Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/402

 a mere fanciful caprice, to refuse this gratification to him, and provision for herself?

Finding that she was a Methodist, he even promised to call in a minister of that persuasion to consecrate their union, if she had scruples on that score; and he strongly advised her to ask the counsel of the one at whose chapel she usually attended.

Though the Methodists hold that a marriage between two slaves, celebrated by one of their ministers, is, in the eye of God, every way complete and binding on the parties, — who, according to Methodist ideas, have souls to be saved as well as white people, — yet, notwithstanding the famous text, "Whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder," they have been obliged, in the slave states of America, to concede the supremacy of man; and to admit that parties separated by the command of a master, or the operation of the slave trade, may rightly enough marry again, even though they know their former partners to be living. They excuse this by saying, that they do it of necessity; since the people, having little taste for celibacy, will form new connections; and they may as well sanction what they cannot help; the same excuse which they give for allowing their church members to hold slaves, — the pious brethren will do it whether or no; — a policy, in both cases, seeming to look rather to the numbers than to the purity of the church, and perhaps partaking something more of the wisdom of the serpent than of the harmlessness of the dove. But upon this high point of ecclesiastical policy I shall not venture to express a decided opinion.

The Methodist clergyman, whom Cassy consulted on this occasion, strongly urged her to accept of Mr Curtis's offers, which he assured her she might do — considering all the circumstances of the case — with a perfectly safe conscience, especially if he was called in to consecrate this new connection, which would thus become a perfect marriage in the eye of Heaven, however human laws might not so regard it.