Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/366

Rh “Are you a Christian?” inquired I from a young handsome Mulatto woman who waited on me here.

“No Missis, I am not.”

“Have you not been baptised? Have you not been taught about Christ?”

“Yes, Missis, I have a god-mother, a negro-woman, who was very religious, and who instructed me.”

“Do you not believe what she told you about Christ?”

“Yes, Missis; but I don't feel it here, Missis,” and she laid her hand on her breast.

“Where were you brought up?”

“A long way from here, up the Missouri, Missis; a long way off!”

“Were your owners good to you?”

“Yes, Missis; they never gave me a bad word.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes, Missis, but my husband is a long way off with his master.”

“Have you any children.”

“I have had six, Missis; but have not a single one left. Three are dead, and they have sold the other three away from me. When they took from me the last little girl. Oh, I believed I never should have got over it! It almost broke my heart!”

And they were so-called Christians who did that! It was not wonderful that she, the negro slave, had a difficulty in feeling Christianity, that she could not feel herself a Christian. What a life! Bereaved of husband, children, of all that she had, without any prospect of an independent existence; possessed of nothing on the face of the earth; condemned to toil, toil, toil, without hope of reward or day of rest! Why should it be strange if she became stupid or indifferent, nay, even hostile, and bitter in her feelings towards those in whose power she is, they who call themselves her protectors, and yet who