nts and learning, and
benevolence in the cause of reforms, generally. I was very much
impressed with the personal appearance of Miss Miles, and was deeply
interested in our first interview, because I found that her principles
and my own were nearly one and the same. I soon found by a few visits,
as well as by letters, that she possessed moral principle, and
frankness of disposition, which is often sought for but seldom found.
These, in connection with other amiable qualities, soon won my entire
confidence and affection. But this secret I kept to myself until I was
fully satisfied that this feeling was reciprocal; that there was
indeed a congeniality of principles and feeling, which time nor
eternity could never change.

When I offered myself for matrimony, we mutually engaged ourselves to
each other, to marry in one year, with this condition, viz: that if
either party should see any reason to change their mind within that
time, the contract should not be considered binding. We kept up a
regular correspondence during the time, and in June, 1848, we had the
happiness to be joined in holy wedlock. Not in slaveholding style,
which is a mere farce, without the sanction of law or gospel; but in
accordance with the laws of God and our country. My beloved wife is a
bosom friend, a help-meet, a loving companion in all the social,
moral, and religious relations of life. She is to me what a poor
slave's wife can never be to her husband while in the condition of a
slave; for she can not be true to her husband contrary to the will of
her master. She can neither be pure nor virtuous, contrary to the will
of her master. She dare not refuse to be reduced to a state of
adultery at the will of her master; from the fact that the
slaveholding law, customs and teachings are all against the poor
slaves.

I presume there are no class of people in the United States who so
highly appreciate the legality of marriage as those persons who have
been held and treated as property. Yes, it is that fugitive who knows
from sad experience, what it is to have his wife tyrannically snatched
from his bosom by a slaveholding professor of religion, and finally
reduced to a state of adultery, that knows how to appreciate the law
that repels such high-handed villany. Such as that to which the writer
has been exposed. But thanks be to God, I am now free from the hand of
the cruel oppressor, no more to be plundered of my dearest rights; the
wife of my bosom, a