veholder, who is the keeper of a
number of slaves of both sexes, is also the keeper of a house or
houses of ill-fame. Licentious white men, can and do, enter at night
or day the lodging places of slaves; break up the bonds of affection
in families; destroy all their domestic and social union for life; and
the laws of the country afford them no protection. Will any man count,
if they can be counted, the churches of Maryland, Kentucky, and
Virginia, which have slaves connected with them, living in an open
state of adultery, never having been married according to the laws of
the State, and yet regular members of these various denominations, but
more especially the Baptist and Methodist churches? And I hazard
nothing in saying, that this state of things exists to a very wide
extent in the above states.

I am happy to state that many fugitive slaves, who have been enabled
by the aid of an over-ruling providence to escape to the free North
with those whom they claim as their wives, notwithstanding all their
ignorance and superstition, are not at all disposed to live together
like brutes, as they have been compelled to do in slaveholding
Churches. But as soon as they get free from slavery they go before
some anti-slavery clergyman, and have the solemn ceremony of marriage
performed according to the laws of the country. And if they profess
religion, and have been baptized by a slaveholding minister, they
repudiate it after becoming free, and are re-baptized by a man who is
worthy of doing it according to the gospel rule.

The time and place of my marriage, I consider one of the most trying
of my life. I was opposed by friends and foes; my mother opposed me
because she thought I was too young, and marrying she thought would
involve me in trouble and difficulty. My mother-in-law opposed me,
because she wanted her daughter to marry a slave who belonged to a
very rich man living near by, and who was well known to be the son of
his master. She thought no doubt that his master or father might
chance to set him free before he died, which would enable him to do a
better part by her daughter than I could! and there was no prospect
then of my ever being free. But his master has neither died nor yet
set his son free, who is now about forty years of age, toiling under
the lash, waiting and hoping that his master may die and will him to
be free.

The young men were opposed to our marriage for the same reason that
Paddy opposed a match w