After the death of my friend Teito, I lay unobserved in a corner of his hut for a considerable time, till a young black slave carried me off to a distant plantation, and exhibited me among his companions as a great curiosity. Many of the slaves who had been but lately imported from the coast of Guinea, supposed that I had grown like a tree from the ground, and could not conjecture what use I was for. However, a female slave, named Susanna, who had in her younger years been taught to read while under a kind mistress, said she could make me speak-accordingly I was handed to her, when I at the first opening said,-Unto you, O men, do I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. In a little while after, I repeated to them the whole of the second chapter of the Ephesians. None of them could comprehend what I

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meant by being dead in sins; or by the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience: nor what I meant by children of wrath, or by God who is rich in mercy, or by being saved by grace. Of these things they had never heard before. If a christian from England had overheard their ignorant suppositions respecting my meaning, he would have recollected the Ethiopian's answer to Philip, when he asked him, understandest thou what thou readest? (viz. in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah.) His answer was honest and striking-How can I, except some man should guide (or teach) me? These poor slaves knew no more about God than what they collected from the wicked oaths of white people.

Their conversation on these matters made them forget the proper time when they should have begun work; of course the overseer came upon them in a rage, and whipped them to their respective employments, who, finding that I was the cause of their detention, declared I should no more be a snare to his slaves; wherefore I was put under lock and key in his house. The slaves were sorry at being deprived of my company, but they had only themselves to blame, for attending to me when they ought to have been engaged in their master's work. Persecution for imprudence or indiscretion is not persecution for righteousness sake. I teach my friends to do all things in order, lest they should bring reproach on the good cause; not to be in their closets when they ought to be at work, nor at work when they ought to be in their closets.

I was soon after condemned to be sent off the island, which sentence was put in execution in a few weeks; for a vessel, on its way to South America, happened to call at one of the ports in the neighbourhood, to the mate of which I was committed for transportation. In a few weeks the vessel arrived at its destined harbour,

and I was soon exchanged for a few dead birds of a beautiful plumage, which the mate intended to carry home as curiosities. My purchaser soon perceived that I had some sentences very different from the assertions of some of my brethren. For example, when I said, one day, that Jacob worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff: That's false, said he; for our priest told me top of his staff. At

that father Jacob worshipped the another time, when I said-Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing in heaven or in earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; he was very angry, and almost threw me into the fire; for, said he, our priests insist more on our worshipping images of the virgin Mary and other saints, than on worshipping God or his Son Jesus Christ. He then demanded my sentiments about purgatory, but on this subject he could not get me to say a word. On this he concluded I was some spurious character, and resolved to part with me the first opportunity that offered.

This country, since its original conquest by the Spaniards, has ever been the seat of the greatest ignorance and grossest superstition. Indeed, God seems evidently to have given up the people to strong delusions to believe a lie. The first settlers were all plunderers, and their successors have generally gone out from their mother country only in search of wealth. This, no doubt, many of them have acquired, but have lived and died ignorant of the true riches; forgetting that it shall profit a man nothing, though he should gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul. But surely the time is coming, when this extensive country shall be filled with the knowledge of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.

My possessor watched the opportunity of some North American vessel calling at their port, that he might dispose of me to some person on board her. For nearly six months, I lay waiting for this opportunity, and was hardly permitted to speak one word during the whole of the time. Two or three times, I was suspended by the corner of my coat, and viewed in the most disdainful manner by some one or another, who, saying I was heretically inclined, would throw me with vengeance against the wall. Immediately after one of these occasions, I happened to say-Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish! which made them serious for a minute, but a person present assured them that this was an old cant phrase of mine, and need not be attended to.

A North American vessel did arrive, but they forgot me till she was actually sailing out of harbour. However, the son of my proprietor, remembering me, ran home, snatched me up, went in great haste to the extreme point of the pier, just in time to catch the vessel as she passed, into which he threw me with such violence that all on board wondered I had not been beat to pieces. Now I was placed much in the same situation I had been in some years before, sometimes in a hammock, and sometimes in a chest, according to the fancy of the captain; only on the sabbath I was always liberated, and allowed to lie during the forenoon on the cabin table. Indeed my lying in this posture for a few hours, and those on board dressing a little better, was all that distinguished the sabbath from any other day. All, however, who profess to believe in God, are bound to keep holy that day which he hath set apart for himself, whether it be the one anciently appointed in commemoration of God's finishing creation, or that now kept to commemorate his Son's finishing redemption.