had often great difficulties, with regard to the marriages
of slaves, even after their baptism. When a planter in the West Indies,
for instance, died in debt, his slaves and other property were sold at
auction; and in these cases, part of the negroes were frequently
purchased by proprietors from other islands, by which means it not only
often happened that parents and children, but husbands and wives were
forever parted from each other. How to act in such circumstances, the
Brethren were at first quite at a loss, and they appear for some time to
have prohibited the converts from contracting another marriage,
apprehending this to be inconsistent with the principles of
Christianity. Now, however, though they do not advise, yet neither do
they hinder a regular marriage with another person, especially if a
family of children, or other circumstances, seem to render a helpmate
necessary.

The course of the English Baptist Missionaries in the east, on the same
subject, may properly be here stated. Among the trials which their
converts had to endure, their situation in respect to marriage was not
the least considerable. In some cases the converts were obliged at the
time of their conversion to forsake their homes, their friends, and even
the wife of their bosom, nor would she afterwards have any
correspondence with them, or if willing herself she was forcibly
prevented by her relations. By this means they were to all intents and
purposes reduced to a state of widowhood, and were in no small danger of
falling into sin. It therefore became a question among the Missionaries,
whether it was not lawful for a person in such circumstances to marry a
second wife, while the first was still living, after he had in vain
employed all possible means to induce her to return to him and not being
able to recover her, had taken some public and solemn measures to acquit
himself of the blame. This question they at length resolved in the
affirmative. A decision involving the same principles, as those referred
to in the case of the removal or estrangement of a husband or wife was
had in the Synod of North Carolina at its sessions at Salisbury in the
year 1827, whereby it was declared that the wife of a member of the
church being sold to the far south-west, and having herself married
again, the husband was at liberty to marry again.

Notwithstanding the difficulties before stated and many similar ones,
the Great Head of the Church greatly blessed t