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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.*

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.”

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.”

“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.

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.

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?”

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.

Instead of being in the promised land, the young men found they were further from it than they ever thought of, and an immense wilderness between, whose anti-slavery thoroughfares had never been opened—that wilderness, too, instead of an uninhabited waste, was full of enemies, dangers, and trials, such as at that day had rarely been encountered, and never recorded. And now, after having slept, for successive nights, like the beasts of the fields, in a dark, cold night, on the borders of a village in a so-called free State, they were met with the kind advice to walk softly away, so as not to awake the people, who would delight to seize and enslave them.

Nevertheless, they now felt they had been again saved by an unseen hand, and that their conditions, though harsh and severe, were a protection and a blessing. Had they arrived at the village a little earlier, they had inevitably fallen into the hands of slave catchers. Had they not fired their pistols as they did, they had not deceived and dispersed the bad men who stood ready to seize them. The blessed night now interposed like the pillar of cloud between them and their pursuers—and the counsel of their friend was as the voice of God speaking out of it, pointing their way, and directing them onward. Their acquaintance with the lives of Christians (so called) had led them to form a low estimate of popular Christianity—but they were not so obtuse as to infer that these deliverances were accidents. They served to revive in Jarm's memory the theology of the Prestons, and he was strongly impressed that God's angels were with him and would take him through. But had Mr. Preston been there, he would have told him that these experiences, and others like them, the land and world over, were the chanticlerian signals of the extinction of faith, and consequent tribulations which attend the birth of a new Jerusalem.

“What do you think of the case now?” said John, after they mounted and rode out of the hearing of their white friend.

“Bad—bad enough. But we are in great luck, after all.”

“How is that?—twenty miles to a friend, hungry and sleepy, the horses tired—and in good luck?”

“It is evening—we had been off our guard entirely, and lost, had we been earlier; we were exactly in time to find the friend who just left us; our shooting saved us again and dispersed our enemies; the night covers our pursuers with darkness or sleep, to give us a chance to get out of their way. It is astonishing how lucky we have been. But we must not go twenty miles to-night. Our future safety depends much on our horses; and to go that distance, after all they have done to-day, is too much for them.”

“We had best stop—for the night at the first place that seems safe. We shall soon find if there is danger, and no small force will attempt to disturb us.”

In this manner they talked until they came in front of a small Dutch groggery, with a tavern sign before it, about eight miles from the spot where they landed in Indiana. Here they stopped, as ordinary travellers. If there were any accommodations in the house, they were already occupied, and their lodging was a little empty log barn—their provisions for themselves were furnished from their saddlebags, and their bed was the bare plank beside their horses. They slept soundly on the hard timber, and took an early start for Corridon twelve miles distant—where they arrived about eight o'clock in the morning.

They were not long finding the person to whom they were directed. He was a true hearted colored man ready to advise and assist them to the best of his means. They spent the day with him. It was the Sabbath, and gladly would they have accepted it as a day of rest. But the certainty that the hounds were behind them, rabid for their blood, robbed them of the quiet necessary to repose. Their horses, however, whose strength had been so well tested, knew no danger, present or absent, and rested away their weariness.

The colored brother who entertained them, from absolute poverty, had grown to be a man of substance, notwithstanding the prejudice and injustice of pro-slavery men and laws. From him they received valuable information in regard to their condition in the free States, and advice to get out of them into Canada. But he knew little of the country. The most he could do was, to tell them they would find a valuable friend in a Mr. Overrals, of Indianapolis, about two hundred miles distant, as he supposed, in a north-westerly direction—but could say nothing of the intervening country and its inhabitants.

At midnight, the fugitives-took the last lunch with their hospitable friend, and mounted their horses for lndianapolis. They were soon lost in an immense forest through which their path lay—and for three cold days and nights wandered about without food enough to sustain life, and without sight of human faces, other than the roving hunters, in whose camps they slept at night. Their path in the woods was circuitous and angular, and covered with snow—therefore they were mis-led from a north-west to a north-east coarse, and were travelling towards Kentucky. On the third day from Corridon, weary and hungry beyond endurance, they come into a country where white men lived, which was partially cultivated—but the inhabitants refused them food. Such was the extremity of their distress from hunger and cold, that their courage abated, and they began to talk of returning to Kentucky.

In this extremity, they came before a log house and asked for food. The landlord looked at them a moment with an expression of unutterable kindness, and said:—

“You are very hungry?”

“Yes.”

“How long since you have eat anything?”

“We have eat very little for three days.”

“Come in, my wife will get you a breakfast.”

A boy then took their horses to the stable, and they followed the landlord into the house.

“Here, Elizabeth,” said he, “are a couple of young men who are very hungry—they have had nothing to eat worth telling of for three days. I told them you would get them a breakfast.”

The Quakers supplied the young men with provisions and comforts, and they departed, through the wilderness, towards Canada. A frosty wind swept over the light snow, and cut their faces sharply. After half a day's travel, they passed beyond white men's log houses and clearings, into wild nature, where now and then, the Indians had mangled the forest and built their cabins. Occasionally, they met one or more Indians, to whom they bowed civilly, and received a half human response, which Indians, and those only who are familiar with them, understand.

The natives were a proud and stalwart tribe, dressed in their own costume, often ornamented with wampum and feathers, and generally armed with knives, or bows and arrows or rifles. Coming suddenly on them, as they did sometimes, the fugitives were startled by their ominous umph and imposing savageness. But after traveling among them and experiencing their harmlessness, they were quite disarmed of apprehension on their account.

The only annoyance from the Indians was their occasional lack of hospitality. For though generally they did not refuse them food and shelter, they sometimes did refuse them. Occasionally, too, they met white hunters in the woods, less reliable than the savages. These hunters told them to look out for wild boars, panthers, bears and wolves, especially the former monster beast, which they hunted with caution and peril. Not without cause, they feared to start up these terrible animals. They often saw their tracks, but if they came near the boars, they knew it not.

We said the Indians sometimes refused to entertain them—but not always did they accept a denial. One time, when night came on and they were thus refused, having provided for their horses, they lay down among their enemies in the wigwam, and slept on the watch, in contempt of them. As a general thing, they were received kindly, by night and day, and fed freely on the wild meats and indescribable dishes prepared for Indian palates.

In the middle of this great solitude, while treading their Indian path, at the close of an intensely cold day, as they hoped to a hospitable shelter, they began to feel the symptoms of one of those tremendous storms, which, at the north, make winter awful, sometimes, but which they knew nothing about. The wind grew louder and louder, and swelled into an appalling howl. The darkening atmosphere, filled with innumerable snow flakes, increasing the force of the hurricane, which scattered tops of trees around them, and occasionally tore them up by the roots and layed them with a horrible crash by their side.

To them, their case was strange, remediless and frightful. Their path was entirely obliterated by the tempest, and the pale snow light was about all they could see. In this dilemma, they gave the reins to their jaded horses, and trusted them to find a way to a house or barn among the Indians, while they whipped their arms and hands upon their bodies to repel the frost. But the eyes of the horses, scarcely less than the eyes of the young men, were blinded by the snow, and they were all alike helpless. They floundered among the trees, to the peril of the riders, and came at last to a field of bushes and small trees, that skirted the foot of a mountain or hill, at their left. This mountain, or hill, lay between them and the tempest, and broke its force—but in doing so, made it moan the louder and bellow its hollow thunder over their heads.

Here they dismounted, and allowed their horses to browse among the bushes, while they greedily devoured a portion of frozen provisions that they took from their saddle-bags, and then, by whipping their bodies as aforesaid, and other exercise, they kept off sleep and frost till morning. When morning came, most joyfully did they welcome it—not on their own account alone, but in regard to their poor horses, that needed rest and refreshment more than they. It was a terribly severe night, but not half so terrible as many they suffered anticipating outrages from their masters. They looked forward to daylight, and a refuge from the cold storm. But no day dawns for the slave, nor is it looked for. It is all night—night forever.

The earth was covered by a great depth of snow, which was unbroken by the track of man or beast. And still the storm raged, and the sky overhead resembled a crumbling snow-bank. The travellers were now lost, without a path to a human dwelling, or a star to show the point of the compass. But they could see—and from the growth of small timber inferred they were not far from Indian dwellings, and determined not to re-plunge into the woods, until they explored the brush-fields for an Indian's home.

They wallowed though the snow but a short distance ere they came upon cleared ground and a cabin; and they were kindly received and comfortably entertained in Indian fashion. It so happened that one of the natives talked bad English well enough to be understood by them, and acted the part of an interpreter. When the Indians found they had been lost in the woods, and in the storm all night, they (especially the women) expressed great surprise and sympathy. In justice to women, they, too, testified with a celebrated traveller, that in their extremity, they were sometimes repelled by white men and red men, but never by women, whether white or red. Woman, whatever her education or circumstances, represents the affectional element of humanity, and ultimates its uses in forms of kindness and love.

The horses were kindly sheltered and fed, as well as themselves, by these children of nature. But the wind continued to pile the huge drifts around their dwelling, and strip the great trees of their branches, or tear them up by the roots, and fell them with a noise louder than the tempest. They were therefore kindly detained twenty-four hours,—the time the storm continued,—and slept a double sleep, nourished by the bread and care of these sympathizing people.

In after life, when Mr. Loguen described the offices of religion in his lectures and speeches, he was often reminded of “the good of life,” or “natural good,” of these Indians, and contrasted it with the religion of the whites. The former are they, who, in the true meaning of the Scriptures, are “born blind,” because without the Word of God, which is “the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Such was the state of things at Syracuse in 1841, when Mr. Loguen came to reside there. He found the colored people comparatively uncared for. He felt that his mission was to them, and by the license of Alder Chester became their preacher—and gathered the children and youth into a school, and taught them to read and write and cipher.

The controversy between the Abolitionists and anti-Abolitionists was now fast bringing them into notice, and they were becoming objects of regard by good and humane men and women. No man received Mr. Loguen with more cordiality than the venerable Doct. Adams, who offered to take him into his own house and family, in aid of his efforts to improve the colored people. But Mr. Loguen asked nothing for himself. He drew his own money from the bank, and bought him a house and lot, and became, and has continued, a freeholder and tax paying citizen. Real estate rose in value in his hands, and by industry and care, his early investments made him not rich, but in good credit. We speak of his property to show that it is the growth of his hard earnings the first six years of his freedom, and not contributions to his anti-Slavery lectures.

At this time, the colored people had a small house for worship inclosed, but not finished. But their minds were on the lowest natural plane, and unprepared for the simple truths of religion, much less to appreciate the high claims and profound truths of the Bible. Deprived of social and mental culture, they formed a suburban girdle of moral and intellectual darkness about the city. He hired a lot of Mr. Hoyt, near the Park, and opened a school for the children, and taught them to read and write. At the end of the term, he had a public exhibition at the Congregational Church, which was honored by a large attendance of white and colored people. The church was ornamented with evergreens, and their compositions and speeches were highly complimented by their hearers.

He next hired a room of Mr. Dunbar, in Salina street, but because it was too small, he set about building a new house near the old Baptist church, in Church street. Having enclosed the building, the people were so enraged at the project, that he moved it with oxen near McKinstry's Candle Factory, and kept a school in it the following winter, and had an exhibition as before. The house was again removed, and now stands on the tannery premises formerly of Bates & Williams, now the property of W. H. Van Buren.

The third year of his residence at Syracuse, he went into the southern counties to raise funds to finish the church building. At this time the slavery agitation had stirred the minds and passions of the people into a tempest, and the subject was mingling fiercely with the politics of the day. He made his first anti-slavery speech, on this tour, to a large audience in Prattsburg, Steuben county, at the request of Revd's. Judson and Adson, active abolition ministers, who invited him to preach and lecture. Elder Rowley was accidentally present, and so delighted was he, that he introduced him to the people of Bath, and procured him a settlement over a small congregation of white and colored people, with whom he labored three years—preaching Sundays and teaching week days. Before being installed, he attended the Annual Conference of the African M. E. Church, and was licensed as an Elder.

In the Fall of '44, Mr. Loguen's second year at Bath, the antislavery tempest broke into a rage, and the friends of Mr. Clay, and Polk, and Birney, candidates for the Presidency, had their orators of every grade in the field, attituding them to the breeze. In the midst of the excitement, Mr. Loguen visited the counties of Tompkins and Cortland, to raise funds to finish the church at Bath. On this circuit he met with circumstances that opened to him a new field—placed him in companionship with men of refinement, education and manliness, and secured to him a conspicuous and honorable position before the country. Until then he had made a single speech on slavery, and his public life had been limited to preaching and teaching. But now the spark fell amid the combustible elements of his soul, and kindled the fires which controlled him ever afterwards.

On a glorious Sunday morning, the latter part of September of this year, after the people had assembled in the churches, two gentlemen were seated in an office in Cortland village, the Capitol of Cortland county, and in view of the Presidential election, were mourning over the adulteration and debasement of the Churches as mighty obstacles in the way of freedom and Heaven, and mingling their sympathies for the Liberty Party, to them the only visible index of humanity and religion. No sound was heard save the heavy foot-fall of a stranger upon the solitary side walks, and the notes of the birds in the artificial forest that covered them. The gentlemen were members of the Presbyterian Church, of which Rev. H. Dunham was pastor—but that Church had passed under the dominion of partizans—the cold breath of the South had bitten it, and its seared glories, like the glories of autumn, were passing away.

“I have no heart to go to meeting,” said one of them.

“Neither have I,” said the other. “But O, if the Churches of the country were God's Churches, instead of man's, how quickly would this slave question be settled!”

“And who wants to go to meeting to hear a preachment about truths and doctrines, when all that is needed, and all that God demands, is a living charity?”

“True enough. It is not doctrines, however true, nor love, however pure, nor both united, however closely, that makes the christian. But it is truth and love united in act, in life, that perfects christian salvation. Hoarded manna breeds worms and becomes a curse. It is daily bread for daily use we need. The sheep on Christ's right hand represented those who were in the good of love—but not on account of that good were they beckoned into the kingdom, but because they lived the goodness in charitable deeds to God and the neighbor. The goats on Christ's left hand, too, represent, in the same ancient language, those who were in the truths of faith without the deeds of charity, and they were left to the consumption of their own infernal fires—not because they did not embrace truth, and preach and pray it, but because they did not live it in good to the neighbor. Religion is life, because it is love. It is man's when it is done—not when it is known and acknowledged, and undone.”

“Who is that fine looking colored man walking all alone on the side-walk?”

“Sure enough! He is a stranger—may be a fugitive slave. Let us go and see him.”

“You seem to be a stranger,” said one of the gentlemen, approaching him. “Can we be of service to you?”

“I thank you, gentlemen. My name is J. W. Loguen, and am a stranger here. I want to make an appeal to these rich churches for a small sum to finish our house at Bath. I have been to see all the ministers, and they were not willing to give me a hearing.”

“Do you ever talk on slavery?”

“I can talk on slavery.”

“Were you ever a slave?”

“Yes, sir—twenty years a slave in Tennessee.”

“If we will get you a hearing in two of these churches, will you address them all on slavery at five o'clock?”

“Yes, sir.”

The gentlemen seated Mr. Loguen in the Presbyterian church, and after the service, Mr. Dunham stated his case and introduced him to the congregation. He then made his appeal, and received a handsome contribution. In the afternoon he visited and addressed the Baptist Church with like success. Having made a fine impression, and the largest notice being given at all the meetings, the Baptist house was filled to overflowing at five o'clock, to hear him on slavery. The people were qui vive on this subject, and a fugitive slave speaker was a person of great interest.

Mr. Loguen did not enter the pulpit, but fell upon his knees before the altar and the people, and poured out the passion of his soul for the redemption of the slave. He thanked the Divine Mercy that led him from the house of bondage, and prayed the same mercy to open the way for all his people. He did not ask God to smite his enemies, if it was consistent with his goodness otherwise to deliver them; but if his poor countrymen could not be delivered without blood, then he prayed God strike quickly. “How long shall my poor brethren suffer? Smite, O God, if smite thou must, and let them out of the hands of their tormentors! Have pity on us. How long shall our little children be torn from their parents, and our innocent sisters and daughters and mothers be give to pollution? O! give me my mother! Thou knowest how she is robbed of her children, and flayed and tortured because she grieves for them. My little brother and sister on one occasion, and my beautiful sister Maria on another, torn from her, and driven, screaming, away, by cruel men, who lashed her body and covered it with her dear blood, because she struggled and prayed for her children!”

No prayer ever made in Cortland melted the people like that. It is impossible to describe it. Suffice it to say, there was not, probably, a dry eye in the great assembly when it ended. Look which way you might all were in tears.

When he rose from his knees and wiped the water from his brow, he stood a moment confused, as if he had forgotten his audience while he talked with God. He adjusted his face and form as if he had come suddenly into a new presence, and then commenced his speech in the timid language of a child. He apologized for his lack of education and habit of speaking on any subject. He had but once before spoken on slavery, and the only qualification he had; he said, was his practical acquaintance with it. He wanted to do justice to it, for it was the burden of his soul.

He then proceeded to detail the features of this terrible despotism as he had felt them and seen them stamped on others. The souls of his hearers were put upon the rack, and their passions burned like fire under his unpretending but harrowing eloquence. When he had them fairly in his hands, he charged them—“Vote this hated monster quietly to death, or its fangs will drive deep in the bosoms of your children. It is the law of divine retribution. You can not allow that monster to tear out our eyes and preserve your own intact. You may not allow it to stupify and demoralize our masters, without feeling a corresponding stupor and demoralization yourselves. I tell you the evil is past endurance—the Justice of God cannot endure it.. Heaven's gathering vengeance waits your decision to-day—my poor oppressed countrymen are charged with it to the brim. Do you ask if I will fight? Ah! do you suppose a war upon God and humanity can be carried on, from one side alone? Yes, I'll fight, if fight I must. We were never made to have God's image ground out of our hearts without resistance. If our rights are withheld any longer, then come war—let blood flow without measure—until our rights are acknowledged or we perished from the earth. White men fight—all men fight for their freedom, and we are men and will fight for ours. Nothing can stop the current of blood but justice to our poor people!”

The above is a poor specimen of some of his thoughts on that occasion.

The liberty men of Cortland were so delighted with this specimen of Loguen, that they set him on the stump for Mr. Birney, in opposition to Clay and Polk. Appointments were made for him to speak at the principal places in the county, and he filled them with ability and success. In this circuit, his soul became so absorbed with his theme, as to divorce him, in a measure, from the pulpit, and to set him beside the slave in a life-long war for liberty; and he has continued a public speaker in his behalf ever since. The liberty voters of Cortland county this same year increased to between six and seven hundred, and credited Mr. Loguen for his agency in producing the result.

So soon as the campaign of '44 was over, John Thomas, then of Cortland, persuaded Mr. Loguen that it was his duty to enter the field as an anti-slavery lecturer, and gave him a letter to Hon. Gerrit Smith, commending him for that service. Mr. Smith entertained him over night, and wrote Mr. Thomas, saying, in substance, “What a man you sent me! I invited him to pray in my family, and he prayed so feelingly for his mother that he set us all in tears.”

About this time his term at Bath expired, and he accepted a temporary call from the colored people at Ithaca to be their minister—where he labored two years, and did important service. During this time, so numerous and importunate were his calls to lecture on Slavery that he determined to put himself in a position to answer them without interfering with other obligations. Accordingly, he dissolved his connection at Ithaca, and returned to his property and friends at Syracuse, and preached to the African Church there, when not called elsewhere to talk on slavery. From that time forward, his life has been a series of incessant activities, for the freedom of his family and race.

The citizens of Cortland were so pleased with Mr. Loguen, and so overcome by his love for his mother, that they determined to purchase her and give her to him, and employed John Thomas to negotiate with Manasseth Logue to that end. Mr. Thomas opened a correspondence with him, and concluded a bargain for Cherry at the price of $250. The sum was raised by subscription, and Nathaniel Goodwin, then of Cortland village, now of Albany, took a letter of Attorney from Mr. Thomas, and went to Tennessee to pay it and bring her on.

Mr. Goodwin arrived at Columbia in the evening, and finding that Manasseth lived about eleven miles off, and that he could ride there only on horse-back, slept till morning, and then went to the livery for a horse.

“You are a stranger, I believe, sir?” said the livery man.

“Yes, sir—I am from New York. This is the first time I have seen Tennessee.”

“I knew you was a yankee at first sight. I guess you are after that old slave woman, but you won't get her.”

“Pray, how came you to know my business?”

“Manasseth brought all Thomas' letters to me. The matter has made talk here. It is believed Jarm has a finger in the pie, and I advise you to be still as possible, for the abolitionists have made us very susceptible, and a spark will set us all on fire.”

Goodwin mounted his horse, and trotted through a half cultivated country, until he came to a cluster of mean log houses. The center one was Manasseth's dwelling, and the surrounding ones were for his cattle and slaves. He rode up to the house and “hallooed” in the unceremonious style of the country. A decriped and bloated old man appeared, and claimed to be Manasseth Logue, and invited him in.

“My name is Nathaniel Goodwin, of Cortland Co., N. Y. I am here, as the agent of Mr. Thomas, to pay for a slave woman he bought of you, and to take her away.”

Manasseth admitted the contract, but was inquisitive to know whether it was made for Jarm's benefit. Goodwin admitted that it was. He was advised by his brother and others, at Louisville, that in case enquiry was made about Jarm, to state the facts frankly. They judged, and judged truly, that the facts were strongly suspected at Columbia, and any attempt to conceal them would probably lead him into difficulty. Manasseth told Goodwin that he would be glad to take the money, and let Cherry go—but the rule of slave-holders was “that they shall not sell a slave to a slave”—and the people of Columbia were so certain the contract was for Jarm's benefit, that they would not let her go until Jarm had bought himself.

Goodwin then told him that Jarm would never buy himself.

“Then I shall go and take him; he is my property.”

“You can no more take him and make him a slave, than you can the Governor of New York. He is a man of property—a preacher of the Gospel, and loved and respected the country over.”

Manasseth and Goodwin altercated this point until after dinner; then the former enquired of Goodwin if he wished to see Cherry. Having an affirmative answer, he sent for her. In a short time an aged colored woman entered the room, dressed in a single coarse garment, which covered her from her neck to near her ankles—leaving her head and feet bare. She appeared to be about sixty years of age, stout and healthy, for a woman so old—though her slow and heavy foot-fall and bent neck, told of age and hardship. Manasseth left her alone with Mr. Goodwin.

“Is your name Cherry?”

“Yes, master.”

“Did you ever have a son you called Jarm?”

“Yes.”

Her countenance lost its vacancy, and she turned her eyes with obvious intent on Mr. Goodwin.

“Should you like to hear from Jarm?”

“Yes, master—but he died long ago.”

“Should you like to be free and live with him?”

“O Yes, master.”

By this time her attention was fixed intensely on Mr. Goodwin.

“Jarm is not dead—I came from him a few days since. His friends sent me to buy you and take you to him. He wants to make you free and have you live with him.”

The dew gathered plentifully on her eye lashes, and her frame was struggling with strong and deep emotions.

“O, I should like to see Jarm and live with him. He must come here and live with me—master will never let me go and live with him.”

“O no—he can't come here—he will be a slave if he comes here. Besides, he is a preacher, and owns houses and property, and is very much known and loved by everybody all around the country. More than that, he has a wife and children, and he would not be willing to bring them here.”

“How does Jarm's wife look?—how I should like to see her! Is Jarm's wife a slave?”

“O no—there are no slaves where Jarm lives.”

In the midst of this conversation, Cherry's daughter Ann came into the Room. She was the property of a neighboring planter, and had been informed that a man had come from New York to purchase her mother and take her to her lost brother, and she was permitted to come and see the stranger, and hear from him and talk about him. It was this daughter that, in the opinion of Manasseth, fastened the heart of Cherry to Murray county. She was the only child not sold out of the country.

“Go, mother—by all means go with the man, and live with Jarm and be free—and one of those days I'll get away and come and live with you,” said the animated and stout young woman, whose appearance testified her relationship to Jarm.

Here the sister and mother entered into minute enquiry of Jarm's looks, his age, the looks and ages of his wife and children. His property and condition, his intelligence, wisdom and influence, seemed not to interest them—but any personal peculiarity they sought to treasure in their memory, to hang their hearts on. His mother did say once, “It is just like Jarm to preach.” The interview was a luxury to Goodwin—he felt the heart of Loguen stirring in his bosom, awakening emotions of tenderness and love. But he was obliged to close it. Accordingly, he dismissed them, assuring them that he would obtain Cherry if he could, and take her to her son. When he took them by the hand to dismiss them, they wept together—and supposing they might have no further interview with him, they piled their separate messages to Jarm upon his memory.

“You have concluded not to part with Cherry, then?” said Mr. Goodwin to Manasseth.

“I could not, if I would, until Jarm purchased himself.”

“That Jarm will never do, I am persuaded—and our business, of course, is ended. I came here on an errand—I have finished it, and must return to Columbia to-night.”

Manasseth urged Goodwin to spend the night, but he peremptorily declined; and about two o'clock in the afternoon, started on his return. But Manasseth, unwilling to part with him, and still hoping he might yet get Jarm, or get his value, walked a mile or two by the side of Mr. Goodwin's horse and two or three over-grown sons with him—all the while urging Goodwin to persuade Jarm to buy his freedom. Finding they could get no consolation from Goodwin, they separated.

Mr. Goodwin returned his horse to the owner at Columbia, who congratulated himself upon the truth of his prophesy, and then took the stage to Nashville, where he arrived about sunset. After supper, the landlord invited his guests to go to meeting with him, and hear Bishop Soule ‘give the abolitionists fits.’ It seems the Annual Methodist Conference of Tennessee was to conclude a long session that night, with a sermon from the far famed Bishop—and the landlord inferred that he would smite the abolitionists, of course. Mr. Goodwin being an abolitionist died in the wool—though he regarded the Bishop as a downright Atheist, yielded to the proposition—being curious to see and hear the man who was breaking the Church to pieces by his fanatical adhesion to the sum of villanies.

The congregation was large, and the sermon prosy, in the style of pro-slavery northern preaching—without a bit of the life which the devil-element of slavery would give it. The only characteristic feature of the case was, that the white people filled the basement, and the galleries were draped with black people; and when the venerable Bishop finished his talk to the whites, he lifted his eyes-up to the black circle around his head, and said, very solemnly:

“And now, my dear colored children, let me say one word to you. Be good children—be obedient to your masters and mistresses for the Lord's sake, and keep your minds and hearts intent on your Heavenly Master, who has ordered your condition in the world, and by-and-by you will die and go with us to the white man's Heaven.”

The 1st of October, '51, is a memorable day in Syracuse. “The next anti-slavery Convention” after Mr. Webster's speech, was then and there held, and the city was thrown into consternation by an attempt to execute the slave law. About noon, C. A. Wheaton came into the Liberty Party State Convention, and announced that a man was arrested as a slave in the city, and that he was at the office of U. S. Commissioner Sabine. A vote was instantly taken to adjourn to Sabine's office, and assemble again when the slave was delivered.

The County Agricultural Fair had attracted to the city people of substance and respectability from abroad in great numbers—the Convention was numerously represented—the Judges of the Court were holding one of their terms, attended by lawyers and litigants—and the politicians far and near were in the crowd. The best opportunity, therefore, existed, to help the government suppress an attempt to rescue the slave, if the people would do it. It is said that the agent, Rev. James Lear, of Missouri, had been in town days before that time, and at the instance of the Marshal, waited this general gathering as favorable to their aims—that they expected sympathy and assistance from it; or they expected to perfect a victory over rebellion, which should be to the greatest extent comprehensive and impressive. An amazing error was leading them into a blaze of light in regard to the pride and courage, spirit and integrity of Syracuse. It needed this additional spark to the iron flask to explode the powder within, and scorch and scatter and blacken the government and its abettors.

The members of the Liberty Party Convention, probably to a man, walked quickly to the office of Commissioner Sabin. If such a convention usually exhibit a collection of marked faces, the exhibit may be supposed to be then eminently striking. Their procession was a signal of alarm to the throng through which they passed—stopping only as they met a friend to explain themselves, and plant a kindred feeling. The young and active led the way—middle aged followed with elevated brow and firm tread—age-stiffened limbs, brought up the rear—and the faces of all, relieved of every shadow that would obscure the brilliancy of their indignation, were attracted to the chained slave in the Commissioner's office.

In the meantime, William L. Crandall, an intelligent, impulsive and chivalric citizen, hastened to the Presbyterian church, and vigorously tolled the bell—and instantly every bell in the city (the Episcopalian excepted) sounded the tocsin of liberty The amazing mass of citizens, men and women, friends and enemies also, in a very short time had their minds on the poor mulatto—who, until then, was undistinguished, but was destined henceforth to be the subject of the most sublime and beautiful passage in the history of freedom.

The Court room of Mr. Sabin, and the stairs leading to it, were rapidly wedged with the bodies of the conventionists, in whose faces the slave read unmistakeable trust, courage and rescue. The appearance of the triplicate band of Marshals and their armed posse, about the large, bold-browed and handcuffed slave, was not less unique than that of the determined spirits that surrounded and assured them, that their safety lay in the respect or fear of the masses for the law and its penalties. They were armed—but the mighty mass before them might cover and crush them in spite of revolvers. The abolitionists were taken by surprise, and with the prudence of wise men, took time to think.

So soon as Mr. Wheaton gave the above notice, be proceeded to the Court House, and retained counsel for the slave—while the Hon. Gerrit Smith and the Hon. Leonard Gibbs took seats by his side as his voluntary defenders.

“I am Gerrit Smith—your friend,” whispered Mr. Smith. “I shall defend you at any expense, and leave no stone unturned to secure your freedom.”

“You ain't Gerrit Smith, are you?”

“Yes—and I mean you shall have the best counsel, and to stand by you with my fortune.”

The countenance of Jerry brightened. What fugitive slave, if he has been in the country a short time, has not heard of Gerrit Smith? or sitting by his side, is not inspired by the aura that surrounds him?

Jerry was a cooper by trade, and was actually on his seat at work when he was seized. He was alone, the other workmen having gone to their meals. His back being towards the kidnappers, they seized him from behind and threw him on the floor, and ironed him, before he had time to resist, under the cowardly pretence that they had a warrant against him for theft. And not until he was set before the Commissioner was he aware of the cause of his arrest. Then the agent, Lear, approached him, smiling, with a—

“How do you do, Jerry?”

The truth flashed on Jerry's mind with all its intensity and horror but he suffered not a muscle to change the expression of his face or body. He sat down like a chained tiger, amid armed ruffians more hateful than tigers, and to his eye more wicked than devils.

“Who is this Jerry?” said Mr. Loguen, as he passed from the Hall and marched rapidly to the Court Room.

“I know him. He is a short time from slavery, and has few acquaintances. He is stout and brave, and could not be taken without stratagem.”

“I see there is concert in this villainy. They had their mind on taking somebody, and have picked him. Why didn't they take me? There are spies in the city speculating on our blood.”

“Yes. There are two policemen who would think it a fine thing to hunt up our history and bring our masters on us for a price—and it is not unlikely there are one or two young lawyers who would unite in the game.”

“But what are you going to do, surrounded, as we are, by snares and scoundrels?”

“I shall stay and defy them.”

“Here we are, at the office—the first ones. Shall we go in? How do we know they will not grab us?”

“Let them grab. Now is the time to try the spunk of white men. I want to see whether they have courage only to make speeches and resolutions when there is no danger. Let us be here at nightfall, and if white men won't fight, let fugitives and black men smite down Marshals and Commissioner—any body who holds Jerry—and rescue him or perish.”

They then went up the stairs together, and showed themselves boldly in the presence of the Court, the Marshal, and his armed retainers. The mass crowded up behind them and shoved them in their very faces. Such was their position when Messrs. Smith and Gibbs took seats by Jerry, and the following additional colloquy was had between him and Mr. Smith:

—I believe,” said Jerry, “if I should throw myself upon this crowd, they would help me to escape,—they look like friends.”

“They are friends,” said Mr. Smith, “but not yet. I mean you shall escape—but not yet.”

In the mean time, Mr. Gibbs claimed that the prisoner should not be bound when on trial, and raised other questions—all of which were overruled. The Commissioner said, however, that he had not power to order the shackles taken from Jerry, but wished him unshackled, and advised the Marshal to release him, which he refused to do. The great crowd were anxious to release Jerry, but there was no concert among them. Each had determined he should not be taken away, but had not determined how to prevent it. The Court adjourned for dinner, but the abolitionists remained by Jerry without dinner. In the meantime, Jerry put the same question to one of them he put to Mr. Smith, and he, inconsiderately, advised Jerry to throw himself on the crowd and escape.

Acting upon this hasty advice, Jerry, with eyes, flashing fire, and the strength and agility of a tiger, threw himself across the table, scattering papers and pistols, Marshal and constables, and lay upon the bosom of the multitude, who made room for him, but closed upon the kidnappers, and effectually separated them from him; and before the captors could follow him, he was flying through the crowd in the street. Then, a great multitude, friends and enemies alike took up the chase in the utmost confusion—the former to assist Jerry and embarrass his pursuers, and the latter to retake him.

Jerry ran as fast as he could with fetters on his hands; and doubtles it was owing to the fetters, which were both a mark and an embarrassment, that he was not covered by the crowd, and lost in the great surge of humanity around him, whose voice at a distance was as the roar of the ocean. About half a mile from the starting point, a carriage was brought to take him off; but Peter Way and Russell Lowel, city officers, got at him and prevented him from entering into it. Now the popular wave returned, and Way and Lowel, the assistant kidnappers, pressed a truckman into their service, and with other help, got Jerry into it, after a scuffle which left his body bare and bleeding, with nothing to cover it but pantaloons and a part of his shirt—and then one of them mounted the vehicle, and sitting on his body to keep it down, rode through the streets to the Commissioner's office.

Indignation had now risen to blood heat—though nothing was as yet done but to embarrass without striking the kidnappers. Even then, had a blow been struck, the pent up passions of the multitude would have broken restraint, and by force of sympathy come into the order of desperate battle.

“The devil's to pay!” said Harry Allen to the other Marshals who had been imported from Rochester and Auburn, &c., to help do this infernal deed. It won't do to take him to Sabine's office. We'll take him to the Police office and shut him in the back room, and shackle his feet, too, and put a strong guard over him. Where is Charlie Woodruff, Green, Shuart, and the other boys?”

“Let me tell you the bullies won't be sufficient. We must have the militia. You may have the militia to help execute the laws.”

“I'll call the militia—but I begin to fear we chose the wrong day for this business.”

“It is a blunder. These fellows show more spunk than I looked for. It is a pretty business if the Government must fall back before them. We shall be disgraced, and the fugitive law be dead in Western New York. Here is Charlie Woodruff, the Greens, Morrow, Welch, Forman, Lowel and Way, &c. We can guard the prisoner in the back room—but if there is a general rising, our only safety is in the militia.”

Poor Jerry, naked and bleeding, with fetters on both hands and feet, was hustled into the back room and put under the guard of the above persons; and Marshal Allen hurried after Sheriff Gardiner, and commanded him in the name of the United States to bring the militia to his aid. The Sheriff, mistaking his duty as an officer and citizen, instantly called upon Capt. Prendergast, and ordered him to the assistance of the Marshal. Capt. Prendergast was an. Irish Militia Captain of the sham democratic stamp, who, with many of his countrymen, are fooled into the belief that to be free themselves they must make slaves of other poor people.

Things did not now look to the Marshal as at first. Then he was in high glee. He met Mr. Wheaton in the street, and with triumphant face, and a voice half jocose and all insulting, said:

“Now is your chance, Wheaton! I have got a slave here in Sabine's office. I give you notice that you may not say I stole the march of you.”

Poor man! He thought all was safe then. Now, he is looking with dismay and terror to bring Capt. Prendergast and the militia, secretly and rapidly as possible, to the Police office for his own safety. How ignorant was he of the spirit of the youth of Syracuse! Wheaton instantly went to the Captain, and asked if he had been called to bring the citizen soldiers to the aid of the Marshal.

“Yes,” he said, “I am commanded to bring out my company to keep the peace.”

Mr. Wheaton warned him that keeping the peace was a different thing from hunting slaves—that the Sheriff was the officer of the State, and the State knew nobody as a slave. If the Sheriff put his hand on a man as a slave, he committed a breach of the peace of the worst kind, by the laws of the State. Slave-catchers must do their devil's work without the aid of the State.

This call for the militia caused a general murmur of indignation in the city, which reached the ears of Col. Origen Vandenburgh, and he hastened to Prendergast and asked:

“Is it true you have ordered the militia to interfere in this slave case?”

“Yes—Sheriff Gardiner calls upon me to bring them to keep the peace.”

“Then I countermand the Order,” said the Colonel. “If the States, with their Marshals and army, can't take a slave from so peaceable a city as this, they are in bad business. Anyhow, my soldiers shall not voluntarily help them, for no better reason than the cowardice of the officials trembling before the outrage they are committing. My soldiers shall never be kidnappers with my consent.”

This act of Col. Vandenburgh was soon known through the city, and greatly applauded. But the slave-catchers were indignant at the interference of Wheaton and Vandenburgh, and the Marshals and serviles who had Jerry in charge, were disappointed and dismayed.

In this stage of the case, to form a nucleus of popular action, Thomas G. White invited a few brave spirits into the counting room of Abner Bates, to settle upon some plan of action for rescuing Jerry. They met, and adjourned to meet at Dr. Hiram Hoyt's office at early candlelight, and to bring with them as many good and true and brave spirits as they could vouch for.

Very early in the evening, the following persons appeared at Hoyt's office, viz.:—Doct. Hiram Hoyt, Doct. James Fuller, Doct. R, W. Pease, Gerrit Smith, Samuel J. May, John Thomas, Charles A. Wheaton, Samuel R. Ward, Jarmain W. Loguen, Samuel Thomas (Cazenovia,) Linneus P. Noble, (Fayetteville,) Washington Stickney, (Canestota,) William L. Crandall, R. R. Raymond, Caleb Davis, Montgomery Merrick, Abner Bates, James Davis, J. M. Clapp, C. C. Foot, (Michigan,) James Baker, Jason S. Hoyt, Edward K. Hunt, George Carter, Peter Holinbeck, James Parsons, Lemuel Field, William Gray.

It is not certain that the above list is perfect—nor is it easy to make it so. It is quite probable a few other persons were at this meeting who are not named. For though judges were appointed, and each individual presented to such, judges vouchers for their honor and reliability, and their names were written down, the writing was prudently destroyed, that it be not a possible evidence of so-called treason or conspiracy. It was thought politic to keep in the dark, to escape legal persecution. And now some of these brave men have left the country, and others, with the victim Jerry, have gone to their last account.

When each had proved his title to a place in this Congress of freedom, they gave an emphatic opinion that Jerry must be taken from his captors and set free, and that Syracuse should not be disgraced by his taking off, be the consequences what they might. Some said, that Mr. Sabine would deny the claim, because the evidence would fail to establish it. But if such were known to be the result, they could not be deterred from releasing him by force. The opinion of Gerrit Smith on that subject was enthusiastically applauded.

“It is not unlikely,” said Mr. Smith, “that the Commissioner will release Jerry if the examination is suffered to proceed—but the moral effect of such acquittal will be as nothing, to a bold and forceible rescue. A forceible rescue will demonstrate the strength of public opinion against the possible legality of slavery, and this fugitive law in particular. It will honor Syracuse, and be a powerful example everywhere.”

The possibility that the opportunity might pass to strike a blow which would be a lesson to the dough faces of the North and the blind men at the South, instead of deterring, precipitated determination, and nerved these men to strike quickly, and in a manner to give the blow the greatest possible effect in all directions. It was the only treatment the law deserved.

While this meeting was in session, the liberators had agents at the Court room, to watch the kidnappers. Ira H. Cobb and Rev. L. D. Mansfield kept their places in the Police office, to know that Jerry was safe, and to give information if an attempt was made to put him beyond the reach of the people, who were assembled in large numbers before the office, with a manifest anxiety to fall in with any attempt at rescue. As the darkness increased, the assemblage increased. It was estimated that not less than 2500 or 3000 persons had assembled, ready to obey the hand which, by an overt act, should tap the tempest within them.