Not a few of them were men of superior acquirements, who had sacrificed ease and popular applause at home, to minister to the outcast and oppressed.  They are the devoted friends of the black man.  It was soul-cheering to hear them rejoice over the abolition of slavery.  It was as though their own limbs had been of a sudden unshackled, and a high wall had fallen from around them.  Liberty had broken upon them like the bursting forth of the sun to the watchman on his midnight tower.

During the session, the mission-house was thrown open to us, and we frequently dined with the numerous company of missionaries, who there ate at a common table.  Mrs. F., wife of the colored clergyman mentioned above, presided at the social board.  The missionaries and their wives associated with Mr. and Mrs. F. as unreservedly as though they wore the most delicate European tint.  The first time we took supper with them, at one side of a large table, around which were about twenty missionaries with their wives, sat Mrs. F., with the furniture of a tea table before her.  On the other side, with the coffee urn and its accompaniments, sat the wife of a missionary, with a skin as lily-hued as the fairest Caucasian.  Nearly opposite to her, between two white preachers, sat a colored missionary.  Farther down, with the chairman of the district on his right, sat another colored gentleman, a merchant and local preacher in Antigua.  Such was the uniform appearance of the table, excepting that the numbers were occasionally swelled by the addition of several other colored gentlemen and ladies.  On another occasion, at dinner, we had an interesting conversation, in which the whole company of missionaries participated.  The Rev. M. Banks, of St. Bartholomews, remarked, that one of the grossest of all absurdities was that of preparing men for freedom.  Some, said he, pretend that immediate emancipation is unsafe, but it was evident to him that if men are peaceable while they are slaves, they might be trusted in any other condition, for they could not possibly be placed in one more aggravating.  If slavery is a safe system, freedom surely will be.  There can be no better evidence that a people are prepared for liberty, than their patient endurance of slavery.  He expressed the greatest regret at the conduct of the American churches, particularly that of the Methodist church.  “Tell them,” said he, “on your return, that the missionaries in these islands are cast down and grieved when they think of their brethren in America.  We feel persuaded that they are holding back the car of freedom; they are holding up the gospel.”  Rev. Mr. Cheesbrough, of St. Christopher’s, said, “Tell them that much as we desire to visit the United States, we cannot go so long as we are prohibited from speaking against slavery, or while that abominable prejudice is encouraged in the churches. We could not administer the sacrament to a church in which the distinction