Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/10

8 I will soon write an account of the lowest classes of negroes in Philadelphia, where I have taken some pains to ascertain the facts. I understand that they are even worse off in New York, where the white foreigners are so numerous, that they monopolize all the work, and push the black man not only out of all mechanical trades, hut even out of the most menial labors. And then, the hatred of races is so prominent there, that I heard of an old black preacher, who, in one of his sermons, while detailing to a white congregation their numerous grievances in the city of New York, asserted, "That he, old as he was, had to walk three miles to church, to preach, because the white people would not allow a negro to ride in the omnibuses." In the South, a black man can ride alongside of his master, and he will converse kindly all day with his slave, because he has no fear that he will presume to equality with him; but in the North, gentlemen are forced to keep these people at an awful distance, to prevent their ignorant and impertinent assumptions. My heart burns with indignant feeling when I see that the poor foolish negro is seduced from his master, and brought to our Northern cities, or smuggled into Canada, where he is alike despised and deserted, and left to famish, or exist in a place so small and filthy that our cows could not survive a winter in them. I have obtained a statistical pamphlet, printed by highly respectable gentlemen in Philadelphia, that reveals the hopeless desolation, and the agonizing sufferings, of the miserable, degraded classes of negroes in that city. Poor slave! you once had a master, whose interest and whose humanity protected you, and supplied your every want; who kept you from idleness and drunkenness, and from the indulgence of crime and fiendish passions; but, like a wayward child, you have fled from your best, your most sympathizing friend, and sought refuge from salutary restraints among the Pharisaical abolitionists, who should be classed with those men whom the Saviour addressed "as compassing sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves." The abolitionist urges the slave to kill his master, who comes to Pennsylvania, to recall him home. Does such advice belong to the spirit of Christ, or the spirit of the devil? Is any such counsel to be found in the word of God? which commands "servants to be obedient to them that are your own masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ." "Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God, from the heart." "With good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not