SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 279 



have often been told that that thing, so accursed of God, 

 existed in all its most disgusting deformity, wretched- 

 ness and sinful horror. From the small plantations, the 

 slaves go more regularly, and better dressed and behaved, 

 to church, often a distance of five or six miles, than any 

 other class of laborers that I have ever been acquainted 

 with. Upon many of the large plantations, divine service 

 is performed more regularly and to larger and more or- 

 derly audiences, than in some county towns. 



Upon one plantation that I visited in Mississippi, I 

 found a most beautiful little Gothic church, and a clergy- 

 man furnished with a house, provisions and servants, 

 and a salary of $1,500 a year, to preach to master and 

 slaves. Upon another, situated upon the bank of the 

 lovely lake Concordia, where the slaves outnumber the 

 whites twenty to one, upon which I spent some pleasant 

 days, I took upon myself to inquire particularly of the 

 overseer, not himself a religious man, and at first op- 

 posed to religious instruction for slaves, what had been 

 the effect of the earnest and fatherly admonitions and 

 worship of the owner with his slaves every Sabbath day, 

 and was assured that it had a most beneficial effect. 



If any man can witness some of these happy meetings 

 of slaveholders and slaves that I have, and not feel his 

 heart more softened toward the influences of religion than 

 he would in listening to the harangue of some mistaken 

 fanatic, who would sever the bonds so closely knit between 

 such a patriarch and his children, even if that bond should 

 be severed in blood, I have only to say that his heart is 

 not affected by the same influences that mine is. 



Upon another plantation I visited, the master is a 

 most decided infidel ; yet so convinced is he of the advan- 

 tage of giving religious instruction to slaves, that he has 

 taken upon himself to teach them what he is so unfortu- 

 nate that he cannot believe himself. Of course, from 

 them he hides his own unbelief. 



And the manner that some of this infidel master's 

 slaves, walk in the path of Christian duty, might well be 



