ion is
defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one.
There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for
religious instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white
population, from which they are excluded. I believe it a mistake, to say
that the instructions there given are not adapted to their
comprehension, or calculated to improve them. If they are given as they
ought to be--practically, and without pretension, and are such as are
generally intelligible to the free part of the audience, comprehending
all grades of intellectual capacity,--they will not be unintelligible to
slaves. I doubt whether this be not better than instruction, addressed
specially to themselves--which they might look upon as a devise of the
master's, to make them more obedient and profitable to himself. Their
minds, generally, show a strong religious tendency, and they are fond of
assuming the office of religious instructors to each other; and perhaps
their religious notions are not much more extravagant than those of a
large portion of the free population of our country. I am not sure that
there is a much smaller proportion of them, than of the free population,
who make some sort of religious profession. It is certainly the master's
_interest_ that they should have proper religious sentiments, and if he
fails in his duty toward them, we may be sure that the consequences will
be visited not upon them, but upon him.

If there were any chance of their elevating their rank and condition in
society, it might be matter of hardship, that they should be debarred
those rudiments of knowledge which open the way to further attainments.
But this they know can not be, and that further attainments would be
useless to them. Of the evil of this, I shall speak hereafter. A
knowledge of reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, is
convenient and important to the free laborer, who is the transactor of
his own affairs, and the guardian of his own interests--but of what use
would they be to the slave? These alone do not elevate the mind or
character, if such elevation were desirable.

If we estimate their morals according to that which should be the
standard of a free man's morality, then I grant they are degraded in
morals--though by no means to the extent which those who are
unacquainted with the institution seem to suppose. We justly suppose,
that the Creator will require of man the performance of