I looked at the
reckless speaker. He was lying on the floor, with his hat and shoes off,
and his rifle beside him. His face was ghastly, but, I verily believe,
more from the effects of sea-sickness than fear. He begged me, in feeble
tones, to get him some brandy; but I could not find anybody to give it to
him, and went down with the water.
The two slaves were as frightened as people almost stupified by sickness
could be; but when I asked one of the freed negresses if she were alarmed,
she said, "Me no fear; if me die, me go to Jesus Christ; if me live, me
serve him here - better to die!"
It has been said that "poverty, sickness, all the ills of life, are
Paradise to what we fear of death" - that "it is not that life is sweet,
but that death is bitter." Here the poet and the philosopher might have
learned a lesson. This poor, untutored negress probably knew nothing more
"than her Bible true;" but she had that knowledge of a future state which
reason, unassisted by the light of revelation, could never have learned;
she knew yet more - she knew God as revealed in Christ, and in that
knowledge, under its highest and truest name of Faith, she feared not
the summons which would call her into the presence of the Judge of all.
The infidel may hug his heartless creed, which, by ignoring alike futurity
and the Divine government, makes an aimless chaos of the past, and a
gloomy obscurity of the future; but, in the "hour of death and in the day
of judgment," the boldest atheist in existence would thankfully exchange
his failing theories for the poor African's simple creed.
Providence, which has not endowed the negro with intellectual powers of
the highest order, has given him an amount of heart and enthusiasm to
which we are strangers. He is warm and ardent in his attachments, fierce
in his resentfulness, terrible in his revenge. The black troops of our
West Indian colonies, when let loose, fight with more fury and
bloodthirstiness than those of any white race. This temperament is carried
into religion, and nowhere on earth does our Lord find a more loving and
zealous disciple than in the converted and Christianized negro. It is
indeed true that, in America only, more than three million free-born
Africans wear the chains of servitude; but it is no less true that in many
instances the Gospel has penetrated the shades of their Egyptian darkness,
giving them
"A clear escape from tyrannizing lust,
A full immunity from penal woe,"
Many persons who have crossed the Atlantic without annoyance are
discomposed by the short chopping surges of these inland seas, and the
poor negresses suffered dreadfully from sea-sickness.
As the stewardess was upstairs, and too ill herself to attend upon any
one, I did what I could for them, getting them pillows, camphor, &c., only
too happy that I was in a condition to be useful.
