V V. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7 ^t 5/ A.* .^^ ^,, ^ :/, 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^128 |2.5 Ui 1^ III 40 12.0 12.2 1.8 U 11.6 VI /: '/ /^ ^V/"^ ^V^ ;\ 6^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/iCIVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 A Tachnical Notes / NotM tachniquas Tha Inatituta haa attamptad to obtain tha bast original copy avaiiabia for filnting. Phyaical faaturas of this copy which may aitar any of tha imagaa in tha raproduction ara chackad balow. D D Colourad covars/ Couvarturas da couiaur Colourad mapa/ Cartas gAographiquas an couiaur L'Institut a microfilm* la maillaur axamplaira qu'il lui a 6t* possible da se procurer. Certains dtfauts susceptibles de nuire A la tiualit* da la raproduction aont notAs ci-dassous. D D Coloured pages/ Pages de couleur Coloured plates/ Planches en couleur Th pa of fill Th CO or •P Til fill ini 2l Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages dAcoiories, tachettes ou piqu^es Tight binding (may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin)/ Reliure serr6 (peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intirieure) [2f D Show through/ Transparence Pages damaged/ Pages endommag6as M in up bo fo D Additional comments/ Commentaires supplAmentaires Bibliographic Notes / Notes bibliographiques D Only edition available/ Seule Mition disponible Bound with other material/ ReliA avec d'autres documents D D Pagination incorrect/ Erreurs de pagination Pages missing/ Des pageb manquent D Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque D Maps missing/ Oes cartas gAographiques manquent D Plates missing/ Oes planches manquent D Additional commenta/ Commentaires supplAmentairaa ns la Th« imagts uppaaring hara ara tha baat quality poaaibia conaldaring tha condition and laoibllity of tha original copy and In kaaping with tha filming contract spaclficatlona. Tha laat racordad frama on aach microflcha ahall contain tha aymbol — »> (moaning CONTINUED"), or tha symbol ▼ (moaning "END"), whichavar appiiaa. Laa imagaa suivantaa ont AtA raproduitas avac la plus grand soin. compta tanu da la condition at da la nattat* da raxamplaira filmi, at an conformity avac laa conditions du contrat da filmaga. Un das symbolaa suivanta apparattra aur la dar- ni4ra imaga da chaqua microflcha, avion la caa: la aymbola —^ signifia "A 8UIVRE ', la symbols y aignifia "FIN". Tha original copy was borrowad from, and filmad with, tha Itind consant of tha following institution: National Library of Canada L'axamplaira film* fut raproduit grAca A la gin^rosit* da I'Atabllssamant pritaur suivant : BibiiothAqua nationala du Canada Maps or ptatas too larga to l>a antiraly includad in ona axponun, are filmad beginning In the upper \m*t hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Lea cartes ou lea planches trop grandes pour Atra raproduitea en un seul cliche sont filmAes k partir da Tangle aupArieura gauche, de gauche A droite et de haut en bas, en prenant la nombre d'images ntcessaira. Le diagramme suivant illuatra la mithode : t 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 « li FKOM SLAVEKY TO A BISHOPRIC ♦ AUEllUKKN LNIVKliSITY PRKSS. ■ •-^F'fm^f^m . * ■ * ■ ; " • . * ■ . ■ t y •'_ .- . .» ;' ' . ** r . ■ ■ ■ #■ • * •/ » '■■' > .-* -■*.•■ ■^ ■' ■ '• * .• .^^ttUffit^^^ '■ *j > •/.-.;.:♦.•>■ . ■'.-•' ■■•."..v • ". .: , ■ . ' \ -' ■'■ : "Ji: ■■ •'■ % ■r'\ . ■ ' .' ^Hk - ,.^^K * • >..:V'^:. •_..■'■■. ^^^^^m^ '"**'^^^^^K ,', ' . ■ • I, ■ ^^^^^^^ S^^^H . ^ • 'V'^i^'rr-N'^y^i ■. ■ N^^^^^^aI^^^^b ■s "■, '. ■■■ ■ ^^^Bm^^m .^i^.fl*^ ! *■"' ' ■ '•.^t^U^*"' '■ ' '■' '■■': ■ ^^^m ^A^^^ •- .:■"*"• 4. ^^^^^^^^ ^k. -••^r 4* n ^«-* - >'''' '3«^flil^^^^^HBE ^^^^^t^^^ * ^ T . 1 i'-;'>^^9^^^H| y.*r«feaH||^^^By^M i^aMH^^Mi ",^W ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ,.-■-. ■ ''^" ■i w tl Si ^V H».\ i'.tNllOlMllC i'j * • 1' W vi.ii i; liWVKINS *^anvi^a l-|.i:STLNI. r.DWM^DS > t( 'Y i. si'< II ! " "r' 1.1 r I'. J! A I ru!, : 1' 1 i'lu I I1M....V HU»>ll'l Al. : (»N' DON ^ I, \ M 'i; I'Ulil. IS f- A 1 K.HNOsTKIt. i:.t. K n I ^m i ^fPWWi r .-a** i T t I'Wm SI,AVHI!V'I'0AI(1S1I(I1'I!1C OR THE LIFE OF BISHOP WALTER HAWKINS OF BY 8. J. CELESTINE EDWARDS AHSOCIAIK (H' KINCl's C(>I,LK(iK, LONDON) LKCTI'KKU ON CHUIHTIAN KYIDKNCES; FKLLOW OK THK UOYAL SOCIETY OF MTEK.VTUIIE ; MEDICAL STUDENT AT THE LONDON HOSPITAL LONDON JOHN KENSIT, Puin.isiiEU 18 PATKRNOSTKR, K.C. 1891 [All UUjIits reserved] 1 llfHP iWWPipipP 1 Ti TO WILFRED T. (JRENFELL, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Svperintenilent of the Deep Sen Missinv, l^his cMorh b ^cil^catc^, AS A TOKKN OF MANV KIMJNESSKS UECEIVKD DL'HIX(} THE LAST FIVE YEARS, U\' T HE A U T H 11. i-(l I' If ( LIST OF WORKS CONSULTE]) DUKING THE pri:paration of this BiocaiArHY. A Visit to the United States. Sturge. Aiiti- Slavery days. Clark. American System of Govenmient. Bancroft's History of the United States. 3 vols. Buckingham's America. 3 vols. Black America. W. Laird Clowes. Constitution of tlie United States. Paschal. English Nonconformity. Vaughan. Gesta Christc. Brace. Hosack's Law of Nations. History of European Morals. Lecky, 2 vols. History of the English People. Green, History of England. Macaulay. International Law. Gallandet. Irving's Life of Columbus. Life and Time of Fred. Douglas. Men and ^Manners in America. 2 vols. Power and Progress of the United States. Poussiu. Popular History of America. Airs. Cooper. Prescott's History of the Keign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Robertson's America. 2 vols. The United States. 3 vols. The American Union. Spence. Travels in the United States. Lady Wortley. Willard's United States. White, Red, and Black. 3 vols. |;:i f C^ X T E N T S. • • • PREFACK, Introduction, Chaptkr I. Historical Sketch of iSlax cry in the New World, . Chapter II. Early Life, ..... Chapter III. Life as a Slave, .... Chapter IV. Escape from Slavery, Chapter V. Found at Last, .... Chapter VI. Philadelphia, ..... Chapter VII. On the Road, Chapter VIII. UnfTalo, Chapter IX. New Bedford, PACJK xi XV 26 . ar) . 53 65 • « 76 86 96 . 104 ^ fi! Vi i/ X Contents. Chapter X. Life as a FarnnTv Chapter XI. Canada — "Where coloured men arc free," . Chapter XII. The First Circuit, . Chapter XIII. yt. Catharines, .... Chapter XIV. Made Bishop, .... Chapter XV. In En},'land, • • • • 'A(JK iia 128 l.Ti . 142 . 151 164 \ \ Mtt I r :4 II PRE FACE. I UNDERTAKE tliis Work, bccaiise I think it will probably act as a stimulus to the youii«; men of my race, who, tliough physically free, have not yet realised the duty they owe to themselves, and to humanity at lar<,% and especially to the British public, to whom I feel we owe a f^reat debt of ^^H'atitude for leadin,!,^ the way for our emancipation in the New World. My experience in England has led me to think that many are somewhat disappointed that the Negro, from whom they expected so much fifty or sixty years ago, has not come up to their expectations, i.e., he has not improved his position quite as quickly as they feel he ought to have done. In this book I hojie to set forth what Europeans well know : viz., that there is not a single nation in Europe who could have done more for itself, in the same time and under similar circumstances, than our race : they have expected too nmch of us, with far less opportunities. Besides, it is all very well to tell people wliat they ought to do, but it is quite another thing to give them the opportunity of doing. I 'l\ I if ! 11 XU Preface 1st. We cannot expect much from a people wlio had to start an existence upon nothing, Uke .lie West Indian Negi'oes. 2nd. Neither can we hope for much progress from any nation who are treated as our race liave been, and are being treated, since the American Civil War. And 8rd. No nation can be expected to advance in so-called civilisation whose faults are continually being paraded ])efore them, as ours are in the literature of the superior race. It is well known, and most keenly felt, in every country where the Negro has been sent as an exile, that his superior brethren liave used every means and meanness, not only to make him feel his position, but to prolong his degradation, and even to dis- courage any and every attempt on t^e part of the Negro to approach the social equality of the most abandoned white man. Our own conviction is that until the Negro knows and is convinced in head and heart tliat God has not sent him into the world as a mere toy to be kicked about by every and any one — until he learns that fate has not made him to be a mere spectator and serf — we can never hope for better things to befall our people. Our aim in this book is not merely to give an account of one of our own kind, or to turn the light of this closing century upon slavery, but Preface. Xlll to put into the bands of tlie rising,' generation the history of one wlio has, ])y sheer force of character, raised hinisell above the degrading condition of the life in which he was born. By following Walter Hawkins from a slave farm to a Bishoj^ric, we shall see how Providence has provided every man with tlie means — if he will use them — to improve his position in the world ; the young Negro will see tliat while he may not become a bishop, doctor, or lawyer, he may so utilise his op- portunities that he shall connnand respect from those who have hitherto regarded all Negroes as vagrants, destined to wander on the face of the earth. The race will feel that, witli patience, perseverance, and hard work, what ]>ishop Hawkins has done in one direction, millions may do in other ways. Ah ! we trust that liis life will urge the race not to look to others so much as to themselves. I confess my inability to do justice to the subject, as I liave had no experience in this kind of work ; and, secondly, I have had little time to give to its preparation, as I have to work for my living wlile prosecuting my studies. I have tried to give an historical sketch of slavery from its introduction in the New World down to the time of Bishop Hawkins. I have also tried to give an historical sketch of several places where he stopped before he finally settled in Canada, as I thought it would mmummMmtttmm^'' ' ii il| H '1 XIV Preface. add to tlie interest of tlie life of one wlio lias served liis race — and tlii'ou^di them huinanity — in a ^vay I sliould like iio serve them. I nnist tliank my many friends for tlieir advice and sug". They will neither shave him nor serve him in a dram shop. In the church, where people are supposed to worship one God, the Ne^^ro cannot find a seat. When he was a slave he could cook the food and serve at the table; l)ut now he is free he must not eat in the same room as the white man. The poor iiHiocent child cannot be comfortable in the school w^here the white children are, no matter how miicli tax his father pays to the State ; hence he must have his own church and cliapel — except Eoman Catholic — his own shavin^^ and drinking saloon. In many of the States even the right of citizenship is denied him. Whatever crime he commits is too often magnified an hundred fold ; and, when he is wronged, justice is withheld from him in courts of law for no other reason than that he is a Negro. Very often his greatest oppressors are men who have been forced to flee their own country by want or crime. There is a saying in ''I XV1 11 Introdiictioi. P ntl I I 41 (St ( .! the Soutlierii States : ** When tlie iii<^^^'er is down keep liini down, lor wlien ilie ni^'^er vises, hell rises"; and the whites seem to act very much on that principle. In the old days, th()U<,di some ac- knowledged that " many of the Ne<,a'oes possess a natural f^oodness of heart and wariuuli of affection," yet they used to fix tlieir prices not merely accordin lip rh II'' .. !> UtII I Life is like tlie transition from class to class in a school. The schoolhoy who has not learnt arithmetic in the early classes cannot secure it when lie comes to mechanics in the higher : each section has its own sufficient work. He may be a good philosoplicr or a good historian, but a bad arithmetician he remains for life, for he cannot lay a foundation at the moment when he must be building the superstructure. The regiment which has not perfected itself in its manoeuvres on the parade ground cannot learn them before the guns of the enemy. And just iu the same way a young j)erson who has slept his youth away, and become idle and selfish and hard, cannot make up for that afterwards. He may do sometliing : he may be religious — yes ; but he cannot be what he might have been. There is a part of his heart which will remain uncultivated to the end. The Apostles could share their blaster's suifer- ing — they could not save Him. Youth has its irreparable past. — F. W. KOBERTSON. Yes, " Youth has its irreparable past," but the mis- fortunes of youth were not self-imposed ; it was the tyranny of slavery which loaded Walter Hawkins, as soon as he was born, with calamities, most of which he has never been able to overcome. While some only know misery by comparison with their own happiness, this man was made to experience it before he could understand what it meant. From his birth he was (26) Early Life. 27 mude to go under a dark, bleak rock — on a sunless shore- -in company with those who could not explain why he was born to such a cruel fate. They could not even pity him, since they themselves were martyrs to the same heartless destiny. Himself and they might have felt that there was a thing called happi- ness by people whom they had seen laughing, or sing- ing those sacred songs which he would one day learn : that was the only cup of consolation they had to drink from. But as years rolled on, and the slave-driver compelled him to speak in subdued tones, it was then the child began to comprehend the mystery of the sunless path — which afterwards made him incapable of being in love with his fate. What he would have been if he had not been born, nursed, and spent his early days in bondage we cannot tell ; this we will venture to say from what we shall learn from his life — there was the making of a man worthy of any race in the slave child. Bishop Walter Hawkins was born at Georgetown, Maryland, in the district of Columbia, in or about the year 1809, at a time when the United States no less than Great Britain were beginning to be stirred from centre to circumference with the anti-slavery agitation. His father and mother were both pure-blooded Negroes, whose ancestors were among the millions that were stolen from the bosom of their fatherland to supply the labour market of America. They were both slaves at the time of the birth of tlieir son Walter. At the age of forty his father was encouraged by the Quakers ipm II" i.«' I 28 Early Life. — whom we have said were the first to free their slaves in the United States — to work overtime after lie had fulfilled jiis long day's work for his master. In this way the poor man managed to save the sum of 365 dollars (£73 4s. 2d.), with which he purchased his liberty. Heaven only knows what the slaves would have had to go through, but for the humanity and practical sympathy of those unostentatious Christians. Bishop Hawkins does not seem to remember much about his mother, for she ^''ed when he was quite young. Although the children lost much by her death, it certainly was great gain to this mother, who dared not call the children of her anguish her own. What a glorious emancipation was hers ! Better far is thy lot to be numbered with the dead than to have lived to be hunted down by bloodhounds or whipped by ex-convicts. What a glorious transformation is thine ! Thy death w^as a far better thing than the insults of bullies more degraded than thyself. Was thy death not preferred, than to live to see thy loved ones torn one by one from thy heart, and sent oft" in the chain-gang never to see them in the flesh any more, or, what is worse, to see and not to know that they were verily part and parcel of thyself ? Out of a large family, the Bishop can only remember two brothers and two sisters. Who knows but that before Walter was born the others were carried into the south, from whence it was believed that neither the living nor dead ever returned to relate the horrors of the life of a slave in yonder region? The eldest of Early Life. 29 the two sisters died, while the eldest brother, deter- mined no longer to serve his master, ran away ; we hope he was never recaptured. The Bishop, one sister, and a younger brother— who fell down a flight of stairs, in consequence of which he became a cripple for the rest of his life — was all the family left to Hawkins the elder. The cripple was given as a pre- sent to the old man, but he did not enjoy the present of his own son for long, for he followed his mother into the eternal world. Listen to the heartless lan- guage of this descendant of a convict : " Old man, you can have him ; he is of no use to me ". Nevertheless the man was glad to have one free child, though he be a cripple. At the death of the master the remaining two children became the property of widow Jane Eobinson, the sister of one Robert Beverly, a rich squire, who always supplied her with all the neces- saries of life, as she was what they called very poor. And a most eccentric creature was this Jane Eobinson. Following the custom and spirit of the age, she pro- fessed the popular religion. She used to teach young Hawkins to lie on her behalf, but would have him whipped if he did so on his o'vn responsibility, or threaten him with being " cast into a lake of fire and brimstone " ; not her religious belief, but the effect of slavery on the slave-holder made them so inconsistent as to say to the slave boy : "If there is a knock, put on a clean white apron, and go to the door, open it, and if it is Mrs. Thomas Bell or Mrs. Frank Keys tell her I jim gone out ". Evidently old Jane believed > I I I 11" i • II '' 'J^ i 1? 1l m I ^j/ii' 30 Early Life. that there must have been some virtue in a " clean white apron " ; perhaps it served to cover a multitude of sins. Not content witli putting this he into the boy's mouth, slie would stand off where she could hear him tell the lie, and having satisfied herself that the lad had done his duty well, i.e., according to her moral standard, she would laugh with delight, like a daugh- ter of an ex-convict, at the exploits of her illustrious father's dashing acts of villainy. Having done this, old Jane would say : " Go to your work (not with a clean white apron) in ten minutes ". When she thought that he was there she would go and look around and say, pushing the soil with her foot : ** Are you cutting the weeds all right, John ? " If he replied in the affirmative, when he was not strictly accurate, old Jane Kobinson would say, by way of exhortation : " John, you must not lie. Don't you know that all liars are cast into the lake that burns for ever ? " How was he to know ? and if there were such a place ought not old Jane to have the warmest corner ? Who is to be blamed if this boy grew up to be a hardened liar ? If it were just for him to lie for his mistress with- out fear of being "cast into the labe that burns for ever," why not do it for himself ? Slavery was a bad — not to say a hard — schoolmaster for the Negro ; moreover it was fruitful in respect of raising a race of men who were at once semi-barbarous, innnoral and degraded physically as well as mentally. The Bishop says : " Jane Robinson always had her prayers in her private room three times a-day " ; and he could often Early Life. 31 hear her say : " O Lord, have mercy upon the poor Africans ! " and groaned as if her soul was really troubled about them. But what avails prayers and groans when she, like so many other slave-holders, persisted in degrading the African ? Yet these prayers and groans constituted the religion of the pious Chris- tians of Negro-driving America. Their ministers were their paid puppets, who taught the slaves from the pulpit that they must obey their masters and mistresses in all things. These men of God did not thinii or feel that it was beneath the dignity of the'.- vocation to tell the Negroes " that some He made masters and mistresses for taking care of their children and others belonging to them . . . others He hath made slaves and ser- vants to assist and work for their masters and mis- tresses that provide for them, and some others He hath made ministers and teachers to instruct the rest, to show them what they ought to do, and put them in mind of their several duties ". God called them, but the devil shook the bag. The Eight Eev. Bishop Meade of Virginia, in an address to slaves, said : " Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you no- thing but labour and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is His will that it should be so. Your bodies, you know, are not your own : they are at the disposal of those you belong to." And others of these paid "liars for God" published a cate- chism for slaves, in whicli they had the impudence to ask and answer tiie following questions : " Is it right ft"' lU 32 Early Life. for a servant to run away, and is it right to harbour a runaway? — No. What did the Apostle Paul do to Onesinius, who was a runaway ? Die! he harbour him or send him back to his master ? Answer — He sent him back to his master with a letter." Yes, and this minister ought to have added : " Keceive him not as a servant but above a servant, a brother in Christ". Of course the puppet was paid to keep the last clause out — nay, more, the slave was even taught that " to disobey his master was to yield to the temptation of the devil". Bishop Hawkins tells us of one Parson Baulch, who was accustomed to preach once a month in the Presbyterian Church, in the neighbourhood in which he lived, to the slaves. This venerable old man used to take the same text, and preached the same sermon for twenty years, as testified by his father and grandfather, to which they were bound to listen, under pains of being whipped. The text was : " Servants, obey your masters," and the substance of the sermon was : " Sam and Sukey, you must mind all you are told to do by your masters, and obey. You must not steal from them. Should they lose a pin, and you find it, you nmst give it to them. You nmst not lie, and you must not run away from them." While thus speaking, he would put his finger on the supposed text in the open Bible, and, looking in the gallery where all the slaves were allowed to sit, would continue his apology for a sermon by saying: "The Lord says (I suppose the lord of mannnon), if you are good to your masters and mistresses, He has got a kitchen in Early Life. 33 lieaven, and you all will go there by-and-by ". What if Parson Baulch is in that kitchen now? A more hateful caricature of a sermon cannot be conceived than this wretched mutilation of the righteous char- acter of God. In every denomination were found men of Parson Baulch's stamp, except the Quakers and a few laymen who protested against this libel on the Deity. But many of the slave-holders would carry it away and repeat it (parrot-like) to the poor slaves. Poor Jane Kobinson had been pretty well off during some portion of her husband's life, but, unfortunately for her and her slaves, he ran through his money by drinking and gambling, two offsprings of slavery, and at last he died from the effects of his riotous living, leaving old Jane, a son and a daughter in possession of five slaves as their fortune, which was considered very little to live upon ; consequently she became very stingy in her fare. If she put herself upon a smaller fare, it was certainly a bad look-out for the stomachs of her five Negroes, who were soon after made to feel as if their throats were cut. Inasnmch as her rich brother Beverly came to her assistance and relieved her wants, she continued to buy the cheapest meal and bread she could find for her slaves. It was a part of the policy of many of the slave-holders not to feed the Negro too highly, and with that fear they gave him too little. Just as they maintained that " if the slave were not allowed to read the Bible " he would remain an in- tellectual infant, whom they could bend at will, but if they were allowed to read it the game was up, so they 3 PAJ M 1 '' : f||f 34 Early Life. I ■ i!i*i ( ^ 'Pi ■ n, n ; » ^^ 1 i ; \l [! ■ 1 ■MS: i; ! , i n . ii il ; 1 ylii 1 kl feared that by the perusal of such a book the shive " would be converted uot into a Christian, but a demon," /.c, he could no longer be kept in subjection. Old Jane Kobinson did with the food exactly what a thousand masters and mistresses did with both food and religion, viz., diluted and adulterated them in quantity and quality to suit the peculiar institution in which millions of human beings were kept as chattels. The pinch of hunger made the young man yearn for liberty. Ye clouds ! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal can control ! Ye ocean waves ! that, wheresoe'cr ye roll. Yield homage only to eternal laws ! Ye woods ! that listen to the night-bird's singing, ^lidway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches, swinging. Have made a solemn music of the wind ! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy. My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound. Inspired, beyond the guess of folly. By each rude shape and wild, unconquerable sound ! Oh, ye loud waves ! and oh, ye forests high ! And oh, ye clouds that far above me soared ! Thou rising sun ! thou blue, rejoicing sky ! Yea, everything that is and will be free ! — WQViX witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep virtue I have still adored The spirit of divhiest liberty ! — Coleridge, ICOLERIDGE. Chapter III. LIFE AS A SLAVE. Tlio results of the institutiou of slavery was to encourage a tyrannical and ferocious spirit in the masters — cast a stigma upon free labour and at once degraded and de- humanised the Negro. It is true that there were instances of sympathy between some masters and slaves, but, un- fortunately, it was more than outweighed by a long series of the most atrocious acts of cruelty, which were practised in their capture in Africa, on the voyages to America, and on the plantations. — S. J. Celestine Edwards. On him alone was doom of pain From the morning of his birth, On him alone the curse of Cain Fell like a flail on the garnered grain, And struck him to the earth. — Anon. Although Spence deplored slavery as a lamentable evil and regarded it as a great human wrong, and said that it was a degradation to the blacks, an injury to the master, and a detriment to society at large, yet he tried to justify the system by saying that "the Negroes had at all times abundant food ; the sufferings of fireless winter were unknown to them ; medical attendance was always at command ; in old age there was no fear of workhouse ; their children were never a burden or care ; and their labour, though long, was neither difficult nor unhealthy ". Given that this is absolutely true, we maintain that the system was (35) i 'ii II I "' ti" :; I i, II; ' ii f , t I ':;]! I l?!i : L : ^ 36 Li/e as a Slave. iniquitous, inasmuch as "it ignored the essential characteristic of the man — the existence ". In the words of Sallust : " Of two natures, the one is connnon to us with the gods, the other with the beasts". Un- doubtedly, slavery sought to obliterate the more vital, and verily denied the nobler, of these two natures. What is the use of an abundance of everything when one is deprived of his liberty ? Nor is the crime of keeping a man a slave minimised by talking about "the amount of degradation resulting from any cause must be limited by the height from whence there was room to fall," for surely it is a come down for any man, how- ever ignorant — though free — to be torn from his home by force and fraud, and transported like a convict into servitude for an indefinite period : a condition where every precaution was adopted to prevent intellectual improvement. Granted that the intellectual condition of the slave had not fallen from a height equal to that of the race in the home to which he was transported, was slavery calculated to raise him above the condition of his savage life ? Mr. Spence answers : "Yes, a positive gain " ; we say : "Prove your assertion". He answers : " Their conversation and domestic habits are cheerful, they are fond of singing and dancing of a very energetic description ; visitors to the Southern States constantly express their surprise at the drollery and gaiety they meet with ". A slave had no domestic life ; singing and dancing were the opiates with which the poor wretches drowned their sorrows. It is a character- istic of the Negro to be — or rather to profess to be — as Life as a Stave. 37 happy as he can under the condition he is in, which you, Mr. Spence, and too many others, mistook for real contentment. In the happiest moment of their Hfe, there arose in some an irrepressible desire for free- dom which no danger or power could restrain, no hard- ship deterred, and no bloodhound could alarm. This desire haunted them night and day \ they talked about it to each other in confidence ; they knew that the system which bound them was as unjust as it was cruel, and that they ought to strive, as a duty to them- selves and their children, to escape from it, as the slaves in Jamaica tried to do in 1732, unknown to them, and later as their neighbours in St. Domingo succeeded in doing : and such was the state of mind beneath all their singing and dancing that, had they means as they had desire, there would have been no slave-holder to talk about the happiness of his slaves. To enslave men successfully and safely it was necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they were deprived. Thus masters gave the slaves some holidays, which served the purpose of keeping their minds occupied with pro- spective pleasures within the limits of slavery. It was during these holidays that the young man could go wooing ; the married man went to see his wife ; the father and mother to oce their children ; the indus- trious and nioney-making could earn a few dollars : it was then that the strong tried their strength at wrest- ling or boxing ; then the drinker drank plenty of whisky, and the reli^ ous spent their time in praying o» v,l ll I »l" li:!!"' III'' 38 Life as a Slave. preaching, singing and exhorting. Before these holi- days their pleasures were in prospect, after they were pleasures of reflection ; but for those holidays, which acted as safety-valves, the rigours of bondage would have been carried off by the explosive elements pi'o- duced in the minds of the slaves by the injustice and fraud of slavery. In his savage state the Negro was at liberty to eat what he liked and could get by his own activity, but as a slave he was forced to have "Johnny cakes " and black treacle, with rare variation. This cake was made out of corn-meal, salt, and water, and baked on a piece of barrel-head. At dinner-time old Jane Eobinson would call her slaves and give each of them a piece and a little molasses, which she would pour into a large plate so as to make it look much more than it really was ; of course there was no blessing asked on this meal. The necessary preliminary having been gone through, Walter would receive his allowance with all the humility of one who had received a knighthood from his Queen. It is needless to say that he soon polished off the " Johnny cake," licked the treacle and bowed ready for more, to which Mrs. Eobinson would gravely reply: "You young rascal, do you mean to breed a famine? Go to your work!" Can anyone wonder at slaves singing : — " We raise the wheat, They eat the corn ; We bake the bread. They give us the crust ; We sift tlijg meal, They give us the husk " ? Life as a Slave. 39 Of course, if the Ne<];ro asked for bread, tlie slave- liolder was bound to give him a stone. 'Jesides bak- ing the corn-meal dough upon a piece of barrel-head, the slaves were accustomed to wash their hoes, put the dough upon it, and bake their cake before the fire ; hence the name "hoe-cake". If the slave had not a variety of dishes he certainly had a variety of means of producing the same cake ; thus, instead of cooking them on hoes and barrel-heads, they would roll the dough into a round lump and cover it with cabbage leaves, sweep away the ashes from the hearth, lay the dough upon the ground and cover it over with ashes and fire. Honourable exceptions there were, but they were few and hard to find, who did not try to get as much work as possible, at very little cost for food and clothing. Some masters and mistresses would send their slaves to the market to beg food, of whom Dame Kobinson was one ; and, when the slaves returned laden with provisions, they would take the food from them as if the provision was theirs and not the pro- perty of tlio slaves : a job Walter did not like, as the poor slaves often got more kicks than cabbages ; so he used to turn round the first corner after he left his mistress's house and loaf about until he thought it was time to go home again, pulling a long face because people would not part with their sweet potatoes, etc., without money, which would force the old lady to go marketing herself, when Walter would follow her as light porter ; but he seldom got any of the good things which he brought home for his mistress. The time ^1 p !( it 40 Li/e (IS a Slave, came, however, when this young slave began to get tired of his way of spending an existence which seemed to have no end. Something vv^hispered to him : " Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn " ; from whence the words came he knew not. As he could not read, he must have heard them from someone who could. However they came, he thought himself to be the ox, and that he was muzzled by slavery ; so he made up his mind to take off his muzzle and go in for a good feed the first chance he got. But he re- membered that the old parson had told them not to steal, iest they would be cast into a "lake which burned for ever," besides the lashing he would get. Hunger is a sharp tho^n. If he ate anything which was not given to him, he would have been accused of theft. Supposing he risked the lash and the "burning lake," how was he to get at the old dame's store in which the food was kept? " Surely," thought he, " I work for what I get"; and, after all, what was the use of working and not getting enough food to satisfy his hunger? "It cannot therefore be wrong to take what I have worked for.'' Walter quieted his con- science by deciding to steal some food ; so, whether it were stealing or not, he'd chance hell, the whip, and everything, and have a good round meal the first chance he had. They say everything comes to those that wait : so Walter waited for his opportunity ; and one day, when Dame Kobinson and her daughter went out, and knowing that she wotdd leave the keys at home, Walter set his sister to watch while he hunted Life as a Slave. 41 everywhere he could think to find them ; at last it occurred to his mind to look under her pillow, and iliere to his great joy he found them — a happy thought for his hungry stomach. Having found them he made for the store, where he took flour, lard, butter, sugar, and as much of other good things as he could find. With the flour and lard he made short cakes, which he baked in a Dutch oven. When cooked, he called his sister, and set himself to get "a good square meal " for once in his life ; and, having had enough, he put away what he could not eat for another time. Soon after they had finished, the old lady came home ; and, after having had her tea, she gave her slaves their share ; but Walter had had more than enc ^h, con- sequently he hid the biscuits which she had given him away. But the worst was to come. Thinking that old Jane was taking her usual nap, one day, after this event, Walter sat down in the garden munching away at the sugar he had stolen ; but the old dame, who was evidently aware that she had been robbed, only professed to have been asleep, and had slyly got up and looked out of the window only to fiad the young man eating her sugar. So she stealthily walked out and sneaked beside him, as he sat by the side of a large gooseberry tree eating gooseberries and sugar. She exclaimed: "You young rascal, 1 have caught you at last ". You can imagine the young man's surprise ; he was hke the boy who, being sent with his father's dinner, sat down by the roadside, and was in the act of eating it when his mother came upon him, jTmj- II" 1 i 1 1 i H 1 1 1 1 i ( 1! 1 1 .i'i .* 1 42 Life as a Slave. exclaiming : " Kichard ! " to which the boy coolly answered: "Why, I did not expect you so soon". But for his near-sightedness he would have seen his mother coming. So also on account of Walter's absent-mindedness he did not take precaution to eat his sugar at night or when his mistress had gone out again. But fate decreed otherwise. What could the poor half-starved boy say ? Yonder on the side of a small hill stood some willow-trees ; thither the old lady proceeded, and reached up to break, from one of them, a piece stout enough to wreak her old vengeance on the thieving slave-boy. But good nature interposed, and ere she attempted to break ofY the stick there came a breeze which took her off her feet, by lifting the limb of the willow as the branch ascended. She let it go, and poor Jane Eobinson fell and rolled down the hill- side. Poor Jane ! what if she were killed ? That young Negro would have been lynched in four quarters for a crime he had never committed. Seeing the old dame did not make any attempt to get up, Walter looked down to see what had become of his mistress. What thoughts must have rushed into Walter's mind ! Suppose she say he pushed her down or was directly the cause of her falling ? he dared not deny it ; whether he did or not, she would have been believed if only she had made a charge, as there was no court of appeal against the ipse dixit of a slave-holder. What must he do? To run away and be recaptured would make it appear as though he were guilty. But fear, reason, compassion for the old dame moved the heart 'I] i Life as a Slave. 43 of the Negro to go to her assistance and help the fallen. While helping her up he thought : "I am doing this, hut I know she will hire a man who whips slaves to whip me," feeling that she could not do it herself, as he was bigger and stronger than he used to be. But Jane Robinson was hurt, and the moment she got on her feet she made for the house as quickly as possible, to have the rest which she had disturbed to catch the thief. Walter escaped his thrashing then only to think it had to come, but night came and nothing was said, and no Negro- whipper came ; so the day's doings, and the dread and horrors of the whip, were forgotten in sleep. Morning came, and the day passed without any- thing being said ; tinally, the culprit escaped his thrash- ing altogether. Why ? Eternity alone will reveal, for Walter has never been able to solve the problem. All other attempts at whipping were held in reserve, until he attended a midnight meeting and did not get back in time to get his rest, so that he could not do his w^ork the next day with alacrity. Thinking he had been carousing all night, she began to pound him with the first thing she got hold of. Poor fellow ! he could do better with sleep than with the stick ; but what has that to do with the slave- holder, who wanted work out of her slave ? The system under which he laboured forbade con- sideration and gave little practical sympathy to a weary slave, and when it was time to rest, what had the slave to sleep upon ? The sleeping apartments, Ml, n 1 44 Z//i? as a Slave. if they could have been called such, had little regard for decency. Old and young, male and female, married and single, were glad to drop down like so many brute beasts upon the connnon clay floor, each covered with his or her own blanket, their only protection from cold and exposure. How much of rest had a slave ? The night, however short, was cut off a\. both ends : slaves worked late and rose early. Then part of the night was spent in mending their scanty clothing for decency's sake, and in cooking their food for the morrow — in fact, they were whipped for over-sleep more than for drunkenness, a sin which the masters rarely reproved ; while neither age nor sex found favour for sleeping too much. If they slept too long the overseer stood at the quarter door, armed like a liedgehog, with stick and whip, ready to deal merci- less blows upon those who were a little behind time. Thus, when the horn blew, there was a general rush for the door, each trying to be first, as the last one was sure to get a blow from the brute. He was accounted a good master who allowed his slaves to leave the field to eat their hoe-cake and salt pork or herrings ; those who had their meals in the held had it thrown in a row in the corner of the fences or hedge, so as not to lose time to and from the field.* Con- sequently loss of sleep was a great privation to the one whose religious zeal had carried him to a camp meet- ing at night, for which he had to pay very dearly the * Life of Fred. Douijlas. Life as a Slave. 45 next day. Anyhow old Jane got square with Walter, for she paid him for his past offences. But hunger and thrashing had silently been doing their work in his mind. They served to create and intensify his desire to be free, which was brought to a climax one Sunday evening when old Jane began on his poor bones, which he could bear no longer, and he turned upon the old lady, looking fiercely at her. Being pressed with blows he raised his hand to strike her — what a damnable system that would prompt a man to strike a woman, however strong and wicked, much less old Jane Robinson ! — but to his honour he did not let his hand come down upon her. The fierce look and raised hand cured her, for she never tried to whip him again, we hope, nor any of her other slaves. It was nonsense for those who were free and lived by slavery to talk about the comfort of the Negro as a slave, when his monthly fare was eight pounds of pickled pork or its equivalent in fish ; the pork was often tainted and the fish was of an inferior kind. With his pork or fish he had given him one bushel of Indian meal, unbolted, of which fifteen per cent, was fitter for hogs than man ; with this one pint of salt was given. The yearly allowance of clothing was not more ample than the supply of food. It consisted of two tow-linen shirts, one pair of trousers of the same coarse material for summer, and a pair of woollen trousers and a woollen jacket for winter, with one pair of yarn stockings of the coarsest description. Children under ten years of age had neither stockings, i il 1 1 lis 1 ,; 1 l.j 46 Life as a Sla%)e. ^r "m. ! shoes, jackets nor trousers. They had two coarse tow- Hnen shirts a-year, and when these were worn out they went naked until the next allowance day. Without the least regard to whether they were boys or girls, men or women, beds they had none ; one coarse blanket was given them, /.c, men and women ; the poor children had to liuddle themselves where they could in the corners of the liuge chimneys, with their feet in the ashes to keep them warm.* Besides saying that the Negro was better off than pitmen and sailors, Mr. Spence observed : *' The mind of the Negro avoids reflection on the past, and abstains from investigating the future " ; if they did not, they ought to have been kept as slaves " for ever and ever ". But slave-holders lived in a fools' paradise ; what brute, living in a climate such as Maryland, would not feel the pinch of cold and hunger with the miserable fare they were allowed ? What man would not try and kill, steal, lie, or do anything to satisfy these cravings ? Nay, how did these poor wretches survive under that cruel curse ? Why did they not rise and mercilessly butcher the fiends who thus maltreated them? Did they not know that "who would be free, themselves must strike the blow " ? Alas ! Alas ! Starvation, cold and hunger conspired, and verily took away what courage was left in them, when they left the shore of their native land. Yet not all, for there were slaves whose spirit no lash could ever * Vide Life ami Time of Fred, Douglas, p. 29. Life as a Slave. 47 conquer, whom labour, cold, hunger, and stt^ji'vation could not make docile ; these stole, escaped, killed bloodhounds, fought their overseers, and even died rather than be conquered — died martyrs for the liberty from which either they or their ancestors were stolen. Walter Hawkins shared this love of freedom and spirit of resistance to injustice. The close fist which only partly fed him on hoe-cakes and black treacle, the scanty clothing through which the fierce, cutting north-wester pierced and chilled his blood, the hard earth on which he slept, and the deprivation of calling himself his own, were the forces which made him reflect and haunted him like a nightmare, and made him think and lay his plans to be his own master. What did the slave-holder know of the inmost workings of the mind of the Negro? Aboriginal barbarity and slavery were the only circumstances under which they had an opportunity of contemplating him. What use did they make of these opportunities to study them ? None ; and to this day the same ignorance influences the strong prejudices which abound in the United States against the Negro. He has characteristics of his own, as his white brethren have. There lies in him a simple-mindedness which is mistaken for a love of personal slavery. Indeed, he has little in his intellect that is separable from his warm affection ; while men have deduced the absurd notion that the Negro is fit for nothing but subser- vience to the superior race, they forget that it took their race thousands of years to evolve a Darwin f m !!:!( :i! ■1!''« 48 Life as a Slave. from the ape condition. Cicero thought that a Briton was unfit to serve the acconipHshed Atticus. While smarting under this sense of the injuL ^ice of the institution of slavery, the son of Mrs. Kohinson, who had followed his father's footsteps in drinking and gambling, came home one day hard up for cash, and, not knowing any better way to raise money to satisfy his passions, resolved on selling Walter , whom he called, saying : "Do you want a master?" Of course, he had no other choice but to answer: "Yes, sir". So he took the young xiian to a slave- dealer who bought and sold slaves to owners in the South. The dealer and southern plantations brought to his mind all the terrible things he had heard about those parts, and well he might, for the law by which slaves were governed in the Carolinas was a provincial law as old as 1740, but was made perpetual in 1783. By this law every Negro was presumed a slave unless the contrary appeared. In the ninth clause, two justices of the peace and three freeholders had power to put slaves to any manner of death. The evidence against them might have been without oath. No slave was to traflic on his own account. Any person who murdered a slave was to pay .£100, or £14 if he cut out the tongue of a slave. Any white man meeting seven slaves together on a high road could give them twenty lashes each, and no man could teach a slave to write under a penalty of £100 currency. The terrors of the South had nothing to do with young Robinson, who wanted money, which he valued nmch m Life as a Slave. 49 more than a Negro. Walter stood by while the bargain was being made, and heard the dealer olfer nine hundred dollars for his body. Speaking to Walter, he said : " Can you plough and grub ? Can you do general work on the farm ? " The poor fellow could do no more than please his master by answering " yes " to all his questions, wdiich pleased both the dealer and young Ivobinson, for whose benefit all the lies were told. The bargain being struck, an arrangement was made for Walter to re-appear the next morning at seven o'clock; at the same time, he was to bid good-bye to his friends; but be sure, said he, that you are on the spot at seven. Knowing that he did not mean to go, though his master had had the price of his body in his pocket, the young man, who might have been weeping, put liis thumbs under w^hat ought to have been a vest, whistling " Hail, Columba ". Being tired of whistling, he began to think : " You will never see me again, old man ; what a fool you were to part with your money before you got your goods ". But Walter had not yet realised the difficulty of the situation. So complete were the ramifications of the slave system that a slave- could not get away as easily as he imagined. Still resolved to flee, he went straight to his old father and told him that he was sold. " Sold!" exclaimed the old man; "to wdiom?" "Why, to old Cidley, the Negro-dealer." xVfter a pause the old man said : "They will sell my last child," and burst into tears, weeping like a child. He talked and wept with his son until he bathed the floor at his feet. At last he said : " Boy, 50 Life as a Slave, ! \\ I -< "■ lilt '"It ■ vW runaway". "I will," responded Walter. But now his troubles began, for lie did not know, and the old man could not tell him, where to go any distance beyond ten miles in either direction from where they stood, as it was a part of the policy ' " slavery to keep them in ignorance as to distance. ... if resolution could not break rocks, it could climb mountains. As night came on, the old man lay down to find consola- tion in sleep. Then it was that Walter crept out of the house into the open field, looking up to the stars, begging them to befriend a poor Negro in his endeavour to make good his escape from slavery. But, alas ! there was no answer. Suddenly a thought struck him to go and see a young man whom he had met at a midnight meeting, and who was a Christian. He ran and walked until he arrived at the boarding-house in which he was employed as a waiter. He rapped at the door, and, as fate would have it, there was no one in but himself. Looking out of the window, he called out: "Who is there?" "It is I, Eobert ! " The young man opened the door and told Walter to come in. Then Walter told him all his troubles and his resolve. " Stop here," replied the sympathising fellow. But woe to Robert if they had caught him in his room ! There Walter remained undisturbed for nearly four weeks. Certainly when the next morning came there was no Walter to be found, and we can well imagine the kind of advertisements, placards, and bloodhounds that would be set on his track, besides the pressure that Life as a Slave. 51 would be brought to bear on the old man, his father, to tell where his son was. Of course he could not tell, as he did not see liini go away. And what were the thoughts of the runaway? Uppermost in liis mind would be the fact that his father and sister would be wondering whether he was recaptured, famishing in the woods, dead, or being driven in a slave-gang, such as they had seen with dread passing through the town. We will give here an account of one of these gangs as witnessed in Virginia by an Englishman about seventy- five years ago. " I took the boat this morning and crossed the ferry ovei' to Portsmouth, the small town which I told you is opposite to this place. It was a court day, and a large crowd of people were gathered about the door of the court-house. I had hardly got upon the steps to look in when my ears were assailed by the voice of singing, and, turning round to discover from what direction it came, I saw a group of about thirty Negroes of different sizes and ages following a rough-looking white man who sat carelessly lolling in his sulky. They had just turned round the corner, and were coming up the main street to pass by the spot where I stood, on their way out of town. As they came nearer, I saw some of them loaded with chains to prevent their escape, while others had hold of each other's hands, strongly grasped, as if to support them- selves in their affliction. I particularly noticed a poor mother with an infant sucking at ;r breast as she walked along, while two small children had hold of her apron on either side, almost running to keep up ,^/) ^'^'"!).) 52 Life as a Slave. i\ t* .' '!N .'iiil with the rest. They came aloii|^ singing a httle wild hyinn of sweet and mournful melody, flying, by a divine instinct of the heart, to the consolation of reli- gion — the last refuge of the unhappy — ^to support them in their distress. The sulky now stopped before a tavern, a little distance from the court-house, and the driver got out . . . then he, having supplied himself with brandy, and his horse with water (the poor Negroes, of course, wanted nothing), stepped into his chair again, cracked his whip, and drove on, while the miserable exiles followed hi funeral procession behind him." Over the spirits there came A fcehng of wonder and sadness — Strange forebodings of ill, Unseen, and that cannot be compassed. As at the tramps of a horse's Hoof on the turf of the prairies, Far in advance are closed The leaves of the shrinking mimosa ; So at the hoof-beats of fate, With sad forebodings of evil. Shrinks and closes the heart. Ere the stroke of doom has attained it. Chapter IV. ESCAPE FKOM SLAVERY. Tlio desires of a people arc seldom prejudicial to liberty, because they commonly spring from actual oppression or an ap- prehension of it. — !Machiavelli. Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table, and, leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. — Sterne. No wonder that Sydney Smith said : " No virtuous man ought to trust liis character, or the character of his children, to the demorahsing effects produced by commanding slaves. Justice, gentleness, pity and humanity soon give way before them ; conscience sus- pends its functions. The love of command, the main- tenance of restraints, get the better of every other feel- ing, f";nd cruelty has no other limit than fear." Think what the feelings of this young Negro must have been in his hiding-place, as all the horrors of a slave-gang stared him in the face. Trembling, but never dreading his danger, he crept out one night, and hastened to tell his poor father and sister that he was still on the best side of the chain-gang. The moment he opened the door, his step-mother (53) »» I' ^ t 111 I ill; I UllW!; :,4..; 54 Escape from Slavery. told him to go out, foi' tlio liiiiiters liad ixicii thoro several times a-day with the bloodhoniids to hunt him down. 'I'lie pool- fellow begged to see his father, hut the woman, knowing and fearing the penalty of his l)eing seen tliere. insisted! on his leaving the house, and that right away; so he obeyed and stepp(!d out of tlui door. Just as he did so, one of the two-legged })lood!iounds who wei'e looking for him en- tered the gate. Wiiile he hesitated to see whether Walter was his prize, tlui lad bolted like a shot out of a cannon. Kijid fate had ijiterposed, for the constable had not his dogs with him that time, or he would have captui'ed his man. It was httle use the fellow giving chase to a young man ruiming foi' his life and lil)erty, for Walter soon left him out of sight and sound, and back he went to his hiding-place at his friend llobert's, where he arrived with the perspiration dripping from his face, while his whole l)ody was trembling with fear. Robert not being in on his airival, Walter sat down to rtcover himself, and he no sooner gatliered him- self togethe)' than Robert walked in, and wanted to know what was the matter. " Why," said Walter, ** I had a narrow escape of being caught by the con- stable." ''Then," replied Robert, "you must go from here now ; you can't stay any longer " ; for he knew that if the t\ olegged bloodhound had kept up the chase he would be sure to make enquiry there, and, if found, he would be severely punished for harbouring a runaway. " I can't," said Walter, " as I don't know where ♦^■o go, and I have no money to get food with." Escape Jroni Slavery. 55 The good friund put liis liund in liis pocket and Look out a five-dollar note, saying: "This will take you to a free country". Then arose another difliculty, viz., the passport, in tlu; shape of free papers, that he nught show when he went for his railway ticket. So Walter said : " I have no free papers, and I don't know any way to get them. I have not even any white to l)e my friend to say I ain free." To be sui-e, no white man in that part of the country would tell a lie or disgrace himself by helping a Negro to make good his es cape. So why dream al)Out it ? " Now is your chance to make tlie best of a bad job," said lloljert. While they were thus discussing, another freed man came in, not knowing that Walter had taken refuge tlusi-e : so that Walter had to tell him his troubles, and how he had escaped the constable. " Why," said the fellow, " the liounds have just gone by ; 'tis a wonder they did not stop here and ask or search for you. llere is five dollars ; it will take you where you want to go.'' Yet neither he nor liobert could tell the runaway the exact route he was to tal^ ;. " Anyhow," said they, " go, and we will pray for you if you will pray for yourself." Blessed encouragement! Well nn'ght Tennyson make I'idith say : — •' God liclp ino ! I know notliiug — can but pray, For Marolil pray— pray, pray, no lielp biiL prayor, A l)rcatli that fleets l)ey(>iul this iron world And touches Him that madt. it." Why should not these two Negroes pray for their friend wlio was sulTocating in bondage, and now seeks M -^ 56 Escape from Slavery. m m \\ II 1 y\ liilll ' t: f ]! 1 ' \- '■ ■ ;■'(!" it 1 :i'! \ to brcatlio fie.sli air? " What an asyliuii bath the troubled soul in prayer." l\\ the awful soUtucle of night, in the yearnings of the soul for freedom from physical or moral bondage, and in the thrill of sacred emotions which stirs our imnost soul, there is consola- tion in prayer. Now, if the slave-holder prays to God, why should not the slave pray? Surely if the Deity loves justice and abounds in compassion He might help the poor Negro. Eobert discussed the route to the free country with both his friends, and gave Walter what hints he could, and bade tlie runaway " Godspeed". Having taken leave of Eobert, Walter and his other freed friend started and arrived at the house of the latter in perfect safety. Here he stayed from Friday night until Monday morning. When the day dawmed, and ere the monarch of the day began to scale the horizon, Walter was up and made for the depot (rail- way station), where he found crowds of people, both white and black, taking their tickets for Baltimore — the whites were being served first. Our runaway stood aside until everyone had been served, and then he stepped boldly to the wicket door to get his, when he was saluted by the ticket-seller with " Good-morning,"' quite a coincidence, as blacks \\ere always expected to salute first. Having returned the compliment, he asked for a ticket. " Where are you going? " was the next query, asked in a short, sharp tone (as if to throw him off his guard), altho^^gh very good-naturedly. " Baltimore," was the ready reply, with the compli- II a:' «"i luiu mm Escape from Slavery. 57 iiieiitary, " sir". According to custom he ought to have asked Hawkins for his papers, but the quick reply, spoken in a confidcuitial tone, li)rought the ticket, and Walter handed him the money. The booking-clerk went on writing, and the other made his way to the railway carriage, took his seat in a dirty one, in which only Negroes were made to travel. Not many minutes after the train started off, having in the same compart- ment a few Negroes, but fearing lest they should speak to him, and therefore the more readily recognise that he was a runaway, or cross-question him in a manner that might lead him to betray himself, Hawkins played the fool by whittling some pieces of wood which he had picked up about the station, and, taking some strings out of his pockets, and a piece of paper, nuide and unmade a parcel until he arrived at Baltimore. Here he got out. Being hungry, he asked a boy to show him a place wliere he could get some food, who directed him to a basement which was used as an eating-house. While going down the steps a fine-looking man met him face to face. " Good-morning," said he to Walter, with a knowing sort of look, wliich aroused the suspi- cion of the runaway. Keeping his wits about him, \\(\ continued down and asked the price of a meal, wlien he was told it would be twenty-five cents. In this place he happened to see his own likeness on a bill which he thougiit contained a reward for his capture. At once he thought that the man who had spoken to him was not his friend, but one who was looking out for runaways. So he put on a bold front, gave the man ;' ::^ nr :* -' 1 ■■ 1 1 II ! »•• m 5« ILscape from Slavery. twouty-fivo cents, juid askcid liini to kccj) Uk; foc^d warm for him. If Uk; m.aii is still k(3(!j)ing that (uitiiig- liouHO, lie may Ixs kccjpiii^ th(! food warm yet, loi', in- stead of retui'iiin'^, h(i UmV. to his h(!els, leaving botli tlie food an(i the man l>eliiiid liim. When lie ^'ot out of si^dit h(i ask(3d aiK^thfir hoy — he was afraid to ad- dress an a(hdt to t(dl him tin; name (;f tli(! lujaixist free State, and when; he could \i\'X a car tiiat could take him tlierf;. " Lofjk ! " said the litth; fellow, " there they ar(i, aMaltimore was oik; of the centr<3S of the anti-slavery movenuint, and it was in that city that Jienjamin Lundy, th(i .lolin the iiaj)tist of the iHiW era, (istahlisiuid an aiiti slave-iy journal, 'iln; (jrnliis of (Juircrsdl Kmancipalion, in lH21,and laboured until IH.'Jl, at which tinuj he wrot(! : " I hav(!, within the period abov(!-nam(!d (tern years), sacrilic(!d thousands of dollars of my own eai'iiings. I hav(! travelled upwai'ds of (iv(! thousand miles on foot, and more than twenty thousand miles in other ways ; hav(i visited nineteen States of this union, and Inild more than two hundred pul)lic meetings ; have jierfornuid two voyages to the West Indies, by which m(;ans the emancipation of a consiihirable numb(!i' of slaves has been effected, and the way pav(!d for the enlran- chisenient of many mor(\" ft was in this sanu! city that Dr. JJuchanan delivenid an oration in 17'il u[)oii the " Moral and Political \W\\ of Slavery ". What would Walter JJawkins have given if he had only known that there were such men at Jialtimore as ■IM^B liscapc from Slavery. 59 C^uakei' Ijiiiidy ? It was not to be, so Ik; iiiadc! his way to the; (l(![)ot ; wlicii Ik; ^'ot Wwxi\ Ikj found a crowd .siniiliU' to what Ik; iiKit at the; fust railway station, liistoad ol waiting, as Ik; liad done licf'oic, h(! })fessed forward, (>\\\\j to h(!(;uis(!d and sworn at l)y the; hook- ingclerk, to stand by wliilc; the; wliito p(joi)l(3 ^ot soi'ved ; but then; was dan;^'ci- in thai, as lio might liavc })oen so(3n l)y tlu! man, who would certainly not lose sight of him again. So with all the cluuik imaginabh; Ik; ])Usliod his way within tin; l)an'i(!i-. \Vh(;n tlu; fcjUovv demanded to sec; his fr(!e pa[)ers, without any h(!sita- tion 1h; pulhid out tin; bundhis which Ik; had mad(! of whittled wood, (itc, in the ti'ain on iiis way from JIaverdegi'ass to i'>altimoi'(!. liut by another haj)py coincidence foi' him the ticket-s(;ll(!r (hd not ask him to 0|)(!n it, but siinj)ly gav(! him a tickcit. Without fiu'ther cerciinony Ik; made his way to the pi-ov(!i'ljial l)lack })eople's car, and soon tlu; ti'ain steanuHJ out. No sooner had lu; made himself comfortabh; than they crossed a river which made him think that Ik; was being taken back to Washington, Init it was a false alarm, because he was only crossing into the State of i)(ilawar(!, famous f(jr Ixiing one of the first States wlu!i'(! th(! (Quakers began to emanci[)ate thciir slaves, and about this time J^elawan; had only about three thousand slaves. There they stopptid, but Walter did not get out, and iiappily no one came to look for him whih; the train was in tlu; station. (Jff she started again, but it was a long tinu) befor*; the train stopped again ; whatever station this was be did not know nor rf 'ij,l' 'iV^M ! 60 Escape fmui Slavery. did he ask, for he was as much afraid to trust a Negro as a wliite man, nor would he get out to procure some food, as he had had enough experience at Baltimore, the shock of which he had not yet quite recovered from ; indeed, quietude and hunger were preferred to a full stomach and slavery, therefore he kept his seat, and made himself as happy as possible under the cir- cumstances. At last the train ran into Wilmington: he did not oifer to move for the next three-quarters of an hour, a terrible long time for him (minutes were as long as days to him) : it was as though someone was waiting to lay hold of him. "Oh, what must I do? Shall I enquire of someone when the train is going to start and where she is going?" Neither the grandeur of the city nor the beautiful scenery around had any charm for the runaway ; everyone who passed the railway carriage appeared to him like a ghost. While he was thus agitated a man entered the carriage in which he sat and began making signs and all sorts of unintelligible sounds, but neither the one nor the other could draw the badger. " You may shout, old fellow," thought he, "but you will have to talk before I get out of this car"; but the poor man was deaf and dumb, and what he wanted Walter does not know until this day. In the meantime the engine came up and hitched on to the carriage, but, just be- fore starting, two Negresses stopped into the compart- ment in which h^ 'vas sitting, for although they were well-dressed and nearly white they had to take tlieir seat in the same filthy carriage in which the other Escape from Slavery 6i black people travelled, whether slaves or freed men. The wliistle blew and tlie train started ; it was no sooner out of the station than they sat one on either side of Walter, tlie runaway, and addressed him with a " good-afternooii," to which he replied: "Good- afternoon, ladies, arc you travelling any distance ? " " Yes," was the reply. My word, what a change had come over him ! How soon he broke the seal from his lips ! What a contrast between these and the other people who had bidden him the time of day! "Are you running away ? " was the next poser they put to him. " I have sold myself at last," thought he. If he had kept up his reticence all might have beeii well, but an answer was expected What shall I say ? Shall I tell a lie? Can I play the same trick as I played upon the two booking-clerks I left behind me?" These were the thoughts which rushed uppermost in his mind. " If I tell a lie and escape, it will be better than to tell the truth and be recaptured." So he answered : " No, I an not ". Of course, hesitation to answer made the damsels ask more questions. "Have you ever travelled any before?" which produced further embarrassment. As he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he answered: "Yes". Still these ladies were not satisfied, so they had to further cross-examine hnn . " Were are you going ? " Having overcome his ditliculty, as he thought, he most readily replied; "To Philadelphia". Still they pressed him with another query: "Have you ever been there?" Although he had not, he found no diiliculty in saying !M ^^'f '1 1 ;i;i i .i 11 1 1 ■' ( 1 i ,? ii ■ i i ■ I 62 Escape from Slavery. "Yes". But the ladies, who professed tliey were seeking for information, demanded of liini to tell them what sort of a place the city of William Penn was. To which our friend confidentially replied : " Well, ladies, it is a fine place, filled with great big brick houses," at which they laughed heai'tily, for they be- longed to the place. Knowing he was tlie man for whom they were looking, they replied: " W^e live in Philadelphia, and have F:en the bills advertising for you, and we are sent by friends to find you before they take you back to the South. Are you hungry?" Hunger was not the name to express his condition, for he could have eaten a donkey and given chase to the rider. The news sounded too good to be true ; never- theless he answered : " Yes". Then they opened one of their baskets which contained all sorts of dainties, and told him to help himself, which he most assuredly did, for he ate and ate until he felt uncomfortable about the buttons. After a chat poor Walter Hawkins fell asleep, a thing he would not have done if he had had no coniidence in the integrity of the ladies. He slept the rest of the journey, and never woke until one of them said: " We are in Philadelphia". The poor fellow awoke to find that he had been resting his weary head upon the lap of one of these angels of peace. On opening his eyes he caught sight of the lovely black eyes of the damsel looking at him with so much sweetness and compassion that, to use his own words : " I did not want to get up" ; moreover, it was the most comfortable pillow he ever had in his life. When he Escape from Slavery. 63 got lip she said: "You are free now" — a statement whicli he could not boheve though he had undergone so nuich trouble to obtain it, but his friends reassured him that he was really free ; and, having given him some instructions about his movements in the city, they got out of the carriage while he stood overwhelmed with astonishment. At last the ladies bade him fare- well. Philadelphia has the honour of being the city in which the convention to frame the Federal Constitution met on the 2otli of May, 1787, wlien the illustrious Ceorge Washington was chosen president, and it w^as there, on the 8th of August of the same year, that Governor Morris of Pennsvlvania made his famous speech, which ran as follows : " I never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious in ^titution. It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and poverty which overspreads the barren wastes of Virginia, Maryland, and the other slave States. Travel through the whole continent and you will see the prospect continually varying with the ap- pearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States and enter Nev/ York the effects of the institution become visible. Passing to the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Pro- ceed southwardly, and every step you take through ; i| H -m »' ! 'I , ! 64 liscapc from Slavoy. the j^i'oat rc^fions of slavery present a dessert, increas- ing with tlie increasing proportion of tiiis wretclied- ness. Upon what principle is it tliat tlie slaves sliall be computed in the representation? Ai'e they men ? Then make them citizens and h^t them vote. Ai'e they pi'operty ? Why, there is no other property in- cluded ! It comes to this, that the inhabitants of Georgia and South Carolina who go to the coast of Africa, in defiance of the most sacred laws of huma- nity, tear away their fellow-creatures from their dearest connections and danni them to tlie most cruel bondage." This powerful speech was followed by others, but we have not room to quote them. In 1794 we find that an anti-slavery convention was iKsld in Philadelphia, in which nearly all the Abolition Societies of the States were represented, and at which a memorial was drawn up and addressed to Congress, praying it to do what it could to suppress tlie slave traffic. In 1795 another meeting was held in the city, when the Act of Congress was read : " An act to pro- hibit the carrying out of the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country". And, finally, it was in the city of Philadelpliia that certain Negro citizens met in 1800 and drew up and presented a memorial to Congress calling attention to the slave trade between the United States and the coast of Guinea. il ■ j!j 1* s U|J{|! 1: ■ H1;"T " III Chaptek v. -FOUND AT LAST." Disguise thysuif as tliou wilt, slavery ! Still thou art a bitter draught ; and though thousands, in all ages, have been made to drink of thee, tliou art no less bitter on that account. Is it tliou, liberty ? Thrice sweet and gracious goddess! whom all, in public or in private, worship ; whoso taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself can change. — Steune. At the time when Walter Hawkins arrived in Philadel- phia it was called a free city and county; yet the young ladies, who gave him the information that he was free, dared not be seen with him after they had left the train, so that he had to do the best he could. He was told that there were always kidnappers hanging about on the look-out for runaway slaves, through whom he might be taken back to the dark South. While groping about the city, he met a lad whom he thought he could trust, and -ked him if he knew the where- abouts of one Wi ar Proctor. "Yes!" said the lad. " Show me where he lives," said the runaway, " and I'll pay you" — not that he had more money than wit. With that offer the little fellow willingly led him quite a distance from where he was standing towards the abode of Uncle Proctor. At last his guide said : 5 (65) IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 "^1^ 125 ta lU 122 2f 114 ■" Lo 12.0 lb I U 11.6 7] 7 ^ ^^^^ '^ 66 '* Found at Last." [■ J' "Look down there in that cellar!" But the man whom he had been seekin<^ heard them talking', and, looking; up, threw down his work, he heiiij^' a shoe- maker, and ran np the steps, sinj^in^ : " (lod will answer prayer, God //•/// answer prayer! " With that hynm in his month he seized Walter, tlie runaway, by the arms, and took him down into the cellar, sayinj^ : "I knew that (iod would answer prayer". To his unutterable joy, the old num said : " Boy, where have you come from?" " Home, sir," he replied. " Well, well ; your eldest brother liv^es here, in this city, and has been here for years, and both of us have been praying for you." This old Negro was a Methodist minister to his race in the city, and was highly esteemed by all who knew him. The Bishop says : *' He was a good man, one who exhibited in his daily life and conversation a sanctity which showed he lived in a city whose builder and maker is God ". Blessed saint ! the Eternal, not ourselves, will reward thee for thy goodness and humanity to many of thy oppressed race, above and beyond all thy expectation. We have not seen thee, nor have had the privilege of being blessed by thy hospitality, but thou hast, given to one of our down-trodden race such of thy bounty as thou couldst. God blessed thee and thine. Farewell I The dear old man took Walter to his brother's house. When he arrived tliere, he was disappointed to find that he was not at home ; but his good wife took him in, though she had never seen him before. There he sat in another room alone until his brother returned -i| " Found at Last!* 67 from liis work, at ca boardinf^-houf-e whoro ho was em- ployed. When he came and entered tlie room in wliich hi> younj^'er brother was sittinf:^, they were both speechless, as they looked at each otlier. Hawkii.s the elder walked out, went upstairs whist- ling and came down a^'ain, into the yard and back a^'ain to the room. Why this stranj^e con(hict ? Surely he must know his brother ! But he did not ; until the younj^er brotlier lau<^hed and stood up. The poor fellow stepped up to him, and they both embraced each other, and remained sihrnt for about ten minutes, being lost in rapturous ecstasy, neither knowing what the other had said. At last Hawkins the elder broke the spell with : " I have been praying for you to be free. Where did you come from, and how?" Of course, Walter had to tell his whole story through. His hairbreadth escape from tlie slave- gang, how he dodged the constable at his father's gate, after nigh a month's hiding in his friend Robert's room ; how the latter and his friend gave him ten dollars, with which he got his railway ticket : how h(i played the fool in the train on his journey to Balti- more, and the narrow escape he had while going down a basement to get some food, and all about the pretty young ladies who befriended him in the train from Wilmington to Philadelphia. But how did the runaway know there was ever such a man in Philadelphia as Walter Proctor the good ? When ho was a slave at old Jane Robin- ■1^ ! ;, 68 " Found at Last." % 111 ■.■.■J, -A son's — beside Parson Baulch, who used to preach roaring sermons to the slaves — once a month special preachers visited the neighbourhood to conduct ser- vices such as Moody and Sankey did in England, These special preachers very frequently were black freed men, who had permission from the local mayor to hold forth for nine days only ; so it happened that old Proctor had visited his town a few times. Hawkins took these o])portunities to have some per- sonal interviews with the old man, by which means he got to know that, once he reached Philadelphia, he would be in a free city. Now, these itinerant Negro preachers were not permitted to remain in a slave district any longer than the specified nine days, and if they stayed longer they were at once put under arrest, as rogues and vagabonds, and lodged in gaol. After a time they were sold (if no one came to pay their fine) to the highest bidder, for the gaol fees, etc. The buyer would then hold them in bondage as long as he desired, for the money he had paid ; or — if he saw a chance of turning over an almighty dollar— sell them to another, worse or better than himself. These preachers knew what it was to confront night, storms, hunger, accident, ridicule, and all manner of rebuffs, in order to carry some consolation to the poor slaves. It was this cup of consolation whicli gave the slave, who was not a drunkard, strength to bear his bondage with so nnich patience and toleration. Although slaves were religious, the religion was neither deep nor sound. Tlie religious instruction Found at Last.'' 69 which tliey received did not represent the best view of Christianity. How could it, when the inihience of the church was exerted continually to repress and to produce absolute outward submission ? Such influence, even if it had been wholesome, could and did not penetrate deep or mould with much force the inner workings of the soul. It served to produce an outward conformity to the views of the master, while it left the heart of the slave untouched. Thus their religion as a whole was emotionalism, which found an outlet in those songs which rent the hills and filled the valleys at camp meetings with gladsome joy, and whicli made their taskmasters think that they had no longings for freedom. How, then, could these people improve morally under conditions which violated every principle of the moral law ? It is said that paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no supreme and innnutable judge, no intelligible revelation, and no fixed dogma; yet the paganism from whence the slaves were stolen was a better condition than the miseiable caricature of Christianity in the midst of which they lived. The being of God, the facts of revelation, the universal brotherhood of man — whether he be evolved from apes or descended from tiie gods — the obligation of the moral law and immortality, were doctrines which masters believed concerned themselves ; but they lacked charity to include the Negroes, for whom religion only served as an opiate to their cruel torture. Neverthe- less, amid all the disadvantage's of the iniquitous insti- it il H>- €. 4. i- I !•: ii 70 ''Found at Lastr tution of slavery, and in spite of every prohibition to keep the hght from the Negro skives, a ray of hght shone, thrown from tlie cross of Christ, into the souls of some few, through the preaching of fragments of the Gospel, which opened up a new world to them, whence they saw that tliroiigh suffering and affliction there was a path which no slavery could block- a light which brightened the darkness of the present and re- flected a halo of glory over the future, and gave their rude songs a ring of heartiness and certainty which electi'ilied Jefferson and his countrymen so that they "trembled for their country". Tlieir rude conception of religion gave the slaves a new language, which found expression in ra})turous music: often labnnriiji^ ajid. . - . || "' ""suffering' all day and singing all night sacred songs J which in rude but impressive utterance set forth their sad fortunes and their hopes for the future. Where, in the whole annals of history, has there been found such a nn'ghty chorus of music from bondsmen? The Jews wept by the rivers of Babylon, and the American Indians died under their yoke, but not so the Negro, who mocked his woes and chased his weary hours with some of the most thrilling music that ever fell on the ears of mortals. That such people should be kept in bondage for ever — or, now they are free, to re-enslave them — is impossible. While slave-owners thought that nothing would prevent them from keeping their slaves as such, the slaves realised an allinity — a mysterious relationship — between their spirit and the Spirit of the Universe, who would deliver them. It was in the ;;.:J„ '' Foumi at Lastr 71 njxxl. profound belief in a Moral Clovenior of the Universe that the Nej^n-o centred all his hopes, all his latent perfections, and all his ideals of the future. In spite of all appearances to the coi\trary, they believed that the Supreme Will was ^ood to each one of the bein<^s whom it summoned and drew to itself. In spite of all his errors, his failures, his corruptions, his miseries and environments, the Ne<^ro was never wron<^ in f()llo\vinn he would not work his master was put to great inconvenience. He mnnaged to com- pel respect by sheer force of character ; yes, and he loved his master ! but one day a gang of slaves passed through the town (similar to the one above described) where they lived, and his master, who had the abso- lute right of disposing his property at will, sold Jim's sister, who was also a slave, in his absence, not thinking that anyone would dare to question his right. However, on his return, Jim for some reason or other asked for his sister — not dreaming that she had been sold — when he was informed that Master Knowls had sold her that day. " Where is he? " cried mad Jim — for mad he was, the very thought of the poor girl being loaded with chains, without bidding her good-bye, with 1 " Found at Last.'' 71 all the horrors of tho gan<^ and the dismal South, were quite enough to traiisfonn a lanil) into a lion, much less the obdurate Jim. "Where is he?" "1 don't know," was his mistress's reply. " By heavens ! " said Knowls's Jim, "my sister shall come back, or I'll have his life." The fellow rushed into the house, armed himself with his pistol — for he owned one lon^ before this — and out he came. " The moment he comes I'll shoot him. if^ die tlu^ no>ct i^mm^jit^ X^'ll^oncw- brave fellow! "blood is thicker than water, and love is stronger than death ". A million resolute Negroes like Knowls's Jim would have settled the slave question in America long before the Civil War. Nothing that they could say to the big black Negro would satisfy him : either his sister's deliverance from the brutal gang, or two would die — the master by the hand of his slave, and Knowls's Jim by the slave laws, which forbade a Nejijro to touch a white num. Slave-holder Knowls was neither without good sense nor feeling, therefore he sent post haste after the captive maid, and bought her for more than he had received for her. Brave son of Ham ! "If a man shall and must be valiant, he nmst march and quit himself like a nuin, trusting imperturbably in the Upper Powers, and, on the whole, not fear at all. Now and always the completeness of liis victory over fear will determine how much of a man he is." '^hee, Knowls's Jim, we did not know personally, but iiave learnt from thy love and courage to undeceive men, that they might know that the love of kin and country which has immortalised (ireeks and Komans will yet 74 Found at Last."" J-.4iil i provo tlie saviour of our race. May thy cliildren's cliildren inliorit thy unconquerahle valour! Those who never lield men as slaves, hut liad sympathy with the system, will regard such an act as Jim's with dis- favour, and will pi-ohahly censure his conduct as having heen wicked on his part! Jhit we who are descendants of slaves, or have heen such, can offer no apology, hecause we know oidy too well that it was in the interest of the institution that we and our ancestors jivere watched and cowed. Tlie masters had to deal with thiidiihejnselves, and not with wood, earth, and stone, and for their owfi sftfcf^ ?^i\ pros})erity they had need to study, not so much the conifort of tlK)se aninuils, hut the workings of the mind. They knew that slaves had little respect for a coward, and tiiey felt the same contempt for a snarling slave. Tlie opeiation of their minds tliey watched with practised skill : they learnt to lead with trained eyes the state of their slave's heart and mind through their sahle faces. Unusual sohriety, apparent ahstraction, sullenness or indifference often afforded ground for suspicion and enquiry; not unfrequently an innocent nuxn or wonum was punished into confession of guilt they had never dreamt. Like the Inquisition, it was imder such suspicion that a master would say : " You have got the devil in you, and I'll whip him out of you". When it would have heen more accurate to say that he, not the slave, was possessed by his Satanic Majesty. Suspicion and torture, being the instruments which they used to get at the truth, had the useful " Found at Last.'' 75 lildien's Those hy with /ith (lis- 5 having endaiits ipolofTy, ! ill tlio iicestors to deal ofc witli LP rjjfl Lich tlie of tlie )ect for t for a Is they ad witli d mind pparent ifforded intly an ifession lisition, lid say : :iini out irate to Satanic nnients ! useful effect of either forcing them to run away like Walter Hawkins, or becoming callous like Knowls's Jim ; but more often it made these poor wretches appear joyous and content wh(;n they were suffering most intensely. In fact, these worse than wretched taskmasters had the saying: "When the nigger is down keep him down, for when the nigger rises hell rises" ; and yet another of their inhuman sayings : " Give the nigger an inch, he'll take an ell ; if you give the nigger a horse he'll drive it to hell". No men, not even Spanish Inquisi- tion-mongers, could have been more suspicious than slave-holders; and had Knowls's Jiin killed his master, 'aifu iitrrisi4^ l-^c^iiwl, a^'^ "■ 5iii.VllJ.l 'UIV Q^^^ds^.Zf^^^ \^^} j^S a blessed martyr ere this. In these days, when we hear so much about the Negro problem in America and in the West Indies, we would tell alarmists that they need not worry themselves. The Negro requires neither pity nor patronage, but justice; and justice he will have, in spite of the hateful prejudices which withhold it from him, for the fate which determined his emancipation is determinin*^ his destinv in the near future. ^kk I IS )' ) .■ 'I^H i ; H ■Iv!^'' H ■Sllii' ■ ' HI" . yii ' i i' I 1 f iii I ii Chai'tku VL IN PIIILADELIMIIA. A man who can give \ip (Ireaininjj; and go to his daily realities ; who can smother down his lieart. its love or woe, and take to hard work of his hand ; wlio defies fate, and, if ho must die, dies fighting to the last, — that man is life's host hero. —Anon. TfiE ^roimd on wliicli tlio iiui<^'nificciit city is built was purchased by William Ponu, in January, 1683, from some Swedish settlers. The site was chosen because it stands on a neck of land between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers. Such is the natural beauty of the position that its illustrious founder said, when he selected the site of the city, it is " not surpassed by any among all the places he had seen in the world ". He was drawn to the spot by the firmness of the land and the pure springs and salubrious air, which Penn regarded as a lit place for a city of refuge, a mansion of freedom, and a home of humanity. While his cahn imagination surveyed his past success, the glory of the future destiny of Philadelphia caused "pleasant visions of innocence and happiness to float before the minds of the Quaker brethren". " Here," they said, "we may worship Clod according to the dictates of the divine principle, free from mouldy errors of tradition ; (76) /;/ PJiilndelpliia. 77 here vvc tlirive in peace and retirement, in the lap of unadulterated natiu'e ; here we may improve an in- nocent course of life on a vir«^in elysian shore." There never was a city which had a more <(lorio«s origin than this, and few, if any, has had such success. The highest hope of tho pure, humhle-mindcd Friends were eclipsed when Philadelphia hecame the birth^ ace of Independence and the pledge of the Union. In March, 1G83, the boundaries of the infant city were marked off. Streets of chestnut, ash, and walnut were laid out with trees of the original forest. Soon after it could boast of a few mansions, and became the scene of the legislation assembly. Each of the six counties into which Penn's dominions were divided elected nine representatives — consisting of English, Scotch, and Irish, as also Swedes and Dutch — for the purj^ose of establishing a charter of liberties. When the repre- sentatives of the democracy were assembled Penn, after having referred to the Government of England, said, concerning the laws of his dominions: "You may amend, alter, or add. I am ready to settle such foundations as may be for your happiness." To tne people he said : "I am not like a selfish man ; through my travail and pains the province came ; it is now in Friends' hands. Our faith is for one another, that God will be our counsellor for ever." What could mortal say or do more? and how could the people and their representatives receive their charter other- wise than with unspeakable gratitude? Then one of the representatives, speaking for the others, said : " Of i ,V' 't ■iM ■J m 78 /;/ Pliiladclpliia. M -ii inoi'o than expfictod lil)orty ". Ponn roplierl, with his usual enthusiasm : " I desired to make men as free and as happy as tliey can ho". What kin<^', except a Quaker, would offer sucli hherty to his suhjects? In the adjoinin 84 //I Philadelphia. down the principle that the captive who embr ced Islam should be zjwo facto free, and he took care that no stigma should be attached to the emancipated slave in consequence of his honest and honourable life of labour " * as a freed man. Not so was the species of Christianity which prevailed in America ; though the slave became an angel he was treated, pursued, and dogged as a slave ; in fact, the system was even worse than Roman slavery, because the Eoman slave-holder made no profession of Christianity, whereas most of the Yankee slave-holders did, and thereby caused the name of God to be blasphemed to this day. One can- not think how the Negro suffered prostration and anguish of spirit, and yet evinced such a cheerful dis- position and a light heart for three hundred years, without rishig in his wrath and cutting tlie throat of the tyrant who kept him a slave. Did ho not feel enough for himself and his race? or was it the inherent docility of his nature which enabled him to maintain a dignified silence even when an effort of self-vindica- tion might have led to his emancipation ? Yes, it was partly this, and the fact that the slaves had much more of the spirit of Christ than their cruel masters. Well did a writer in the Westminster Review of Janu- ary, 1853, say : " Were we forced at this moment to search for the saints of America, we should not be surprised to find them among the despised bondsmen ". Imperfect as was their knowledge of matters theo- logical, they had more of the real spirit of Christianity * MoJuimmcd and tin: Mo/uimmcdaus. /;/ rhil of slavery. I 1 '' ■ ' il i ' ■ \ -t-J ■'1 \\ s I f 1 1^ '± 1 4 ; 1 ii ' , P '4 ■ T ■ 1 li m 1^=' 1 l| CHArTp:u VII. ON THE KOAD. Write your name in kindness, love and mercy on tlic hearts of thousands you come in contact with year l)y year; you will never he forgotten. No ; your name, your deeds, will he as legil)le on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of the evening. -Dr. CHi^LMERS. The friends in riiiladelphia having made up a parcel of clothes and collected some money, tlie fugitive now got ready for his northward journey. From Phila- delphia he crossed over into New Jersey. Although the colony had not the glorious history of the one he had just left, yet it could boast of an act, which was passed as early as IGOtl, which provided, amoi^g other things, for the trial of Negroes and other slaves for felonies punishable with death, by a jury of twelve persons, before three justices of the peace ; for theft before two justices, the punishment, if found guilty, being whipping. Unfortunately for the Negro, this law was afterwards supplanted by severe prohibitions, requirements and penalties. The whites interpreted " trial by jury " to moan one Negro's testimony to be good against another in a trial for felony, and the right of an owner to select his own jury. Humane masters (86) . On the Roaii. 87 were cleiiierl the ri,%'ht of einaiicipatin^ their own slaves. A slave was prohibited from owning real property. In 1713 they enacted tliat a Negro belonging to another province not having hcencc was "to be whipped and committed to gaol ; and people were punished for con- cealing, harbouring or entertaining slaves of others ". In 1714 the whites of New Jersey stripped the Negro of every right ho possessed a hundred years before, and the general court I'uled the man to be mere chattels by levying an import tax of ten pounds upon every Negro imported into tlie colony. In 1760 they put the last straw on the camel's back by pushing him out of the militia. Nevertheless, New Jersey became after- wards one of the great centres of the anti-slavery movement, and was one of the first States in which the Quakers emancipated their slaves (1780).* On the 24th of January, 1820, New Jersey passed six perti- nent resolutions, a copy of which they sent to the governor, whom they requested to forward to each of the senators and representatives of this State in the Congress of the United States against the extension of slavery. Whereas the slave population of New Jersey was 2254 in 1830, the number was reduced to 674 ten years after, i.e., in 1840. Of course, Hawkins felt no safer in New Jersey than when he was in Philadelphia, so that he had to cross over into New York — that hell upon earth. In 1614 a company of merchants, having received permission from the States- * An Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1706. {Vide "His- torical Sketch," cli. i.) \ 88 On the Rihjii. I *i general, fitted out a squarlron of several ships and sent them to trade to the country which Hudson had discovered. A rude fort was constructed on Manhattan Island, which was the heginning of the city of New York. In 1643 the family of Anne Hutchinson and many others were massacred near New Ycn-k, which threw the whole of New England in jeopardy and alarm. In 1645 the brave Mohawks came to the rescue of the whites, and on the ground of the battery of New York " the tree of peace was planted and the toma- hawk buried beneath its shade". In 1664 the profli- gate Charles II. granted the place to his brother, the Duke of York and Albany. Nichols took possession in the name of his master, and called the place New York. While the place was yet under the Dutch, Negro slavery was introduced about 1628. Later, the West India Company pledged itself to furnish the colonists with as many blacks as they conveniently could. In 1702 Queen Anne directed the governor of New York to " take special care that God Almighty be devoutly and duly served, and that the Royal African Company of England take especial care that the sR,id Providence may have a constant and suf!icient supply of merchantable Negroes at moderate rates". New York followed all the examples of the South in her barbarity to the Negro. In 1711 a slave market was created in Wall Street, where slaves of every description were sold ; the following year, the Negro, the Quaker, and the Papist were a trinity of evil. On the lioiu/. 89 The Ner;;ro had neither family relations (for they lived together by common consent under the eaves of churches), school, nor property. Neglected in life, they were left to be buried in a connnon ditch after death. No wonder that tliev created a riot, burnt a house, and killed a number of white persons. And had it not been for the prompt assistance of the troops the city would have been burnt to ashes ; and the world would have been rid of ex-convicts and gaol-birds, who excluded the testimony of a Negro in a court of law and extended their authority over the life and limb of a race whom they tore from their home and country to em-icli tliemselves. 1741 marks the period of the Negro plot, second oidy to that of 1769 in England, started by that arch- hypocrite, Titus Gates. One tragedy was acted in the metropolis of the old country, the other in her new colony. One was instigated by a perjurer and hypo- crite, the other by an indentured servant ; one oi-igi- nated in hatred to the Boman Catholics, and the other in hatred to the Negro ; one was a religious question, the other was both social and religious ; but they both agreed on one point, namely, the kind of evidence upon which innocent men and women were convicted and tortured. Evidence was wrung from lips steeped with lies : characters who were made to bear false witness by legal authorities. This lying and imaginary plot caused severer measures to be taken to keep down Negroism in the city. Nevertheless, in 1781 an act was passed for raising two Negro regiments in New nn; 90 Oil the Roiui. York, to whom freedom was promised ; after scrviee in the army for three years they were to be regidarly dis- charged. In 1799, after three failures, the legislature of New York passed a bill for the gradual extinction of slavery. In 1(S21 we Ihid New York enacting that " no man of colour, unless he shall have been for three years a citizen of this State and for one year next preced- ing any election, slui'.l he seized and possessed of a free- hold estate of 2oO dollars over and above all debts and encmnbrances charged thereon, and shall have been actually rated and paid a tax thereon, shall be entitled to vote at any snch election. And no person of colour shall be subjected to direct taxation unless he shall be seized and possessed of such real estate as afore- said." In 1846, and again in 1850, a constitutional amend- ment, conferring equal privileges upon the Negroes, was voted down by a large majority. In 1863 a request was made to the governor of the State of New York to enlist coloured troops, but the governor never found time, nor had the good taste to answer the request. In 1864, \^ ithout any bounty as incentive, out of 9000 Negroes, 2300 pushed forward with the greatest enthusiasm to the aid of their brethren in the Civil War, amid the applause of the most aristocratic citizens of New York as they marchr . in the military procession to the steamers on their way to the South. Hawkins merely passed through the city on his way to Albany ; as there was no railway, he had to go from thence to Buffalo on the Erie Canal, which journey he On the Roaii. 01 accomi^lishnd in about tliroo weeks; it was a beautiful morn in July wii-jii the runaway landed at JJuft'alo. Such was tlie hatred of the anti-shivery movement in 1843 tliat Fred. I)ou''las savs when he visited BulTalo : "All alon^' the 'h-ie Canal from Albany there was apathy, indifference, aversion, and sometimes mobocratic spirit evinced ". On arriving at Buffalo he began inquiring foi- members of his race, as was natural for a Negro to do at a time when white men could never climb down, even in a place free from actual slavery, to associate with him. lie was at once directed to the best-known Negro in the town, who happened to be proprietor of an hotel of the baser sort — a whisky den. But, instead of speaking to the boss, as he intended, he walked out of the place and be- took himself to the street, where he sunned himself by the side of a house ; here he basked for more than an hour. Before there was nmch stir in the city, an old man approached him as he came out of his house. " Good-morning ! " " Good-morning, sir ! " the fugitive promptly replied, thinking a good Samaritan had turned up, but, as he was indisposed to say more, Hawkins asked him how far was it to Canada ? To his sad disappointment, the man, pointing towards the dense forest on the other side of the river, which did not appear to be a great way off, replied : " There it is ". The answer struck him like a thunderbolt, and he refused to believe the old man, as his notion of the Queen's Dominion had been quite different. For most slaves like himself believed that when they cv ne ni 92 Chi the RocuL J. ill sight of Canada everything would be Ijriglit and cheer- ful and mntapliorically decked with gold ; instead of which, Hawkins could not even see a liouse nor anything that had the least trace of hfe, or tliat men lived in that part of the world— neitlier could the man convince him of the fact that the place he was looking at was really the hope and expectation of the slaves in the South. The old man, observing his disappointment, said : " Are you going there ? " " Yes." "What arc you going there for, my lad? The people are all starving over there, and dying every day, and wages are oidy ten cents a-day in that country." Of course, such a report oidy tended to discourage the poor fellow nmch more than it would have other- wise done if he had had more than a few cents in his pocket, plus a hungry stomach. The old man having knocked all the life out of him with his pessimistic report, Hawkins gave himself over to the tender mercy of the sun's rays ; there he stood the remainder of the day, having neither tasted food nor drank water, until the poor fellow became faint and sick. The building against which he was standing was rather an ancient affair, being very long and low, at the far end of which there lived an old Negress, who was kind enough to come out and beckoned him to her; but the fear of being recaptured and want of food took every cheerful ray out of his spirit. " Know thee not that our present existence is a compound of sweets >»»*9. \. On the Road. 93 and bitters ? Why not be hopeful and look up when everything seems to be against thee ? " Ah ! but it is quite a diiferent thing to be on the best side of trouble, to make one, who is troubled, feel that his iron-bound environments will give way in the near future to sympathy, love, and release. The poor black woman, true to the instincts of the noble nature of her race,* seeing that ^^'le faint, sicken, hungry fellow made no attempt to move, approached hi in a little closer, still beckoning. Finding himself sinking under the heat of the sun and want of food, he made a desperate effort, summoned his courage, shook off fear and went toward the good woman. Who can doubt that God had sent this friend ? When through hfe's dewy fields we go, With flowers on every side, Thou art our Father, and we know Thou art our Guide. Wlien some rough, thorny path we climb, And hope has gone away, Yet Thou art with us, all the time. By night and day. " You are a stranger, are you not ? " said the old dame. " Yes." " Where are you from? " Near W^ashington," was Walter's reply. Oh ! " she said. " I am from Honey. And what is your name ? " * Mungo Park. ■i • h l! iii^' ■;'<< 1^ !• • *! ;r;i 94 On the Road. "Hawkins." ** Oh, dear ! my name is Hawkins, too. Come in and make yourself at home ; there is no one here but me." Of course she claimed relationship. And why not ? They might have been. But the iniquitous slave system made it almost impossible for parents to know their children, much less any distant relation. "Then," continued the old woman, "are you a runaway?" «* Yes." " And so am I. You must be someone related to me." Oh, Fate ! what must have been this woman's difficulty to get so far, seeing that Walter Hawkins had gone through so many perils to reach her house ? What must have been her suffering, when a strong, robust fellow's sufferings were so great? What light — what a revelation eternity will make — will throw upon the life and adventures of hundreds of Negroes who tried to make good their escape from the curse of slavery ! ''Ah!" she said, "you must be very hungry." There is none to sympathise, like one who has gone through like sorrow. Hungry wasn't the name for the confusion that was going on inside the young fellow. Knowing he was in want of food, she got to work and made something ready for him to eat, and he ate as heartily as when he was in the train from Delaware to Philadelphia, 0?t the Road. 95 carrying everything before him, or, as a friend of mine said when we got up from a table where we had had grouse set before us: "I ate grouse until I grew feathers". Having eaten a good, square meal, he told her all about himself, and slie did the same, and in her house he found a home for three weeks. " She gave him friendship of her graciousness." Kind- ness draws the child to the mother's bosom ; in the father it first loves the benefactor, the guardian, and fosterer. Kindness attaches the foster-child to its foster-parents often with a fairer tie than that of blood ; it binds the pupil to the teacher, and estab- lishes between them a friendship and attachment that lasts unto the gi-ave ; it weaves the first threads of that fair bond that binds us not only " to our country," as De Wette said, but to strangers who befriend us when we are on the brink of despair. :i ' Hi \ PQHBHP Chaptek VIII. BUFFALO. fi'-l |-:l m , I,- . I «i| It'! Privations, evils, trials of poor humanity — yet good ! If it be God's will 'that poor humcnity should bear them, who dares murmur ? Ah, it consoles one for many tilings un- alterable and inexplicable to stick by that old-fashioned precept of Christian philosophy, that whatever cross we carry is rough-hewn in heaven. — Holme Lee. " Buffalo is situated at the north-east end of Lake Erie. It has altogetlier a commanding position as a place of business, being at the western extremity of the Erie Canal, and at the eastern termination of the naviga- tion of those mighty lakes -Erie, Huron, and Michi- gan. The city is partly built on high ground, and com- mands an extensive view of the lake, Niagara river, and the Canadian shore. The main street is a very handsome thoroughfare, more than two miles long, and one hundred and twenty feet wide. There is a pier, extending fifteen hundred feet, on the south side of the mouth of Buffalo Creek, w4iich forms the harbour of Buffalo, and which constitutes a substan- tial breakwater for the protection of vessels from the furio\is gales which the inhabitants occasionally ex- perience." Buffalo being a busy, go-ahead citv, its (96) if::; ■■>>. ,.>.K> . « ' MM "mi^ Life as a Fanner. 119 stolen horse or other abstracted vahiables, had to pay his own expenses, whilst the costs of the planter, for the recovery of liis slave, were paid by the Federal Treasury from the funds of the North as well as the South. By threats of secession the South suc- ceeded in gaining its object, so that any slave "escaping from one State into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due ". The moment this law came into force the southerners, thinking that slavery was protected thereby, began to pursue their slaves in the free States, which caused a gi'eat many riots and much loss of life. Here is a very striking case : k slave, who had absconded several years from Baltimore, had settled in New York as a mechanic. There he had married a beautiful quad- roon, and lived happily in his humble station. Mr. Keese, his former owner, though regarded as a pious man, could, but did not, resist the inducement of recovering his " property ". He had the man arrested and brought before the court at New York. The wife and children of the unhappy man followed him before the judge. They clung to the prisoner, who was to be separated from them probably for ever. They cried while Mr. Busteed, the counsel for the plaintiff, stated the case and appealed to the judge to enforce the law which had become the pledge of the North to the South, and the great tie of the Union, and therefore of ^^i I20 Life as a Farmer'. \ \\ the prosperity of the States. The lawyer himself was moved by the heart-rending sight ; and, to show his compassion with the woes of the poor woman who witnessed in tears the painful act of what went for "Justice," he peeled an orange and offered it to her. But how could she partake of it ? A was not an orange she wanted, but her husband. Mr. Jay, the counsel for the defendant, objected, first, to the proceedings on technical grounds — for he saw that the case was desperate — and then appealed rather to the feelings than the law. At this Mr. Busteed became excited, rushed forward, and boxed the ears of his colleague in the open court. The judge was so shocked at his conduct that he forthwith withdrew froin the court. When order was restored, the slave summarily delivered himself up to the counsel for the plaintiff, and tore himself away from his wife and children, who, crying and wailing, followed the carriage which took him off. It is, however, fair to add that Lawyer Busteed, having accomplished his duty as a citizen, endeavoured to do what he ought for humanity. It was a tragedy which acted strongly on the feelings of all who witnessed it, and on none more than the counsel for the plaintiff, who set to work, put his name down for one hundred dollars, and collected the necessary funds amongst his friends and other bene- volent persons in New York, for the liberation of the slave, whom he recovered from his client. He brought him back to liberty, and restored him in about a fortnight to his distressed family. In all, pious old mSmM Life as a Fanner. 121 Eeese got, by the generosity of the pubhc, about one thousand dollars. The scoundrel ought to have had the cat instead. We hope the ill-gained money did him no good. Anyhow, it was such cases as these which brought the horrors of slavery before the minds of the American public, and hastened the death of the system. Walter Hawkins was perfectly right not to risk any such chance, for he might not have had such a bene- volent lawyer to help him out of his difficulty. Once in Canada the Fugitive "^lave Law was a dead letter so far as himself and all the Negroes who got there were concerned. There are a few stupid people yet who think that a religious slave had no right to run away ; but surely it was as righteous an act as stealing a man from his country, and nuich more so. Hawkins and his family without further risk crossed the line singing : — " We arc on our way to Canada, Wlierc coloured men are free ". Prince Albert wisely said that " freedom is an idea which can only be realised in a State which sets up laws modelled upon the divine laws of morality in the place of arbitrary caprice, and establishes a physical force to uphold those laws and carry them into practice. It is only in this way that freedom is able to pass into a condition in which it may exist without limitation, and where nothing hut itself can impose limits upon it." It was a wise Providence which ordered the situation of Canada at a time when : ) 122 Life as a Farmer. h:, - millions of people were groaning under the lash and extravagance of the United States' Government. Indeed, Canada wac a sort of land of Canaan to the Negro. He sang, sighed, -and longed to get there, as did the Jews for Zion, as they wept by the rivers of Babylon. In spite of its distance from the South, nothing but physical and brute force could prevent their striving to get there. What but the Providence of God can account for the fact that Washington and his contempors '^s did not extend their dominion farther north ? i, 'ii SiMwaiMMi Chapter XI. CANADA. As that wliole design was formed by me, I have a sort of paternal concern for the success of it. — Vi.scoi'NT Ijolinorhokk's Courkspondenck, vol 1. IGl. Such was the utterance of the noble statesman who planned the conquest of Canada. It would never do to allow a statement like the above to appear without explaining that it was due to a bold design of Sir David Kirk and his two brothers, Louis and Thomas, to attempt the reduction of Canada in 1628. Tliomas Kirk was commissioned to ascend the St. Lawrence, and Quebec received a sunnnons to surrender. The garrison, w^iich was destitute alike of provisions and military stores, had no hope but in the pride and daring of Champlain, its commander. His answer of proud defiance concealed his weakness, and the intimi- dated assailants withdrew^ In 1629 the squadron of Kirk reappeared before the town, and found the garri- son reduced to extreme suffering and on the verge of famine, in consequence of Richelieu not having sent supplies, thus the English were welcomed as de- liverers. Favourable terms were demanded and pro- mised, and Quebec capitulated. Thus eighty-three (123) 124 Canada. fe:; ir ^ 41 |! il I ^!l years before the conceited Bolingbroke penned his famous letter (1711), and one hundred and tiiirty years before the dashing enterprise of General Wolfe, Eng- land took possession of Quebec : indeed, " not a port in North xVnierica remained to France from Long Island to the Pole, and England was without a rival ". But Quebec was soon after restored to the French. About daylight on the 13th day of September, 1759, General Wolfe — in whom Pitt confided the command against Quebec — provided with a choice army of 8000 men and a heavy train of artillery, leaped on the shore. When he saw the difficulty around him, he said to one who was near him : " I do not believe there is any possibility of getting up, but we must do our endeavour". The rapidity of the stream was hurry- ing along the boats in wdiich the soldiers sat. The shore was so shelving that it was almost impossible for them to climb up ; and it was lined with French sentinels, one of whom hailed the Englishmen : " Qui va h\?" and was answered by an English captain in French, ** La France," as he was instructed to do so. "A quel regiment?" redemanded the sentinel. " De la Reine," replied the captain. " Passe," said the sentinel. Escaping these dangers at the water's edge, they proceeded, though with their hearts in their boots, to scale the precipice, pulling themselves up first by roots, then by branches of trees and the projecting rocks in their way. The party who reached the heights first secured a small battery, with which they covered the remaining army, who ascended the sununits led his ,y years e, Eng- a port 11 Long rival ". iich. r, 1759, minand of 8000 e shore. \ to one J is any do onr i hurry- t. The possible French : "Qui Dtain in 1 to do entinel. said the r's edge, ir boots, first by ■ojecting led the ich they uniniits Ciifiada. 125 in safety. Montcalm was thunderstruck. " It can only be a small party come to burn a few houses," said he. There, on the lofty plateau, which commands one of the most magnificent outlooks which nature has formed, the gallant Britishers, drawn in a highly advantageous position, were safe until the following morning, when they were discovered by the French. At the same time Montcalm learned with profound surprise and regret the advantage which the EngHsli had gained upon 'nni. And, having left his strong position, he crossed the St. Charles ; and, displaying his lines of Ixatle, intrepidly led on the attack. In the heat of the terrible engage- ment which followed both commanders were mortally wounded. General Wolfe received three wounds before he fell. He was quickly removed from the field, but he watched the battle with intense anxiety. Being faint by the loss of blood, he reclined his languid head upon the supporting arm of an oflicer. " They fly ! they fly!" cried someone. " Who fly?" asked the dying general. " The enemy," was the reply. " Then I die content," said the brave warrior, and gave up the ghost. No less marked was the heroism of the French general, who, when he was told that his wound w^as mortal, said: "I shall die, not live, to see the sur- render of Quebec ". Although the war continued twelve months longer, the French finally surrendered all their possessions in Canada on the 8th of Septem- ber, 1760. In 1762 peace was signed at Paris, by which France ceded to Great Britain all the conquests that she had made in North America. 126 Canada. ni t^ I Tliere is no doubt but that Canada is a country of nuicli value. Iji spite of its rigid cold climate, it affords beautiful landscape and a variety of sceneries ; it can boast of the finest river in the extreme north of America. The timber trade, the original occupation of the people, is still of great commercial value, although it is fast giving way to agriculture, dairy farming, and cattle i-aising. Fisheries are also an ex- tensive branch of industry. The country abounds in minerals, but these are scarcely developed ; petroleum is produced in large quantities. Tlie land, as a rule, is fertile, and produces all the varieties of cereal, fruits, roots, etc. There is no doubt but what there is an innnense future for Canada; as is evident from the fact that every year more and more capital is being employed in her great manufacturing centres. Already Montreal and Toronto conmiand a vast system of com- munication by canal and railway, both with Canada and the eastern and western parts of the United States ; and we may add that education is practically free, and children have the chance of acquiring the highest education at a moderate cost. It is more than forty years since Walter Hawkins took up his traps, left the United States, and made his home in the city of Toronto, where his sister had been living for some vears after she left New Bedford. He arrived in Toronto a poor man, having comparatively nothing to face the winter which was fast coming on. But he had been too often on his beam-ends to be overcome by this new difHculty ; so he forthwith am I i^iiah ii. If I Canada. 1-7 itry of ate, it leries ; Drth of ipation value, , dairy an ex- iiifls in roleuni a rule, , fruits, B is an om the 3 being \lready of coni- Canada United cfcically ing the awkins lade his ad been d. He ratively ling on. s to be rthwith turned his liand to tlie first thing he could lind. Once on British soil, there was now no fear of being re-captured. To use the Bishop's own words: "I was protected by the British lion, so that there was no fear of my boing taken from his watchful eyes and powerful claws ". His intense trust in God never left him. " I knew," he says, " there was One above who would never leave me nor forsake me." Here he soon made friends and joined the Methodist Church, in which the whites prevailed, there being no Negro con- gregation in the city at that time. This he could not have done unless they were quite different from " the mean whites " whom he had left behind him in Yankee- land. At this time the Negro population was very limited. He soon became an active and useful mem- ber in the church ; by which means he won the affec- tions of the white people, and was raised to the position of a local preacher among them. As the churches were scattered, he had to travel through primeval forests to preach to the black population of the district. When he did not lose himself, he was so mangled by mosquitoes that when he arrived in church he looked more like one who had been fighting than a preacher of the Gospel. Everywhere he went he was cordially received, and well treated by the congregations, white and black, thus making his labour sweet. While he was away on Sundays his wife, who had materially helped him in all his troubles, would gather what few coloured chil- dren there were in the neighbourhood together, and i ! RLi ■;"k ' 128 Canada. i' ' f< i I v, hold a Sunday School i)i their own Vioiiso. Sometimes she would tramp miles with him ; at other times the good people would give them a lift in their traps. Gradually, by the kindness of the Canadian people, they were able to restore the home which they were compelled to break up in the States on account of the Fugitive Slave Law. They would even supply them with provisions until his prospects began to look more hopeful and bright. His children, too, seemed quite happy in their new home as they romped among the trees and flowers in the summer with a glee born of freedom. What a blessed thing is liberty ! His home was now his own; his " bread was provided and his water was sure". In fact, they had plenty of the com- forts of life ; their health was good, and their minds were at rest. So that their sleep was such as they never could have enjoyed in the United States. A few years after his settlement in Toronto the conference of the British Methodist Episcopal Church met in that place, and he was induced to make application to join them as a preacher. This he resolved to do, because he could see that there was an innnense field for work to be done among his race, and that it could be better done by the aid and influence of a powerfid body be- hind him than without. The association not having sufficient men, they readily received his papers, and, being satisfied that he was the kind of man to do the work, the conference there and then appointed him to the Brentford circuit, which was about one hundred miles in length. But how was he td get to the place ? Canada. 129 1 , He had coine to Toronto a perfect stranger, and nearly penniless, so that it took all he could earn to build up his home ; in fact, he had not made quite enough to keep his family, and had therefore to get into debt. He felt that it would hardly be the correct thing to commence his ministry owing any money : he ought at least to start fair and square as a minister of Christ and a fellow-labourer of one who said : " Owe no man anything ". The people, too, considered that no minister should owe money even if his family were starving — a standard of morality we have no objection to, but they ought not to have allowed the family of their minister to so feel the pinch of poverty as to be tempted to get into debt. Just when he w^as reasoning the matter to himself, a friend of his informed him that the provincial fair was coming on, and " you might make some cash by having a tent and provide people with food as long as it lasts". This struck Hawkins as a happy suggestion, and forth- with he began to make his tent. He worked day and night to get it ready, so that he might have a good pitch — and a real good pitch, too, he got. The fair , began in fine form. It w^as a glorious bright morning, and everybody was ready to spend money at games of chance, or anything else. Hawkins soon found his tent brimful of hungry customers ready to eat him out, but he was ripe for the occasion, and the first day passed off well for his business. Having cleared away his things, and got his establishment ready for the next day, the poor man retired for the night, weary *9 \} 1 1 130 Canada. f( 'i; 5 ■'■'. m i with his long, laborious day's work. Between the middle of the night and the small hours of the morn- ing he heard a crash at the door of his tent. Surely, thought he, it couldn't be a lot of hungry people knock- ing him up to be fed. Just then another tremendous crash came against the door, down it fell, and in came a crowd, crushing in the tent like an angry wave, armed with clubs as if they were about to attack a regiment of wild Indians. Presently the rabble made for the donkey-breakfast on which he was resting his weary limbs, and began to walk into him, as though he had murdered some white man, on whose behalf they were about to take vengeance for the crime. They knocked him senseless, dragged him out on the grass, and left him for dead. But what had the man done to merit the usage which he received from the hands of the ruthans ? The villains thought the man had made a lot of money, and that it was an easier job for them to rob him than to work. So they fell upon him and spoiled him of wh t he had. How long the man lay in a state of semi-consciousness, and when these scoundrels took their departure, no one knew. But when Walter Hawkins came to himself— or what was left of him — he found himself in the house of an old man with whom he was acquainted. This dear old man acted the part of the good Samaritan, for he sent Hawkins home in a conveyance just as he was, torn and tattered. The tent he had knocked up of rough boards was as badly used as himself, for the rabble, having got what they wanted — but much less Il Catiada. 131 than they expected — completely wrecked the shanty, leaving things scattered all over the grass. Of course, the cowardly trick made matters much worse for the man, who was trying to get out of deht in order that he might begin his laudable calling with a clear con- science that he owed " no man anything ". Alas ! this horrid incident was a fearful drawback for him and his family, for they had stretched every nerve to get the outfit for the tent ; and, having lost all, he found himself almost worse than he was before he was offered the ministry at Brentford. At this critical juncture friends offered to share his troubles, and gave his family sufficient of their bounty to keep them from starving. We cannot speak too highly of the kindness of the people towards the Hawkinses. They were as different from the Yankee whites as day and night ; in fact, all the while the head of the family was ill they almost entirely depended upon the charity of the good people for sustenance. And before the un- fortunate man recovered one of his children died from the shock which he received on seeing his father brought home in rags and covered with bloodstains. How soon after the sunshine of prosperity one may be followed with storms of ill-fortune is clearly seen from the rugged life — and, indeed, all through the career — of Walter Hawkins. I f! Chapter XII. 1 1 THE FIRST CIRCUIT. There need be no disappointed ambition. If a man were to set before himself a true aim in life, and to work definitely for it, no envy or jealousy, if he considered that it mattered not whether he did a great thing, or someone else did it- nature's only concern being that it should be done ; no grief from loss of fortune, if he estimated at its true value that which fortune can give him and that which it can never give him ; no wounded self-love, if he learned well the lesson of life — self-renunciation. — John Rusk in. Yet he hoped against hope, as he took a turn for the better and was on the way to recovery from his dreadful mangling. Tlie doctor ordered him not to go to his appointment for anothei' six months, lest he might lose his reason. But how could any man who was at all active see his family struggling, to make a living for themselves and their father, without himself trying to help them? When a man is incapable, of course, loving children will show their father every respect ; and this is just what the younger Hawkinses did do, until their father got well enough to start to his ministerial duties at Brentford, Ontario. Where the money came from for him to go, he did not know ; but it came, and he considered it to be a token, that (132) li Tlie First Circuit. m God approved his appointment to that circuit. On arriving at his journey's end he found that his work would not be easy, for the church was stripped and the people scattered througli the conduct and niisnianage- nient of his predecessor. But Hawkins was too well acquainted with uphill work to shake his head at the condition of things which stared him in the face, so he made up his mind to strive and do something that would glorify God and bless humanity; he, therefore, plunged headlong into his work, visiting from door to door, talked to and entreated the people to try and open the church again ; but they, not knowing the character of the man, and having been bitten by the previous preacher, were a long time in getting up their zeal to the point where the new minister required it. However, he persevered and pegged away at them until gradually he succeeded in winning them one after another. By- and-by he got a few around him who formed the nucleus for him to open the church. Forthwith he re-established the regular Sunday services, but he had more often to preach outside, as they flocked in larger numbers than he anticipated, to listen to him. Those who took the trouble to hear him preach slowly began to put confidence in the integrity and earnestness of their minister, and were finally induced to make a collection for him, but not until he had spent some months among them and won his spurs. The first col- lection amounted to twelve dollars (£2 10s.), which he sent to his wife by one of the Brentford pietists, who took the liberty of going into partnership with Mrs. % : IV'- 'I '^ i II «i' "\'i 134 T/ie Fiyst Circuit. Hawkins. This unprincipled man promised to refund the same at an early date, but it never came off. So the money was lost to them at a time when they could ill spare it. While Preacher Hawkins was toiling up- country and gathering the people who had been so long without a shepherd, his good wife was toiling to keep the body and soul of her family together. In order to do this, she ofttimes had to leave her children without a fire and very little food to go and do a day's work to make sure of the rent. Poor noble soul ! What a charming chapter it would be if all the acts of real heroism and self-sacrifice of every nation were written ! ah, written as the acts were accomplished, not merely stating the fact that such and such per- sons did certain things, but how they did them. This (it seems to me) would convince men quicker than anything could, and show the world that human nature is the same everywhere and in every age. Ye arc all human ; yon broad moon gives light To millions who the self-same likeness wear ; Even while I speak, beneath this very night, Their thoughts flow on like ours in sadness or delight. — Anon. The noble woman, Mrs. Hawkins, did many acts of true heroism, but nothing so touchingly self-sacrificing as during the time her husband was up-country with no fixed salary, and when he could not send her money, to relieve her of financial embarrassment. Their eldest son, now twelve years of age, set to work to help his mother by selling newspapers and doing a little auB The First Circuit. 135 light portering. Of course he earned very httle, but it helped to make things more cheerful for the family. Besides this, the little fellow would gather wood and make himself generally useful when his mother was hard at work and from home. Help from a bov like this worked wonders in his mother's heart ! As time went on the Kev. Walter Hawkins, as he was then, began to feel he should be where his family were or they where he was. Moreover, he had been long enough in the circuit to test their apprecia- tion of his labour. Nay, if the people saw them, thought he, they might more readily pay him a fixed salary, so that he might support his children as all respectable men ought. This he told his congregation, who had by this time much more confidence in him, and forthwith they saw, as he did, and probably felt the same thing before he had spoken, only it would not do to tell their minister. Anyhow, they put their belief into practice and their sympathy into action, raised the necessary funds among themselves in order that he might pay the fares of his family from Toronto to Hamilton. Indeed, one member even offered to go to Hamilton and bring them and their luggage from that place to Brentford, provided he had not too nnich goods, a proviso that needed no answer if the good man had known that the family had not enough money to buy food, much less could they u., rd to spend money on such luxuries as expensive furniture. Accordingly they went for them, and brought the bare necessaries of household goods; the rest, Mrs. Hawkins was bound y 136 The First Ciraiit. y fX 1) ' It' ! \k\ -.ml to sell for what she could get for them. Again the family met together, after many vicissitudes, at Brent- ford, to start life under new circumstances and with new environments. Soon after the family arrived, a revival broke out in the town, and many new members were added to the church ; by which means the minister got a little more generous support, which was very much needed, as sickness laid many of the family low and created fresh difficulties and additional expenses. The Fugitive Slave Law, of which we have spoken, drove more black people into Canada, which gave Mr. Hawkins more anxiety for their bodily and spiritual well-being. Besides preachin«g at the head of the circuit, he had to travel day and night under very trying circumstances. Often he had to go out in the morning after a light breakfast, and walk, talk, pray, and sing a whole day before having any dinner. In some villages he had all that to do on an empty stomach, as the people had barely enough for themselves, far less to give anything away. Indeed, the man could not find it in his heart to take from people who ran away from slavery as penniless as he himself was when he made good his escape to Philadelphia. The poor wretches, on entering Canada, had to dive straight away into the wild woods to make a home for themselves as best they could. Not only had they to clear the land that had been given to them, but they were bound to work for the farmers around to get bread for their families to subsist upon, until such time as their own crops grew, and were reaped to ilK mmm The First Circuit, 0/ turn into ready money. What could a poor Methodist minister do in the midst of sucli poverty which stared him in the face? How httle can we, who hve in a country much more favourable than theirs, imagine what must have been the sufferings of a minister and his flock in a new country at such a time ! What aching hearts, hungry stomachs, and destitution nmst have reigned in their midst ! Bishop Hawkins often looks back on those dreary days, saying : "I would get a quarter of a dollar, sometimes a half, and maybe a little meat, flour, or potatoes, just as it might happen " ; and yet he felt happier than when he was a slave. He would travel around his circuit once in four weeks, proclaiming the message of salvation to his race, under conditions far different to those of old Preacher Proctor. That alone was something to thank God for. His income was then about one dollar, or four shillings and twopence, for four weeks' hard labour. Though hard, the work was pleasant. For- tunately for him and his family, the people who lived immediately around them, in the circuit — Brentford — were much better off, and were therefore able to, and did, supply them vyrith some of their provisions. They made a sort of free-will offering for his ministerial labours among them occasionally. Amid all his troubles, none seemed to have af- fected Bishop Hawkins more at that time than to leave his dying son to go on one of those four weeks' ministerial journeys. While away from home, he received a message that the boy was dead. 4 y V ili ! f IJ ■'■( 13* TJie First Circuit. Naturally, he felt bound to return ; to get home he had to walk eight miles to the nearest railway sta- tion. Once there, he did not stop to discuss the morality of travelling without a railway ticket — so he jumped into the train. Sometime g^fter the train left the station, the conductor went round to examine the tickets, only to find the Rev. Walter Haw :dns without his ticket. Then the man demanded his fare, to which he replied : " I have got no money, my son is dead, and I want to get home ". Dead or alive, the man wanted the fare, or else he must get out at the next station. So he offered the conductor his watch for security. After a moment's thought, the man took it, we suppose acting on the principle that his watch was a more re- liable entity to pledge than his word. On their arrival at Brentford, as fate would have it, he met a sympathising friend, who was always interested in him, and who said to him : "Job," as he was accus- tomed to call his Negro friend, *' have you heard the sad news'?" "Yes," said Mr. Hawkins. " How did you get here?" asked the man. " I have pledged my watch to the conductor for my fare," was Job's reply. Th^ man said no more, but ran to the train, paid the coUiiuctor, and brought back the watch. What a blessing he was not in Yankeeland ! He would have been whipped as a common robber, sure ! This white friend did not only redeem his watch, but went with him to his house, to see what else he could do for his friend. Thus by his aid, as well as the kindness of his neighbours, he managed to provide a decent burial for s HE3K JSSSm The First Circuit. 139 his son. Well might Helps say : " Since men are so miserable, always say a kind word when you can, and do a kind action when you can ; it may come in so opportunely— it may save a man from despair". In this case one cannot tell what Walter Hawkins would have done, but for the prompt and kind action of that friend at a time when he most needed one. An arm of aid to the weak, A friendly hand to the friendless ; Kind words so short to speak, But whose echo is endless. The world is wide, these things are small ; They may he nothing, hut they may ho all. — Loud Houghton. Beyond Brentford, the people were too poor to give their minister one good meal when he went among them. Indeed, they lived in small log-houses. The churches were little places built of the same materials as their dwellings. Ofttimes the reverend minister held services in total darkness. ** One evening," says the Bishop, " I went to take the service in one of my outlying churches. As I approached the place I could hear my congregation singing, quite half-a-mile away, before I got to the place." It is only those who have heard American Negroes singing their quaint melodies that can imagine the enthusiasm they throw into them. On his arrival, he was astonished to find the hut in absolute darkness. At another place where he was preaching, one old man got so excited that he spat in his (the preacher's) hat, totally ignorant of what he was doing; another man took it into his head J I: 140 The First Circuit. II t i i' '1 i >; :I4 to sing all the time the preacher was speaking, regard- less of the comfort of any other person present. At one place the Bishop had to preach in a hut in which his congregation smoked their sausages in a mixture of tobacco and wood-smoke. The Bishop said the smoke was so dense and disagreeable that, before he had finished preaching, he was both sick and blind, so much that he had to go outside for a breath of fresh air. When it was time to go to bed, his host showed him a bedroom, with the same kind of furniture that the slave-holders gave the slaves down south. All the same, he slept on the floor and awoke the next morn- ing quite sore. At another place, where he went to preach, the people thought they would have a light on the subject. So they got a tallow candle and cut it in three pieces, and stuck them on the sides of the cabin, so that the Bishop was compelled to talk against the light of the pieces of candle, in order that they might not be in darkness before the service was closed. Then arose the difficulty of finding him a bed. After a consul- tation among the members, one man offered to take the minister to his house. On arriving at the establish- ment, his hostess began to provide a supper, which was made of buckwheat flour and water, baked on the lid of the stove. After eating a few mouthfuls of the cake and sausages (cured in tobacco smoke), the tired man was glad to sleep on the bed provided for him on the hard floor. For two long years he went about this circuit, with not half the comfort of an ordinary London missionary, and, in spite of the v^ifBtfb The First Circuit, 141 trouble, poverty, and hardships he encountered, ho took pleasure in the work of preaching to his race, who were real objects of pity indeed. Everywhere he went, he saw the evil effects of the institution of slavery on the manners and morals of the people ; nay, oft- times he felt that it would have been more satisfactory to labour among a Pagan race, rather than a people whose notion of religion was an imperfect knowledge of Christianity. But this was more the fault of those who had enslaved them than their own, consequently all his sympathy went out to them ; and at the end of his two years' ministry he could see a marked im- provement upon their moral and spiritual life. Here the Bishop was thoroughly convinced that the civilisa- tion of the most degraded race rested on Christianity, that it could only be raised by Christianity, and only be maintained by Christianity ; not the dogma of theologians and the ceremonies of a church, but the Christianity of Christ, " who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, might live unto righteousness," "by whose stripes we are healed ". Many will rise up on the last day and praise God for having raised Walter Hawkins to preach the religion of Plis Christ among them, for, though their bodies were free, such was their love of sin, and the power it had over them, that only Almightiness itself could and did make them free from its awful consequences. m Chapter XIII. ST. CATHARINES. Man can have strength of character only as he is capable of con- trolling his faculties, of choosing a rational end: and, in its pursuit, of holding fast to his integrity against all the miglit of external nature. — Ma UK Ho IK INS. At the expiration of two years from his appointment as a minister of the Brentford circuit, the conference from whom he had received his mandate met at St. Catharines, which he attended and gave an accomit of his stewardship. The conference must have thought that a change of place had been well earned by the Rev. Walter Hawkins — and well they might, for he had succeeded in puUi ig the churches in the Brent- ford circuit together, reclaimed many who had fallen away from the faith — though they nominally clung to what was left of a church — and added many new members to the circuit. Besides, he had done good service for the physical and moral wholesomeness of his race, ofttimes going without comfort himself. The confer- ence, feeling that its faithful minister needed a change, appointed him .o St. Catharines circuit, the place in which it was then sitting. As his wife was unwilling to remove again after so short a time, he left her and (142) St. CatJiarines. 143 their children in the old circuit at Brentford, returning home once every three months. While he was attend- ing to the work of his ministry, his wife was plodding away as she had always done. Some time after his new appointment she saved enough to huy a cow and a few chickens, wherehy she was able to sell both milk and eggs. Mr. Hawkins found himself well looked after in St. Catharines, and things generally began to be quite comfortable ; indeed, they soon bought another cow. When he went home, there was no more of that story of hardship which greeted him on his six weeks' tour through his old circuit. No more hungry children crying for bread, and none of those deep, loud sighs from his wife. The home was very comfortably fur- nished, plenty of food in it, wife cheerful, and the eldest son, who had done a good deal of light porter- ing, etc., had got a good situation, and helped his parents all the more. Sure enough patience and per- severance were bringing their own reward. We have not wings, we cannot soar, But we have feet to scale and climb By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time. The hardships which Bishop Hawkins had under- gone made an impression of a serious character upon him, in mind and body, but his wife and eldest son heroically shared his grief with great fortitude and pluck ; the latter especially almost lost his elemen- tary education for his heroism in his endeavour to work and help to support his younger brothers and sisters. " The man, woman or boy who can give up ' .1 144 .S7. CatJiarincs. W: i ' i i Ml I ■i , 1 dreaming and go to his daily realities, who can smother down his heart, its love and woe, take to hard work of his hand, who defies fate, and, if he must die, dies fight- ing to the last— that person is life's best hero." Work, wait, win ! seemed to have been the famih ""^otto, for there was a happy co-operation alway sting be- tween children and parents ; they verily loved to bear each other's burden. But how could this sympathy exist ? but for the untiring energy and self-sacrifice of the head, who knew how to suffer and inspire confi- dence and devotion into those for whom he had to work. Walter Hawkins had passed through the furnace in slavery ; he was made to bear up against terrible odds while making good his escape, and his life, up to the time of his getting married, was one long series of trial, which did not improve when he increased his responsibility b} taking a wife. Fortunately for him, the good woman had sympathy for him, or how could he have borne the uphill struggles of Florence, and the awful fatigue which the work of his first circuit in- volved? Well did Whipple say : " Heroism is no ex- tempore work of transient impulse — a rocket rushing fretfully up to the darkness, but which, after a moment's insulting radiance, is ruthlessly swallowed up — but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flames ; it is no sparkling epigram of action, but a luminous epic of character ". This is really the kind of heroism we seem to see in Walter Hawkins, and it is the same spirit which his children inherited, and kindled such a flame of devotion towards him in the hearts of those among S/. Catluxriucs. H5 whom he hiboured. His work at St. Catharines was higlily appreciated by everybody— his power of orga- nising, his sinipHcity, his childlike trust in God and humility, won old and young; indeed, it would have been dilTicult to find a man at that time with so little educa- tion who could have accomplished so much under similar circumstances. After serving the people of St. Catharines two years, he was removed from thence to Dresden circuit, near Chatham ; at the expiration of other two years the conference sent him to Chatham. For four or five years previous to his appointment to the Chatham circuit, Mr. Hawkins was contemplating buying a house and a piece of land which he could call his own, so that when old age came upon him and his good wife they w^ould have where to lay their heads. When he took up his abode in Chatham, he began to look around for a site upon which he intended to build the house of his dream. With his usual patience he awaited his opportunity, and at last the site was found, and considerable time was allowed him to pay for it before he could secure the freehold. He had been a farm labourer and farmer, a waiter, lamp- lighter, grocer and light porter — why could he not be a landowner, builder, and minister? In most of his other undertakings he was not required to lay down nmch money : now, however, there was a large sum to put down as a first instalment, I" ' he had only ten dollars to call his own. His son, upon whom he could depend on a push, stepped in and helped him with the 10 II I 1 40 .SV. Catharines. •:! '\ '$■■ amount ro(iuirc(l. The land boing sucunul, he went stniij^'lit ahead with his building project, without wait- n foi fi able •tunitv— which niij'ht oppori never have come, "The man," said J. B. Gough, " who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will lind that the seventh wave is a long time coming. You can connnit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until someone comes along and in- vites you to ride with him to wealth or influence." This move proved to have been both wise and good, for the moment he commenced to build he got lots of friends to come to his assistance, for both the members of his church, and people outside his congregation, gave or did something for the carrying out of his scheme. Sure enough, many hands made light work, for some helped by giving a day's work, others gave a few dollars, some in one way and others just as was most convenient to them. It is evident that the Chatham people had learnt that the true spirit of helpfulness consisted in searching out for some individual life that they could aid and encourage to bear burdens that otherwise might have crushed out all hope. What with the help he received froni friends, his own energy, and his family's exertions, they managed to push on the work, and made sure of their house before the winter of 1866. At the close of his ministry at Chatham, the con- ference sent him to Amhurstbury ; there he found the people in a very low state of spirituality— poor, and with very indifferent places to worship in. Like his S/. Catharines. 14; first circuit, ^Ir. Hawkins was obliged to hold services in the open air, in places where the dwelling-liouses were too small to accoinniot ,te the large number of people who flocked to hear him. So small indeed were some of the log-cabins that tiio quarterly meet- ings were held outside. For two years he struggled on in the poverty-stricken circuit of Amhurstbury, on very small pay, and that which he did get was mostly spent upon the poor of his circuit. With a hope for better things, and that confidence in the future which never forsook him, he continued his ministration with marked success. By the close of his two years' minis- try he succeeded in pulling the circuit together, in- creased the membership, and raised a better tone of spirituality among the members, and inspired a Chris- tian brotherliness which made them try to find oppor- tunities and outlets to bless others. Not only did he kindle in them a consideration that did not merely concern itself about other men's souls, and helped them to make the present more livable, but he taught them a Christianity which springs in the heart from love and devotion to Christ, and runs through all the com- morsst rounds and minor parts of their daily lives. From Amhurstbury Mr. Hawkins returned to his favourite circuit — St. Catharines —which was at this time considered among the Methodists to be the best place for a preacher in the whole of Canada : because the people were for the most part pretty w^ell-to-do, industrious, and generous. This time he took his wife and family with him. If we could but foresee our fate, f i 148 St. CatJuirines. \\\ I it is certain we would be slow to follow our inclina- tions whither they would lead us. The return to St. Catharines was by no means so full of pleasure as it was with pain, both to himself and to the temporary loss of the churches in the province, for he had not quite settled down in the place before three of his children fell ill and died. " Death strikes down the innocent young; for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues arise, in shapes of mercy, charity and love, to walk the world and bless it. For every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the desti'oyer's steps there springs up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a ray of light to heaven." (Charles Dickens.) This sad circumstance fell upon Mr. Hawkins like a hurricane ; for though friends rallied around him, and bor'^ the expense of taking their remains to Chat- ham, where they were interred, the loss of so many at a single stroke completely brought the strong man to the ground— indeed, almost liurried a useful man into eternity. Alas ! death has no regard for the bloom of youth any more than the wrinkles of the aged, and does not discrimin?te between the man of God and the man of sin ; at his gaze all are made to tremble. The poor man broke down completely, and had to give up his work as an active minister ; he, then^fore, placed himself upon the supcraniiaation list of ministers, as the shock quite incapacitated him for twelve months. .S7. Catharines. 149 There can bo little doubt but that the high pressure at which Mr. Hawkins had been working for years past had so alfectel his constitution that the sudden shock of tlie loss of his cliddren laid him low in 1868. In England, even at that time, when a Methodist minister was superannuated he was allowed some financial help from the conference. But it was not so in that part of Canada ; they could not give, because they had no money to spare. After absolute rest for twelve months, Mr. Hawkins rallied, and gradually began to regain his strength. At this point his white brethren, seeing that he was yet unfit to resume his minis- terial duties, advised him to raise a band of singers — like those jubilee singers wlio visited this country years ago — and they promised to employ them in their various churches. Mr. Hawkins set to work and gathered a choir together ; but, as he had no money to go to his first engagement, he had to fall back upon the generosity of his friend, Mr. Isaac Holden, who sup- plied the money with which he made a start. In the meantime, his wiie, a son. and daughter opened a small shop, which they managed with better tact than the old people had done at New Bedford. The sing- ing tour was a financial success ; and on their return, not oidy was Mr. Hawkins once more himself, but he actually realised suHicient money to free his property from the debt which was haii 51 ng over it, and once more resumed his labours among the black population in the land of their adoption. " One thing experience teaches : that life brings no i I50 .S7. C atharijics. '• ' * 'I'lt^ I , ill* h I I Hi ■ [' 1^ !9 ftr - » ^9 L I l)en(Mlictioii foj- those, wlio tiik(! it (iasily. Tlic luirvest caimot b(; i-oapcd until tin; soil lias Ixioii (lc;o[)ly plouglu!*] and fiooly liarrovvod, ' Lcai'ii to suitor and bo sti'ong,' says tho poot ; and coi'tain it is that with- out sufferin}^ tlioio can ))o no strenj^'th. Not, indood, that suiToring is or niakos stron^tli, but tliat it ovok(!S tlu! latent powers, and arouses into action the energies tl»at would liave otheiwise hiin iiigloi-iously supine. The discipline of life is a necessary prelude to the victoi'Y of life, and all Li:at is finest, purest, and noblest in human nature is called foi'th by the presence of want, disiippointnient, pain, opposition and injustice. iJiniculties can be conquer(f;d oidy by decision ; ob- stacles can be removed oidy by arduous effort. These test oui" manhood, and at the same tinu; confirm oui' self-control." asm OlIAl'TKR XIV. MADI-: A lUSHOP. I'liE Tl(3V. Walter irawkiiis' r(!Cov(!ry and return into the nigular niinisti'y was liail(!ii.siiies.'i capacitii, combined witJi hiH ardent zeal for the work of (rod and for the j^i'OHjjeriti/ of kin ])C0j)le." To champion the cause he had at heart, and to achieve this laudable success, material resources were likewise needed, so that he found it necessary to 2)ledV' ''«- ^ '/ ^.<^' I \ ^L* ^ i6o Made a Uishop. h (Cries of ' No, no,' * Toll us about your slavery days,' etc.) Well, then, everything' was dark, and we heard that in Canada there was freedom for the slave. I thou ^ht Canada was behind the sun. (Laughter.) I didn't know the east from the west, the north from the south. But 1 got there, and I was free. (Loud applause.) I put myself under the paw of the British lion- (prolonged a^jplause) — and wlien you're under the paw of the lion, and he gives a growl at your enemies, you're safe. The Queen of England — God bless her! — ('Amen') the best woman that ever wore a crown or swayed a sceptre — (loud applause) — the Queen of England meets the Negro the moment ho touches ]3ritish soil — (prolonged applause and great enthusiasm) — and that's why 1 am here to-day. (Applause.) They wanted to transfer us to the American Church, but this country and this govern- ment are good enough for me. (Applause.) You made a great union some time ago. God prosper it. You did not take us in. (Laughter.) We are still willing to be taken in - upon conditions. We would want to liave our own conference and our own rules, for you could not manage that. (Laughtei.) But we preach the same Gospel, wc have the same ordinances ; and I hope to live to see the day (for I'm as strong as I ever was, and didn't Enoch walk with God for 300 years?) when we shall be one in name as we are one in faith. Our Church is not a great Church ; but all the same we don't want you to drag us into a union. We are doing a work for God, ai.d preaching a free salvation ; and, if Made a liis/io/K \Cn there never bo a union here on eaith, T expect to meet President Carman in heaven, where we will shake hands, and say, as we see all the memhers of our churches on the eternal shore: 'We helped to l)rin«^ these to Jesus'. Thank Clod for the happy thought. (Loud ai)plaus(i.) I was on the mountain to-day ; hut I was never nearer heaven than this moment. Deep down in my soul I thank you for the way you have re- ceived me." (Loud applause.) The Bishop's companion followed, and when ho sat down Dr. Douglas rose and said: "We want to hear Bishop Hawkins sing". ("Yes, yes," "Sing," etc.) "Will Bishop Hawkins sing 'I'm Bedeemed'?" said Dr. Douglas. " If I can get the key," said the Jh'shop, amidst laughter, " I'll sing ' Nearer my honie '." He got the key, and his soft, rich voice put a crooning lilt into the music, and he clos(>d his eyes, and gently swayed his hodv, and waved his arms, and ahandone(l himself to an ecstatic motion, which reached everv lieart in the conference. " Sing the chorus," said the Bishop. " We can all sing it, for aren't we all going to the same heavenly home? We may never met on earth again : — " I'm nearer my liome, I'm nearer my home, I'm nearer my home, to-day, I'm nearer my homo, where Jesus has gone, I'm nearer my home to-day." u 1 62 Made a Bishop. The Chairman took off liia spectacles and sang it. The venerable ])j-. ISI'Mullen, the representative of the ]5ritish eonference, found himself singing and swaying with the rhytlnn ; about live hundred voices, above and below, sang that chorus with a volume of energy and feeling that swept every tittle of the con- ventional clean out into the street. " Now, I'll sing," said the Bishop, *' * On my way to Canada'. This is the earthly home. But it was heaven to me in the old day.s, and many a time this song cheered my heart, for it seemed to anticipate heaven." " On my way to Canada " represents the slave flying from the bloodhounds. He flees through wood and marsh until, on the other side of the lake, he sees the Queen of England standing with outstretched arms to receive him. The Bishop put his whole soul into this piece. A tide of emotion sw-ept over him which glorified his poor old black, wrinkled face ; his eyes became lustrous, his lips trembled ; he raised himself, luild his luinds over his head, and sang with extra- ordinary energy : — " I'm on my way to Canada, Where tlie coloured man is free". The contagion spread over tlie house. Boar after roar of applause burst from the conference. 'Twas a thrilling scene. " I mcv3 that we take up a collection for Brother Hawkins," said Dr. Douglas. " A collection," "a collection," was the cry. " Well, get the hat going," said the Chairman, wiping his eyes. wm "mm' Made a BisJiop. 163 "A collection," he continued, "is a wonderfully cooling process." (Laughter.) But that collection amounted to ninety-two dollars, and every man and woman in the house put something into the hat. Dr. Douglas wanted to hear " I'm Redeemed," but the Bishop found he couldn't sing it. Brother Winter sang " The Land of Beulah ". He has a high tenor ; and the Bishop came in now and then with a soft, lilting tone. The conference then passed a resolution, expressing its interest in the British Episcopal Methodist Church, and the coloured delegates withdrew. — Repuintkd FUOM The Methodist Times, October 30, 1890. Chapter XV. IN ENGLAND. Such a speech from such a man forthwith induced an enterprising agent to write to the Bisliop, inviting him to come to England, and offering him, among other things, a warm English welcome. The Bishop submitted the communication to his elders and friends, who advised him to go and state the case of his people to the British public, whom they thought would assist him materially. Before sailing with his devoted wife, whom he felt bound to take with him, the following letters are a few of the recommendations he received — besides the two we have already given — from the Canadian people. " I take great pleasure in certifying that I have known Bishop Hawkins, of the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, for a number of years past, and that his reputation as a minister of the Gospel and as a citizen has always been of the highest character. And I desire to add that this my testimony is, I feel positive, that of every citizen of this town of Chatham who has a knowledge in any degree of his Christianlike character, and I confidently recommend him to any and all v/ith whom he may communicate during his mission abroad. "John Tissiman, Town-Clerk, " Chatham, Ontario." (164) mm wm m^ In Emrland. 165 "My Dear Bishop, " Allow me to congratulate you most sincerely upon your elevation to the high oflice of a Bishopric in your church. I need liardiy say that I, in conjunction with your other numerous friends, wish you ' God-speed' in the noble work you have undertaken. Wishing you a pleasant voyage, and with kindest regards to your devoted wife, " Believe me, " Yours very sincerely, " H. J. Patteson, ** Pres., Board of Trade, and " Ex-Mayor of Chatham, Ontario." 1^^ ** I have known the Rev. Walter Hawkins for the last sixteen years, and have great pleasure in certify- ing him to be a godly man, worthy of the respect and confidence of all Christian people, and trust that he will meet with great success in behalf of the British Methodist Episcopal Church, the prosperity of which in the name of God is so dear to his heart. *' Respectfully given, "William W^ahd, Dresden, Ontario, " Late of Norfolk, England." " Chatham, \Wi Fch„ 1891. "I have known Bishop Hawkins for the last ten years, and have much pleasure in testifying to his stainless reputation and high Christian character. i1 i66 In England. Living in the town where the Bishop has resided for the past twenty years, I gladly testify to the esteem, the confidence, and the honour in which he is gene- rally held by his fellow-citizens. I have yet to hear the first disparaging word spoken of him by anyone. He is a useful citizen, a devoted Christian, and an eminently successful minister ; possessing an influence almost unlimited among his own people, his services are in demand and greatly appreciated by all the churches. I cordially commend him to the confidence and love of all Christian people. " J. W. Annis, Pastor, and " Chairman of Chatham District." " Sarnia, 31s< Jan., 1891. " This is to certify that I have known the Rev. Elder Hawkins for about fifteen years, and have had him with me on country, village, town and city work, and he has given satisfaction alike in all places. He is good, and to me a man who fits in wherever duty calls him. Personally, I esteem him very highly and love him as a brother. I have always found him a Christian gentleman. His presence always commands a large audience with us, as he is both eloquent and good. I commend him to all Christian people as a man and a brother in Jesus Christ. " Thomas Cullen, Pastor." "SOthJan., 1891. "• To those Christians in England whom it may con- cern. This is to certify that for many years I have i|B*P In Euglaud. 167 known Bishop Hawkins, of tho British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. I can testify to his high reputation as a Christian man, to his fervent piety, his gracious influence in the churches that he has served as Pastor, Presiding Elder, and Bishop, to his manly connnon-sense and special abihty to present with fitness and power the blessed truths of the Gos- pel; his power of song, though advanced age now rests upon him ; his brow abides with the inspiration of former years. " He was welcomed as a representative by the last general conference, and his address and singing will never be forgotten. We commend him to the care of the Master whom he serves in crossing the ocean, and to the united confidence of the Christian churches throughout the motherland. All that know the dear and honoured saint will pray that his mission may be crowned with abundant blessing. " George Douglas, Principal, " Wesley an Theological College, " Montreal." " The Rev. Elder Hawkins, of the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, was received by the Methodist Church of Canada as a fraternal delegate a,t its last session, held in this city '"* Montreal in September, 1890. After an address froin Elder Haw- kins, the following resolution was unanimously adopted by the general conference and seconded in its journals. Resolved — ' That we have listened with pleasure to 1 68 /// Titiglauii. tlic ^rectiiif^s of the British MeUiodist Episcopal Church in Canada, and to the interesting^ addresses of the Kev. W. Hawkins and tlie Kev. T. W. Minton, the representatives of that church to tliis conference. We do not forget that during the stirring times in the history of tliis country our coloured hrethren were faith- ful to our institutions and loyal to the British Crown. " ' We beg to assure these honoured brethren of our deep interest in tlie prosperity of their church, and wish them God-speed in their noble work of saving souls and advancing the best interests of the Church of Christ; V The address of Elder Hawkins before the con- ference awakened deep feeling, and won for him the esteem and affection of all who were present. " S. T. HuESTia, " Secretary of the General Conference, " Methodist Church." Bishop Hawkins is a strong total abstainer, and an ardent temperance reformer, so that when the " Do- minion Alliance " for the total suppression of the liquor trailic knew that he was about to sail for EngUind they caused their correspondent secretary to write the following letter : — "The Rev. Walter Hawkins is general superinten- dent of the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. He is a Christian gentleman and an earnest advocate of the cause of temperance and prohibition. As such I have very nuich pleasure in respectfully ^m In Eiiirhxud. 169 rccoiniiiciuling him to our prohibition co-workers in the motherland, whic!i lie is about to visit. "F. S. Sl'ENCE." As Bishop Hawkins made no effort to come over to England, he says : " The Lord directed me to cross the Athmtic " ; and here he has found more friends than he ever expected. Indeed, before he left the shores of Canada, he was well known to the Metho- dists in this country, besides the general public who saw the announcement in the daily papers that he had actually set sail for these shores. He arrived at Liverpool early in the spring of 1B91, and there was no doubt about the kind of reception he met with in that city of many nations. The illustrious Charles Garrett was among the first to give him a warm wel- come to England. As the following letters will give a better idea of how the Bishop was received in England, we will quote them. " 22 liALMoiiAi, Road, Tanfm:m), Livkp.I'ooi,. " Bishop Hawkins had a most enthusiastic recep- tion on Wednesday last in Brunswick Chapel. The place was densely crowded, and the assembly deeply interested, while, for an hour and three quarters, he related his experiences as a slave, and his remarkable escape from slavery. His singing, too, was a special feature of the evening, which greatly charmed the people. " The collection for his work was something between X20 and £30. *' W. MiDDLETON." I70 In England. The Kev. Charles Garrett wrote : — " Bishop Hawkins spent two days with us last week, and thoroughly captivated our people. His humour, pathos, and strong common-sense were irre- sistible, and all our circuits are anxious to have a visit from him before his return. He is 'a rand old man,' and I trust his visit to England will be a bless- ing to many." From Liverpool 3ishop Hawkins went to London, and spoke at the Wesley Centenary Memorial Meet- ing ; and, on the 11th of March, Dr. T. B. Stephen- son, now President of the Wesleyan Conference, wrote the following letter : — " Bev. and Dear Sir, " On behalf of the Committee of the Wesley Centenary, I beg to thank you most cordially for the great service you rendered our cause by speaking at the meeting of 6th March. You will, I am sure, re- joice with us that signal blessing has rested upon the services. " I am, Rev. and Dear Sir, " For Self and Colleagues, " Yours very truly, " T. B. Stephenson. " Rev. Bishop Hawkins." A vast number of letters have been sent to the Bishop, besides the reports of newspapers all over the land, speaking in the highest terms of him. He had /;/ Engl a mi. 171 a splendid reception at the British Temperance League, and spoke at tlieir annual meeting at Hxeter Hall, when (the Lord Bishop of London presided) he made a very favourable impression upon the audience. As a speaker on the platform, the Bishop must be heard to appreciate what is said of him on both sides of the Atlantic. We well rememl . his speech at Grosvenor House, the London residence of His Grace the Duke of Westminster, at the fourth anniversary of the " United Committee for the Prevention of the Demoralisation of Native Races by the Liquor Traflic". There was a grand array of honourables, baronets, divines, a colonial governor, Hindoos, Negroes, and a crowd of ladies and gentlemen ; and His Grace him- self presided over the meeting. Bishop Hawkins, who seconded the resolution, said : " My Lord Duke, I find myself where 1 never expected to find myself. I can hardly realise it when I go back in my own mind to my past condition ; and when I stand here to-day, and wit- ness and listen to what I have seen and heard, I am almost ready to say it is a dream. My soul is filled beyond any way of expressing my feelings. Why, the word ' My Lord Duke,' I did not know the mean- ing of it. (Laughter.) I could not tell whether it was a man or what it was, (Loud laughter, in which the Chairman heartily joined.) I don't know what to say. It affords me great pleasure, and is an honour beyond description, to be present at this grand meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could say what I want B> 1 flW ^f1 f M '«' ■<• , ^ii j 1'^ I- I 172 /;/ Eugl(X)iiL to say, but there is soinetliin^ tluit S2)i'inj^s up in my throat and chokes nie, so Liiat J can hardly speak. When I received an invitation to come here, I said to my wife : ' I don't think it is true '. I read something here — 'second resolution' — 'presided over by His Grace the Duke'; but it is so, I lind it is true. 1 am certain that it will send joy into the hearts of my brothers on the other side of the Atlantic when they get the news that you have received me as a Christian gentleman and elder, leader of a great army of temperance workers. As long as you Uve we will follow you, and the work can be accomplished when such as yourself and the gentle- men around you say : 'Go forward ; the work must be done'. It will be done. (Cheers.) I see no reason for doubting it. Now, my brother who has just sat down — am I right in calling him brother ? — (cries of * Yes')— -another step up the ladder — my brother has referred to God '^.lu Jhrist. Without their help no association or so .iCv. a the world can stop the drink traflic in Africa. ' u with their helji we can do it* I stand here eight} years of age ; but I am looking forward to the day when drink shall be driven out of the country. (Cheers.) Wiien the members of the English Church and the Presbyterians and others be- come one, the drink is gone. (Cheers.) They are a power in the world to destroy this drink. I was glad to hear it was not England that carried the whisky to the Africans, but the whisky men in England who love drink and money more than they lo\e men and lives. (Cheers.) We are trying in Canada to push forward •iPMm In Emrlitud. ^n this great battle ; we are appeal iii}:; to the le«^islators to enact a law to (hivi; the drink out of our land. I have heard one of your legislators who are taking steps to help the connnittee to I'eniove this curse. When it gets into tlu; hands of the legislative body and the Church of (Jod, it will not stand ; it must go. (Cheers.) I will not detain you hy an\ more remarks to-day. Wherever J go I will help tiie connnittee to rouse the nations to drive out the drink, that Afiica may he «aved. It makes one sick to think of it. People don't understand it. Missionaries tell us they have seen men and women and children dying fiom the driiik. Let each one of us start anew to-day ; let each one of us take a part in the work ; let each one of us go to the help of the weak against the mighty — not only \\\ Africa, hut in I'^ngland. (Cheers.) Walk your sti'eets ; oh, what shame ! Fine-looking women, well-dressed women, some of them wives and mothers — you may see them in your streets reeling with (h'ink. The whiskv that is sent into Africa— give it to a com- mon dog, and it would kill it. (Cheers and laughter.) I don't wonder the men can't stand it ; I don't wonder it should he found in Africa whilst you have it at home, llemove it from England, and then say to your neighbours : ' Here, follow our example '. (Cheers.) I hope there will be a law that will banish these miserable sights from our town streets and village lanes, that the country will be Christianised in every sense of the word, that God will bless this coni- laittee, and that every one of us will live to see the »i(* 174 /;/ England. p * Ml II f a (lay when the work it is doing will be fully accom- plished." (Cheers.) To say that his speech was well received is saying little. We well remember the duchess sitting right in front the platform gazing in his face, when her face beamed as the Bishop made use of some of those quaint expressions which can never be put upon papei-. In fact, everybody was delighted, not so much with what he said as how he put it. As we have before intimated, one must hear the Bishop to appreciate his peculiar style of oratory. His keen wit, liis biting sarcasm, and apt as well as quaint sayings, impress one with the idea that, if he had been taken when young, he would have been a man whom any nation or age would be proud to call its own. But not even his speech on that occa- sion approached the lecture we heard him deliver, on his ** Escape from Slavery," for humour, pathos, and irony. The people were sometimes on the verge of shedding tears, then convulsed with laughter, now clapping ; then a deadly silence pervaded the whole building as he told the unvarnished tale of slave life. He finished his lecture with his song : ** I'm bound for Canada ". In private Bishop Hawkins is somewhat retiring, but very agreeable ; and when you get him on the track he tells some splendid stories. He is a hearty laugher ; his singing, too, is remarkable for his age. He never fails to impress you with his profound re- ligious feelings, and his implicit confidence in God ; /// England. 175 tliere is no cant about him, for lie tells you straight exactly what he thinks when you press him for his opinion. If he had lived in the reign of Charles I. we think he would have been a Royalist, such is his in- tense reverence for our sovereign. He is always ready to speak about his race, whose future destiny hangs heavily upon him, especially in Africa. " Yes," he once cried from the pulpit, " I would go to Africa to-morrow if the Lord sent me." Bishop Hawkins is a man of average height; and, in spite of his great age, hardly stoops. His face re- minds one of kindness, firmness, and goodness. He has no superfluity of flesh, and never had; indeed, he is all bones and muscles. To look at him one cannot help thinking how such a man could have gone through so much ! But for his manly character he never could have. He never takes a step to do any- thing without thinking over it, and taking his wife into his confidence. No one can spend an hour with him without profit. His anxiety for winning souls for Christ is intense. His theology is as universal as St. Luke. The Chrhiian says: "The Bishop is an emotional preacher, after the type of others of his race. Pathos and humour are unaffected, but form a strong feature of his discourse. His sense of religious exercise allows of heart-searching and soul-moving elements. He tells of an influential and well-to-do minister who, after many years of labour, said : ' I would give all I have if I could recall one occasion on which my " \ m 176 /;/ England. preaching liad caused a tear to flow'. He is privileged to look back upon an experience quite different, having seen men convicted of sin and converted to God as a result of hid work." Bisliop Hawkins has made many friends in Eng- land, and we sincerely hope that the object for which he came will be fully realised. lie has done his race good both in Canada and in England ; and, although we have not long known the grand old saint, we feel, as well as wish, it were in our power to do more than put this sketch of his long and eventful life together. We trust that his sanctity, firnniess, good temper, and patience (which have won laurels for him in his per- severing efforts for the spiritual and moral elevation of his race) will influence the younger generation of the sons of Africa wherever his life is read. - n^i .",!. ' J*U.! i |» eged Lving as a Rng- hich race )Ugll feel, than ilier. and per- >n of tlie