“When the Ladies’ Benevolent Society in Charleston, S.C., of which I was a visiting commissioner, first went into operation, we were applied to for the relief of several sick and aged colored persons; one case I particularly remember, of an aged woman who was dreadfully burnt from having fallen into the fire; she was living with some free blacks who had taken her in out of compassion.  On inquiry, we found that nearly all the colored persons who had solicited aid, were slaves, who being no longer able to work for their “owners,” were thus inhumanly cast out in their sickness and old age, and must have perished, but for the kindness of their friends.

“I was once visiting a sick slave in whose spiritual welfare peculiar circumstances had led me to be deeply interested.  I knew that she had been early seduced from the path of virtue, as nearly all the female slaves are.  I knew also that her mistress, though a professor of religion, had never taught her a single precept of Christianity, yet that she had had her severely punished for this departure from them, and that the poor girl was then ill of an incurable disease, occasioned partly by her own misconduct, and partly by the cruel treatment she had received, in a situation that called for tenderness and care.  Her heart seemed truly touched with repentance for her sins, and she was inquiring, “What shall I do to be saved?” I was sitting by her as she lay on the floor upon a blanket, and was trying to establish her trembling spirit in the fullness of Jesus, when I heard the voice of her mistress in loud and angry tones, as she approached the door.  I read in the countenance of the prostrate sufferer, the terror which she felt at the prospect of seeing her mistress.  I knew my presence would be very unwelcome, but staid hoping that it might restrain, in some measure, the passions of the mistress.  In this, however, I was mistaken; she passed me without apparently observing that I was there, and seated herself on the other side of the sick slave.  She made no inquiry how she was, but in a tone of anger commenced a tirade of abuse, violently reproaching her with her past misconduct, and telling her in the most unfeeling manner, that eternal destruction awaited her.  No word of kindness escaped her.  What had then roused her temper I do not know.  She continued in this strain several minutes, when I attempted to soften her by remarking, that ------ was very ill, and she ought not thus to torment her, and that I believed Jesus had granted her forgiveness.  But I might as well have tried to stop the tempest in its career, as to calm the infuriated passions nurtured by the exercise of arbitrary power.  She looked at me with ineffable scorn, and continued to pour forth a torrent of abuse and reproach.  Her helpless victim listened in terrified silence, until nature could endure no more, when she uttered a wild shriek, and casting on her tormentor a look of unutterable agony, exclaimed, “Oh, mistress, I am dying.”  This appeal arrested her attention, and she soon left the room, but in the same spirit with which she entered it.  The girl survived but a few days, and, I believe, saw her mistress no more”