retaliate by this rule. The enemy does the mischief to himself. God's government is so that the wicked punish themselves. By shedding man's blood, which is divine truth, the bad man sheds his own blood--that is, he extinguishes truth in his own soul--and truth is spiritual blood or life. He kills himself--God don't do it. We are making our spirits all the while, and consigning them to Heaven or Hell--that is, we are constructing our eternal homes to suit ourselves."

        "Old Manasseth would never allow such a thing as that."

        "Not he. If a preacher should get on the stump there and declare this doctrine, the whole brood would draw their dirks on him. They could not bear it, because it is God's truth against slavery; it smites them where they live. It will be long before they approve the heavenly axiom, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'--or in other words, 'as a man judgeth so shall he be judged,' or 'as he forgives trespasses so shall his trespasses be forgiven,' &c., &c. I tell you, as true as you live, every man, under God, is his own final judge, and sentences his own soul to Heaven or Hell. God, whose seat is in all our faculties, but endorses the decree. Those fellows are fixing their souls in Hell now. There are a plenty such meetings as that in Pandemonium."

        "Well, well--my saddle has effected an important use already. It has been a capital text for a capital sermon. I believe in that preaching. In taking the

saddle, I have been just to myself not only, but to the robber who claims it."

        "We are agreed in that."

        "There is one item of preparation that puzzles me to make. John Farney, have you got your pistols and ammunition yet?"

        "No."

        "Neither have I. We must have them immediately--Christmas is at hand. I see how it is--we shall have to employ you, Mr. Ross, to get those articles. It won't do for us to be looking round for pistols--you know it would make an earthquake in the country."

        "Well, I can do it. I am going to Nashville next week, and if you give me the needful, I will purchase the lads for you."

        "It is a bargain."

        "Now, boys, I want to give you a special charge. You must be careful--I am involved in this affair as deep as you. You will put me in a fine fix if you let it be known I am helping runaway slaves to fire arms. I know you both, and can trust your honour. Still, I charge you to the utmost secrecy and care. A discovery in this matter would send you to Georgia, and me to the limb of a tree. Does your mother, brother, sister or sweetheart know anything about this?"

        "No. It is one of the evils of slavery that a fugitive may not trust mother or sister or lover--nor may he confide in a brother, until he knows the strength of his love, and feels it as his own. No

mortal among my relatives dreams of my intents, and as for a sweetheart, I have none. I did love a girl once, but her place and station are beyond my reach; and that is one reason that determines me to turn my back on slavery, until I can face it and fight to the death."

        "You forget our Rachel," said John Farney. "If she is not yours, you are hers--and I am thinking she would make a pretty muss if she knew we were going to run away."

        "Poor, innocent, good girl! It is not my fault she is partial to me. When we are gone, she will mourn sadly, and may take it in her head to be off too. Be assured, my dear friend, (addressing Ross) your name will never be mentioned in this affair. If my brother knows it, he never will know you had a hand in it, in any form whatever. This case is all our own."

        "I did not suppose you would intentionally betray me, any more than you would yourselves. If this thing is to fail, it will be by carelessness, not treachery. Therefore I urge the utmost possibly secrecy and care, every moment, and in every place. Life and death, liberty and slavery, the good to be done and enjoyed if you succeed, and to be lost if you don't succeed, depend on your cunning and courage and prudence. Shut up in this prison, you can't conceive the possible importance of this enterprize. You see it only so far as you are concerned, and only intend to be free, as other folks. The importance of your freedom to others is not thought of or imagined. To rid yourself of slavery is, an animal and a

religious duty. That instinct reposes on among the faculties of the soul before duty is there. It is an electric rod, which points to Heaven, all that attracts the divine spark which sets your souls on fire. You imagine you are self-prompted. It is a mistake. Divine love kindles the fire in your bones, which you cannot resist. Now, then, I am no prophet or son of a prophet, but I will predict that before you become of my age--before you are thirty years older--the whole land will cry out against slavery, and not only cry, but rise and expel it from the country. The Star in the East lights the horizon now, and ere your sun goes down--when it is in its meridian, if you live as long as I have--that Star will be in sight, rising and shining 'from the East even to the West,'--chasing the dreadful darkness away, and turning the clouds that make it into glorious light. Your corporeal and intellectual abilities, irrepressible impulses, and past experience, will make you an important element in the cold North; and thousands of others, who, like you, will escape from this slave-cursed country, will carry in their bosoms, as you do, unquenchable fires; and the frosty North will melt upon their bosoms, whether they intend it or not. O, yes--would that I could live to see it! More progress is to be made in liberty, in religion, in polities, in science, in industry, in humanity, the coming thirty, than in the last hundred years. Slaves will be important agents of that progress. I scarce dare speak it. Such will be the intensity of intellectual light, that it will break through the crust of nature

to the spiritual sun--the source of all light and all heat; for the light and heat of this world are only the natural and material coverings of the truth and goodness of the great God, which are constantly flowing from him through our sun into nature, to keep it alive."

        "My dear friend, our freedom is a world of importance to us, and it is all we think of just now. It shall have all our industry and ability to attain it, for its own sake--beyond that we know nothing. If we can do anything to bring about the good things you speak of--though we hardly understand what you mean by them--we will do it for the sake of others. One thing we can do, if it comes to that, we can fight--yes, and we will fight, you may bet your life of that, when there is half a chance to break the yoke off the necks of our countrymen by breaking the necks of these impious men."

CHAPTER XXI.

        The evening before Christmas, though cold, was as clear and beautiful as Tennessee sky could make it. Jarm and John had their holiday passes, and no article was wanting to complete their equipment. They had stabled and fed their horses in the best

manner, filled their saddle bags with clothing on one side, and bacon and chickens and bread on the other, were ready for flight. So soon as the sun went down, Jarm went over to Farney's, and found him in the road, a little distance from his master's house.

        "I have been waiting for you," said John.

        "All ready?" said Jarm.

        "Ready to a dot."

        "We shall start at two o'clock, and take Jerry in our course--he will be waiting."

        "Then good bye to old Tennessee? Won't we fire a salute when we get on free ground?"

        "Three days will take us out of Tennessee--but how long we shall be getting into Illinois, I can't tell."

        This conversation, and more like it, occurred as they proceeded slowly towards the negro house. At this point of the conversation, a voice, half scream and half groan, and loud enough to be heard at a distance, came out from the fence, very near them, and struck them with terror. Turning to the sound they saw Rachel in a delirium of excitement, produced by overhearing their conversation.

        "Oh! dear!--you are going to run away!" cried the girl, whose affectionate sympathies were painfully excited by the possibility of a separation from one she loved.

        "Hold your tongue!--hush! What do you make that noise for?" said John, in an undertone. "You are crazy!"

        "O, I heard you talk--I know what you are at--

you can't cheat me! What shall I do?" said the frantic girl.

        "Shut up!--do you mean to cut us off from the holidays, and get us into the calaboose? Do you think we would go away and leave you?" said Jarm.

        Jarm now took the girl by the arm, and led her to the kitchen, and soothed and quieted her, and drew her away from any suspicion of his escape; and, finally, wearied with her day's labor and the excitement of the evening, she fell asleep on his shoulder. The poor girl was tired, and slept soundly. Most anxious to be relieved of his charge, he quietly laid her on a bed near by, as he would a sleeping infant, and softly left the house. John, who was ready without, immediately put him on a nice horse, and he returned home, soon as possible, and let the horse loose in the streets; and he remained there, cropping the grass and bushes.

        Without delay, Jarm saddled and bridled his own horse, and prepared for flight.

        Now come a painful trial. To face hardship, and plunge, without experience, into an enterprize full of peril, did but stir the energy of his soul; but to take a last look at his mother, sisters and brothers was too much for him-- but he could not leave without it. He had a lion's heart, when looking at the perils and terrors around him, but he melted down looking at those dear ones. The tear trembled upon his eyelids in spite of him, as he shook his half-brother Henry out of his sleep and called him aside.

        "What do you want?" said Henry.

        "Henry," said Jarm, "I know I can trust you. I am going to run away. This is the last time I shall see you, for I shall start in a few minutes--I could not go without telling you, that after I am gone you might tell mother about it. Were I to tell her directly, so much does she love me, I fear she would expose me. You must take kind care of her, I cannot be a slave any longer."

        We will not detail the particulars of the conversation between these brothers. It was carried on with moist eyes and trembling breath, Jarm explained to Henry his preparation, and hoped on a future day to provide for them all. He knew he need not pledge his brother to secrecy, for he was the counterpart of his own soul. Nevertheless, they talked, of the necessity of secrecy. Henry approved the enterprize, and only regretted he was not a party to it. But a regard to their mother, required that one stay behind to soothe her in the dark days that would come to her.

        The brothers entered the negro-house together. The silence was broken only by the loud respirations of the weary sleepers. Henry stood by the door, while Jarm approached his mother's bed-side, to make a last offering of love--and O! how deep and sacred was it! As he took a last look, his inmost soul said in a voice silent to sense, but audible to spirit and to God, "O, my mother! our bodies must part--our spirits, never. Where I go you will go with me. I can never be separated from my mother--never, never! Your master (he is mine no longer) may

keep our bodies apart, but our souls he cannot part. O that you could go with me I! I mean to embrace you again, mother. Forgive me, mother--I can't stay longer!" He wiped his eyes, and imprinted a last kiss upon her forehead. She stirred, and Jarm hid his light and retired.

        Some conception may be formed of the sacred and touching sensations of the heart, but who will attempt to describe them? In the coming world, where spirit communicates with spirit, emotions are seen as in Eden, by the understanding which is the mind's eye. Not so in this outer world into which we have sunk by the fall. The good angels see them and turn them to use, but we are spiritually blind and helpless.

        The brothers now embraced and bid each other a long farewell. Their affectionate communings were soon broken by the sound of horses' feet and John Farney, with overcoat close buttoned to the chin, rode up.

        "My horse is lame--very lame, Jarm."

        "That is bad--very bad."

        "I'll let him loose and take that one," pointing to the horse Jarm rode over, which was still feeding by the road-side.

        "That is a capital horse," said Jarm.

        "I know it. I chose between the two, and regret I had not taken and fitted that one instead of this--but he is in fine order."

        To set the lame horse loose, and put saddle, bridle and bags upon the other, was but the work of a moment;

and he returned to Jarm and Henry about as soon as Jarm had his horse out and his load upon his back.

        "Good bye, brother. Remember, mother must be ignorant of this at least one week, and longer, if she shows no uneasiness. Good bye."

        "Good bye."

        The last words of the two brothers were spoken faintly; and with a warm pressure of hands, they parted.

        The cord was now severed which connected him to the home of his kindred, and it was some moments ere his experience of the keen night air restored him to a social state.

        The travellers took the turf by the side of the path, and rode a while in silence, each occupied by thoughts peculiar to himself. It was, as we have said, a cold, gorgeous night. The moon and stars shone like burnished gold in an ocean of silver. The young men were alike dressed in a close buttoned overcoat, and their heads and hands were capped and gloved, so that they defied the frost in any shape, and at any point the winds might drive upon them. Its sharp edge stimulated their well fed and spirited animals, whose antics soon claimed their attention. Nor was the air less bracing and exciting to themselves. In spite of the scenes they were leaving, and the danger before and around them, they, too, began to inhale intoxication from the atmosphere, and feel it in the influx of freedom which the first step of their flight let in upon their senses. New life swelled

their muscles; and ere they had gone two miles, they were side by side, curbing the impetuosity of their beasts, and presenting as gleeful, social, and formidable a platoon of might and courage as the star of Chivalry ever shone on, They called to mind that they had passes for the holidays, and if 'worst come to worst,' they felt they had strength and means to rout or ruin any three or four men the country could produce within their knowledge.

        They were now nearing the estate of Col. Wilks, and hoped to meet Jerry provided like themselves, when they thought it would go hard with twice or thrice their number of ordinary men who might attempt to cross their track to freedom. How sad, then, to find him at the appointed place, unprepared for the enterprize. Situated as he was, he could not as readily as they possess the means of escape. They had but to lay their hands on anything of their master's which they needed; not so with Jerry. Though Col. Wilks had excellent horses, and provision in abundance, the fact that he rescued him from his murderers forbade his taking them.

        We will not stop to detail the particulars of this interview. It is sufficient to say that Jerry could not be ready. They all felt this as a misfortune, but agreed that John and Jarm had best go on; and they pressed the hand of their unfortunate friend, and bade him a long farewell.

        Though at least one third of their intended force was lost by this misfortune, their hopes and courage were not diminished. Jerry was a brave and strong

man, a shrewd counsellor and terrible fighter, a close friend and boon companion, and therefore a serious loss. Yet they felt they were cunning and strong enough to go through without him. It is said disease preys on the senses, and that the patient therefore meets his fate with little pain or reluctance. So the slave, whose manhood is not crushed, loses attachment to life, and meets without reluctance the crisis that gives him liberty or death.

        The interview with their friend was short, and the fugitives mounted their horses, now growing mettlesome with oats and oxygen, and turned to the North Star, which sparkled like a diamond on their path.

        About six o'clock the same morning a stout colored woman, wearing a colored handkerchief in the shape of a loose turban on her head, was attracted by the appearance of two gigantic colored men on horseback, in the principal street of Nashville--their horses and themselves much freckled by the frost. Though she never turned her head or changed her step, which convinced the strangers that she supposed her interest as well as theirs required that she be neither seen nor heard but by themselves.

        "There is a row up in the city," said she, "which, if you are strangers, you had best be mindful of."

        Full well they understood (the travellers were no other than the young fugitives,) that the trouble related to their unhappy countrymen, and that they must be careful. It was arranged on the start, that if rivers were to be forded, John should take the lead; but if fighting was in prospect, Jarm should

take the lead. Jarm therefore moved along, on a traveller's trot, up Main street, in the face of the people, and John followed the length of his horse behind him. The whole metropolis was in motion, but the travellers moved directly on about their business, like wise freemen, turning neither to the right or left,--carefully avoiding any matters not their own.

        They soon found themselves moving through masses of citizens in a high state of excitement; but their appearance testified that they were strangers and early travellers, and their boldness saved them from any suspicion that they were fugitives. They were unnoticed but by the passing glance of an occasional horse amateur, who stopped to eye the beauty and motions of their noble animals.

        They passed through the masculine population of the city, which had mainly rushed to the scene of action. Glad indeed were they when their horses' feet struck the bridge over the Cumberland River on the border of the city. But they were greatly alarmed to see there a toll-gate shut across their path. If they might avoid notice elsewhere, they knew they must attract direct attention at this important pass. As they advanced upon the bridge, a little boy presented himself at the gate to wait upon them. This new and unexpected peril, though it quickened their wits, did not embarrass their equanimity. It needed but a motion, which Jarm knew well how to make, to set his high spirited horse bounding as in a fright.

        "Open the gate--quick!" said he, tossing a shilling

to the obedient boy, as he rushed through, and told John to do the same.

        They afterwards learned that they were in great danger at this point. The keeper of this gate being a lame man, he was employed by its stockholders for the double purpose of employing a moneyless cripple, and to detect fugitive slaves. It was a part of his bargain with his employers that he should criticise every colored person who came there, and be careful not to pass a runaway. It so happened, this morning, that his curiosity was attracted by the tumult, and he hobbled after the multitude to arrest or murder a handful of abused black men. Had he been at home, it is not probable the travellers could have passed without a severe cross examination--may be not without violence; for, under the circumstances, they would have forced a passage if necessary, and trusted to the strength of their horses and their own genius to avoid consequences. Happily the point was passed without trouble, and their minds relieved of great anxiety as they entered the open country beyond. They congratulated themselves on their good luck and began to think of breakfast for themselves and horses, and would have stopped at a farm house to eat, but for the following occurrence.

        Between them and the house above mentioned, they met a little colored boy, who, from his size, they judged to be between four and six years old. The little lad was shivering, mourning, and crying piteously.

        "What is the matter, boy?"

        "They have been selling mother."

        "When did they sell her?"

        "This morning."

        "Did the man who lives in that house sell her?"

        "Yes."

        "O, well--don't cry," and so saying, Jarm threw him a piece of a chicken's wing, and John gave him a piece of bread, which the poor fellow commenced eating with the utmost greed, apparently forgetting his wrongs and sorrows in his temporary good fortune.

        "Who that ever had a mother could break and mangle a mother's and child's heart like that?"

        "Curse the wretches! Don't let us stop at that house to feed--I should be tempted to shoot them!"

        "No, no--I fear we would both fail to bear our selves as our case demands with such people. We will go on."

        They passed by, and now and at noon, fed their horses at the corn stacks which they found in secluded places by the road, and refreshed themselves from their own provisions.

        As yet they had little experience of freedom; they had never spoken with a white man in their new capacity, and feared a lack of assurance to save them from fatal embarrassment when put to the test.

        When the evening began to drop its shadows around them, and their features were indistinguishable, they found themselves in front of a Baronial mansion, which stood in a large court-yard abundantly and tastefully ornamented with trees and shrubbery,

and surrounded by a stone wall and iron gates. The scene, in its twilight drapery, to their unpracticed eyes, was full of inconceivable attraction and imposing grandeur.

        "Dare we stop here?"

        "We have got to stop somewhere, or feel and act like slaves--lay out, and be taken up for runaways, if we are stumbled on by white men."

        "Will they keep us, think you?"

        "To be sure they will."

        "Courage, then!--here goes!" said Jarm. "Hurrah, there!"

        The voice of a colored boy responded at the barn--to which was a gravel walk in a direct line from the large gate at the road. The boy came at once to the gate, and his master, who heard the call from the house, also came.

        "What is wanting?" said the landlord.

        "We want keeping for ourselves and horses to-night, sir. We are travellers."

        "Open the gate, William."

        The gate being opened, the travellers rode their horses into the yard, and it was immediately closed and barred behind them.

        "Lead the horses to the barn, and take good care of them," said the host; and turning to the travellers, he said, politely, "Follow me, gentlemen."

        To use an expression quite common now, the travellers were "taken down" by the politeness of their host; and when he took them by a circular path up a high flight of stone steps which led to the front

door, and was about to usher them into a parlor blazing with light and fashion, they shrank instinctively back and exclaimed internally, "Conscience, we can't go that!" and instantly Jarm said to the man, "We are free colored men, and only want keeping for ourselves and horses over night."

        "Very well," said the man--and turning to the door on the opposite side of the hall, he said, kindly,

        "Walk in here."

        The room was dark when they entered, but the landlord ordered a light, and wood and coals of fire were brought, and the host himself set to kindling them into a flame. Jarm was greatly embarrassed by the condescension of his landlord, and John retreated to the outer door to hide his confusion. Perplexed as Jarm was, he did not believe it was proper to be passive and see a white gentleman like his landlord build him a fire--he insisted, therefore, with all humility and civility, to do it himself. He was glad to bide the confusion his color did not conceal, by bending low and blowing the coals and kindlers into a blaze.

        So soon as the fire blazed up, Jarm told his host they would be glad to retire early--if he had a "pallet " for each--which, in Tennessee, means a blanket,--they would be provided for the night.

        The landlord gave the requisite orders, and left them to themselves. John, of course, returned from his temporary retreat. The room was soon warmed up, the pallets brought in, a hasty supper of bread and bacon consumed, the lights put out to signify

they had retired, and themselves rolled up in their blankets on the carpet soon as possible--to watch, but not to sleep.

        At this stage of their affairs, they were glad to avoid all intercourse with white men which they could avoid. The possibility that their landlord might return, kind and gentle as he seemed to be, and catechize them about their affairs, frightened them,--therefore they lay down at once and watched till morning.

        When the clock struck four they were up, and called up William, saw to feeding their horses, saddled and bridled them when they ate their oats, and told William to find the amount of their bills, that they might pay and be on their journey.

        They soon heard William in conversation with his master, asking him for the amount of charges

        "What! are they going so soon?"

        "Yes, master--their horses are already prepared, and they wait only to pay their bills."

        "Why, I did not think they were going so soon. I intended to have a talk with them in the morning."

        "They say they are very anxious to be off, because they have many miles to ride to-day, to be at a certain place in time."

        "Well, tell them to give you a shilling a-piece, and let them go."

        "Bless God!" inwardly said the runaways. The shillings were paid, and they were let through the gate into the highway without delay.

CHAPTER XXII.

        As may be supposed, the young men were delighted to be alone again on the public highway. To them, their overnight experience was something like an escape from a den of lions. The weather continued freezing cold, but they minded it not, so intensely interested were they in their success. Their horses were well fed and cared for, and scarcely less lively than when they started.

        Their own provisions furnished them again, and their horses were supplied as on the preceding day. When evening came, they found themselves in the presence of one of the most popular taverns on the road. It was quite dark, and they delivered their horses to the stable boy, like other travellers, and directed their steps to the house, which was glowing with light, and alive with the sound of many voices.

        As they entered the hall, they met the landlord, and enquired if they could be entertained. He said "yes," and opened the door into the bar-room. They saw the room literally filled with white men, in all stages of intoxication: The fumes of tobacco and brandy, with the loud oaths of demented men, flowed in an overpowering torrent upon their senses.

        "Don't take us in there!" said Jarm. "We are free colored men, and want to be by ourselves, and have supper, and go to bed, and be on our journey in the morning, early."

        The landlord then led them to a private parlor, and left them. In a short time a servant came and said their suppers were ready.

        Neither Jarm or John were ignorant of well provided tables; but to see one set for themselves, alone, was a new thing. Their table was furnished with broiled chicken, ham and eggs, coffee, sweet-meats, and etceteras. When they took their seats, servants stood behind them to obey their commands. They felt awkwardly but pleasantly, and exchanging significant glances, hastily sated their keen appetites with the best supper they ever enjoyed. After the cold food and cold ride of the last forty-eight hours, a warm feast like that was a great luxury.

        They fell asleep soon after they felt their beds, and notwithstanding the bellowing of the crazy and drunken men, who, until after midnight, and even to approaching morning, made the house tremble with their demonstrations, they slept soundly, only, and occasionally, and partially, waking, to testify to the tempestuous excesses of the debauch.

        At an early hour they awoke the hostler, fed their horses, paid their bills, and prepared to journey again. We give the following incident, illustrative of Jarm's luck and southern ways.

        Jarm brought to the tavern a new cotton umbrella, and left it with the landlord. This umbrella some of the frolikers had taken, and left a new and beautiful silk one in its place. When the servant brought Jam's things, in the morning, he brought along this umbrella. "That is not my umbrella; mine is a new

cotton one," said Jarm The boy returned to his master and stated the case to him.

        "Tell the d--d fool to take the umbrella and be off--who the d--l cares?--the silk umbrella belongs to the nigger"--growled the landlord from his bed, where it is not probable he had lain long. Of course Jarm made no more words, accepted the profitable exchange, unceremoniously thrust upon him, thinking it an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

        The third day did not materially vary the experience of the fugitives. But when night overtook them, they stopped at a private mansion, which, they were told, belonged to a bachelor gentleman. They delivered their horses to the servants, to be cared for, as usual, and were led to the front door, and entered the room, where the proprietor sat reading.

        "We are free colored men," said Jarm, "and want--"

        "I'll colored men ye--you black rascals!" said the bachelor, as he reached for his cane, "if you don't get out of this room!"

        The young men fled, of course, and avoided the blows the idiocracy or drunkenness of their host seemed willing to inflict. He did not follow them, but seemed satisfied that he was clear of their presence. The servants understood his peculiarities, and led them to the kitchen, and showed all the kindness they dare. But they were allowed neither supper or bed. Here again they had a night of fasting, added to anxious watching for morning, to be released from painful embarrassment. Two things only were they indebted to their crusty landlord for. Their horses were

housed and fed,--thanks to the slaves for that,--and they, also, were covered from the cold winter.

        Notwithstanding they were so shabbily used, the overseer showed them his sour and ugly face in the morning, and demanded a dollar for the use of beds which they never had. In the lion's mouth, as they were, they knew it was wise to be submissive. Jarm, therefore, handed the overseer a dollar bill, which had been condemned as counterfeit, and which he could no where else pass. This piece of counterfeit paper, which had been imposed on Jarm, appeased the extortion of the crusty scoundrel, and they took their horses and departed.

        They now entered the fourth day of their journey, without awaking the enemy, or eliciting attention to their real character. They were in excellent spirits, and congratulated each other upon their good fortune. From past experience, they believed to-day would be as yesterday and the day before, and that they should pass through without molestation. Their road lay through a thinly settled and uncultivated country, an