MAGIC LANTERN. 177 



child for the purpose, yet I had none. As I replied that } 

 had four children, and should be very sorry if my chief wero 

 to take ray little girl and give her away, and that I would 

 prefer this child to remain and carry water for her own 

 mother, he thought I was dissatisfied with her size, and 

 sent for one a head taller. After many explanations of our 

 abhorrence of slavery, and how displeasing it must be to 

 God to see his children selling one another and giving each 

 other so much grief as this child's mother must feel, I 

 declined her also. If I could have taken her into my family 

 for the purpose of instruction, and then returned her as a 

 free woman, according to a promise I should have made to 

 the parents, I might have done so; but to take her away, 

 and probably never be able to secure her return, would have 

 produced no good effect on the minds of the Balonda; they 

 would not then have seen evidence of our hatred to slavery, 

 and the kind attentions of my friends would, as it almost 

 always does in similar cases, have turned the poor thing's 

 head. 



Shinte was most anxious to see the pictures of the magic 

 lantern ; but fever had so weakening an effect, and I had 

 such violent action of the heart, with buzzing in the ears, 

 that I could not go for several days; when I did go for the 

 purpose he had his principal men and the same crowd of 

 court beauties near him as at the reception. The first 

 picture exhibited was Abraham about to slaughter his son 

 Isaac : it was shown as large as life, and the uplifted knife 

 was in the act of striking the lad; the Balonda men re- 

 marked that the picture was much more like a god than 

 me things of wood and clay they worshipped. I explained 

 that this man was the first of a race to whom God had 

 given the Bible we now held, and that among his children 

 our Savior appeared. The ladies listened with silent awe ; 

 but, when I moved the slide, the uplifted dagger moving 

 toward them, they thought it was to be sheathed in their 

 bodies instead of Isaac's. "Mother! mother!" all shouted 

 at once, and off they rushed, helter-skelter, tumbling pell- 

 H 



