we forget that it may soon be overspread with darkness.  When this African awoke, he found his hands bound behind him, his feet fettered, and himself surrounded by several white men, who were conveying him on board of their ship;—­it was a slave-ship.  The vessel had her cargo completed, and was ready to sail.  As they were unfurling the sails, the son of Africa, with many others of his countrymen, for the last time cast his eyes upon his native shores.  Futurity was dark,—­was uncertain,—­was despair.  His bosom thrilled with anguish, as he threw his last farewell look over the plains of his native country.  There was his native spot where his had lived, there the home of his infancy and childhood, there the place where he had inhaled his earliest breath—­and to tear him from these, seemed like breaking the very strings of his heart.

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After a melancholy passage, during which the African was forced to wear double the irons to receive double the number of lashes, that any of his companions received, on account of his refractory spirit, he was at length landed and sold to a planter in the place where he now resides.  There is nothing new, nothing novel or interesting, that ever takes place in the life of a slave—­describe one day, and you write the history of a slave.  The sun, indeed, continues to roll over him; but it sheds upon him no new joys, no new prospects, no new hopes.  So it was with the subject of this narrative.  His master was naturally a man of a very humane disposition; but his overseers were often little else than compounds of vice and cruelty.  In this situation the negro lost all his natural independence and bravery.  He often attempted to run away, but was as often taken and punished.  Having no cultivated mind to which he could look for consolation—­knowing of no change that was ever to take place in his situation,—­he settled down in gloominess.  Often would he send a silent sigh for the home of his youth; but his path shewed but few marks of happiness, and few rays of hope for futurity were drawn by fancy’s hand.  Sunk in despondency and vice, he was little above the brutes around him.

In this situation he was accidentally met by the good minister of the parish, who addressed him as a rational and immortal being, and pressed upon him the first principles of religion.  This was a new subject; for he had never before looked beyond the narrow bounds before him, nor had he ever dreamed of a world beyond this.  After a long conversation on this subject, the minister made him promise that he would now “attend to his soul.”

The clergyman could not, for many months after this, obtain an interview with his new pupil, who most carefully shunned him.  But though afraid to meet his minister, he still felt an arrow of conviction in his heart.  Wherever he went, whether asleep or awake, to use his own words, his promise, “me take care of soul, stick close to him,” He now began in earnest to seek “the one thing needful”.  By the kindness of his master he learned to read his Testament, and to inquire more about Jesus.  He was now very desirous to see his minister; and before a convenient opportunity occurred, he was in such distress of mind as actually to attempt two several times to kill himself.  His minister visited him, conversed and prayed with him.