4 NEGRO BAPTISTS. [CHAP. XX. 



ing. To see a body of African origin, who had 

 joined one of the denominations of Christians and 

 built a church for themselves, who had elected a 

 pastor of their own race and secured him an annual 

 salary, from whom they were listening to a good 

 sermon, scarcely, if at all, below the average standard 

 of the compositions of white ministers, to hear the 

 whole service respectably, and the singing admirably 

 performed, surely marks an astonishing step in civil 

 isation. 



The pews were well fitted up, and the church 

 well ventilated, and there was no disagreeable odour 

 in cither meeting-house. It was the winter season, 

 110 doubt, but the room was warm and the numbers 

 great. The late Mr. Sydney Smith, when he had 

 endeavoured in vain to obtain from an American of 

 liberal views, some explanation of his strong objec 

 tion to confer political and social equality on the 

 blacks, drew from him at length the reluctant con 

 fession that the idea of any approach to future amal 

 gamation was insufferable to any man of refinement, 

 unless he had lost the use of his olfactory nerves. 

 On hearing which Mr. Smith exclaimed 



O 



&quot; Et si non nlium late jactaret odorem 

 Cii is erat ! * 



And such, then, are the qualifications by which the 

 rights of suffrage and citizenship are to be deter 

 mined ! &quot; 



A Baptist missionary, with whom I conversed on 

 the capacity of the negro race, told me that he was 

 once present when one of their preachers delivered a 

 * Virgil, Geors;. ii. 133. 



