CHAP. XX.] NEGRO BAPTISTS. 15 



whole travels gave me a higher idea of the capabilities of the 

 negroes, than the actual progress which they have made, even in 

 a part of a slave state, where they outnumber the whites, than 

 this Baptist meeting. 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 civilization. 



The pews were well fitted up, and the church well ventilated, 

 and there was no disagreeable odor in either meeting-house. It 

 was the winter season, no doubt, but the room was warm and 

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

 endeavored in vain to obtain from an American of liberal views, 

 some explanation of his strong objection to confer political and 

 social equality on the blacks, drew from him at length the reluc 

 tant confession that the idea of any approach to future amalga 

 mation was insufferable to any man of refinement, unless he had 

 lost the use of his olfactory nerves. On hearing which Mr. 

 Smith exclaimed 



&quot; Et si non alium late jactaret odorem 

 Civis erat ! * 



And such, then, are the qualifications by which the rights of 

 suffrage and citizenship are to be determined !&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 prayer, composed by himself, for the or 

 dination of a minister of his sect, which, said he, was admirable 

 in its conception, although the sentences were so ungrammatical, 

 that they would pass, with a stranger, for mere gibberish. The 

 prayer ran thus : 



&quot; Make he good, like he say, 

 Make he say, like he good, 

 Make he say, make he good, like he God.&quot; 



* Virgil, Georg. ii. 133. 



