Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/12

4 at this time, a friend on earth to counsel or to care for him. There were then no Sabbath-schools, nor such public provision for the instruction of the poor, as is now found in almost every community. The child of ignorance and poverty, wearing his sable complexion, in a crowded population, was ordinarily passed by with utter neglect, as the beast that peeisheth. It is not known that a solitary lesion of useful instruction was ever given to this African child. After spending ten years in his native place, exposed to all the evils of his wretched parentage, Jacob was shipped on board the schooner Lydia, of Philadelphia, in the West India trade, in the capacity of waiting boy. In this situation, well calculated to perpetuate his ignorance and to confirm him in every vicious propensity, and farther removed than ever from the means of education and moral improvement, he soon became distinguished for every species of wickedness that his circumstances allowed. Being