. Again: even if it did not prejudice the case
of the slave--as none can deny it did--to agitate this question of
color, and mix it up inseparably with the question of freedom, of what
use was it to him? If the whites treat him with scorn, give him his
liberty--and he may pity, forgive, or return the scorn. What advantage
was he to gain as a slave, by the discussion, even if no harm came
from it? What advantage was he to obtain as a freeman even if its
agitation did not forever prevent him from being free? It is, in all
its aspects, the most remarkable illustration of a weak, heady, and
ignorant fanaticism which this age has produced, and has been, of them
all, the most fruitful of evil. The truth was, that many of the rights
and privileges of free persons of color were better secured to them in
America than corresponding rights and privileges were to the white
peasantry of any other country on the globe. With regard to the
religious rights of colored persons, he could only say that he had sat
in Presbyteries with them, that he had dispensed the Sacrament to them
together with white persons; and that he and multitudes of others had
sat in the same class with them at our Theological Seminaries. As for
all the stories which Mr. T. was accustomed to tell about Dr. Sprague
having part of his church curtained round for persons of color, he
knew personally nothing, and noticed it only because it was told as a
_specimen_ story. He merely knew that Dr. Sprague was accounted a
benevolent man, and common charity required him not readily to believe
anything of him in a bad sense which could be justified in a good one.
But if there was anything so very exclusive and revolting in these
marks of superiority or inferiority in a church, let them not look to
America alone; nor limit their sympathies exclusively to the blacks.
In almost every church in England in which he had been, from the
cathedral of St. Paul's at London, to the curate's village church, he
had seen seats railed off, or curtained, or cushioned, or elevated,
and some how distinguished from the rest. And when he inquired why
these things were so, and for whose accommodation, the answer was
ready. "O, that is for My Lord this; or Sir Harry that; or Mr. Prebend
so and so; or the Lord Bishop of what not." And very often, even in
dissenting chapels, he had seen part of the seats of an inferior
description in particular parts of the house, which he had as often
been told were