from the overseer, Huckstep was himself an open infidel as well as blasphemer.  He used to tell the hands that there was no hell hereafter for white people, but that they had their punishment on earth in being obliged to take care of the negroes.  As for the blacks, he was sure there was a hell for them.  He used frequently to sit with his bottle by his side, and a Bible in his hand; and read passages and comment on them, and pronounce them lies.  Any thing like religious feeling among the slaves irritated him.  He said that so much praying and singing prevented the people from doing their tasks, as it kept them up nights, when they should be asleep.  He used to mock, and in every possible way interrupt the poor slaves, who after the toil of the day, knelt in their lowly cabins to offer their prayers and supplications to Him whose ear is open to the sorrowful sighing of the prisoner, and who hath promised in His own time to come down and deliver.  In his drunken seasons he would make excursions at night through the slave-quarters, enter the cabins, and frighten the inmates, especially if engaged in prayer or singing.  On one of these occasions he came back rubbing his hands and laughing.  He said he had found Uncle Solomon in his garden, down on his knees, praying like an old owl, and had tipped him over, and frightened him half out of his wits.  At another time he found Uncle David sitting on his stool with his face thrust up the chimney, in order that his voice might not be heard by his brutal persecutor.  He was praying, giving utterance to these words, probably in reference to his bondage:—­“How long, oh, Lord, how long?” “As long as my whip!” cried the overseer, who had stolen behind him, giving him a blow.  It was the sport of a demon.

Not long after my master had left us, the overseer ascertained for the first time that some of the hands could read, and that they had brought books with them from Virginia.  He compelled them to give up the keys of their chests, and on searching found several Bibles and hymn-books.  Uncle Solomon’s chest contained quite a library, which he could read at night by the light of knots of the pitchpine.  These books he collected together, and in the evening called Uncle Solomon into the house.  After jeering him for some time, he gave him one of the Bibles and told him to name his text and preach him a sermon.  The old man was silent.  He then made him get up on the table, and ordered him to pray.  Uncle Solomon meekly replied, that “forced prayer was not good for soul or body.”  The overseer then knelt down himself, and in a blasphemous manner, prayed that the Lord would send his spirit into Uncle Solomon; or else let the old man fall from the table and break his neck, and so have an end of “nigger preaching.”  On getting up from his knees he went to the cupboard, poured out a glass of brandy for himself, and brought another to the table.  “James,” said he, addressing me, “Uncle Solomon stands there, for all the world, like a Hickory