"But was
she not fiendish, or beside herself with passion?" No, she
was most tender and affectionate, and all her passion was
that of a _mother's fondest love_. I reasoned with her, said
the preacher; tried to awaken a sense of guilt, and lead her
to repentance and to Christ. But there was no remorse, no
desire of pardon, no reception of Christ or his religion. To
her it was a religion of _slavery_, more cruel than death.
And where had she lived? where thus taught? Not down among
the rice swamps of Georgia, or on the banks of Red River. No,
but within sixteen miles of the Queen City of the West! In a
nominally Christian family--whose master was most liberal in
support of the Gospel, and whose mistress was a communicant
at the Lord's table, and a professed follower of Christ!
Here, in this family, where slavery is found in its mildest
form, she had been kept in ignorance of God's will and word,
and learned to know that the mildest form of American
slavery, at this day of Christian civilization and Democratic
liberty, was worse than death itself! She had learned by an
experience of many years, that it was so bad she had rather
take the life of her own dearest child, without the hope of
Heaven for herself, than that _it_ should experience its
unutterable agonies, which were to be found even in a
Christian family! But here are her two little boys, of eight
and ten years of age.
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