s. He
really distinguished between those at the South who "oppress" their
fellow-men, and those who "remember them that are in bonds as bound with
them." But,' said the pastor, 'the most of those who use that latter
expression at the North really think the Apostle had slaves, as a class,
in mind. I have no such belief. I suppose that he referred to persecuted
Christians, suffering imprisonment for their religion, and to all
afflicted persons.

"'My landlord said to me,' he continued, '"They tell us you are afraid
of free discussion at the South, that you are afraid to have your slaves
hear some things, lest it should excite them to insurrection. How is
this?"

"'I told him that the slaves, being the lower order of society with us,
were not capable of so discriminating in that which promiscuous
strangers should see fit to say to them as to make it safe to have them
listen to every harangue or to every one who should set himself up to
teach. "Of course," said I, "there are liabilities and dangers in our
state of society. We must use prudence and caution. We have some loose
powder in our magazine. No one denies this. What if one who was rebuked
for carrying an open lamp into the magazine of a ship, should reproach
the captain with being 'an enemy to the light,' and as 'loving darkness
rather than light'?"

"'While at the North,' said he, 'I read Mr. Buckle on civilization, and
I reflected upon the subject. Being in a great assembly, once or twice,
listening to abolitionist orators, lay and clerical, and hearing their
vile assaults on personal character, their vulgar and reckless ridicule
of fifteen States of our Union, their affected, oracular way of saying
the most trite things as though they were aphorisms, but reminding me of
the piles of short stuff which you see round a saw-mill, and hearing the
great throng applaud and shout, I asked myself whether we have really
made any decided advances in civilization since the Hebrew Commonwealth.
I really doubted whether those orators could have collected an audience
of Hebrews even in the wilderness. Under the "Judges," the people were,
at times, low enough to enjoy such drivelling. The willingness at the
North to hear these men, and to applaud them, gave me a low idea of the
state of society.'

"'But,' said I, 'confess now that you found specimens of cultivated life
there such as you never saw surpassed.'

"'I did,' said he, 'many times. And I must tell you,' he added, '