In the evening, I had a visit from Mr. C——­ and Mr. B——­, who officiates to-morrow at our small island church.  The conversation I had with these gentlemen was sad enough.  They seem good and kind and amiable men, and I have no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of slaveholders; but to one who has lived outside this dreadful atmosphere, the whole tone of their discourse has a morally muffled sound, which one must hear to be able to conceive.  Mr. B——­ told me that the people on this plantation not going to church was the result of a positive order from Mr. K——­, who had peremptorily forbidden their doing so, and of course to have infringed that order would have been to incur severe corporal chastisement.  Bishop B——­, it seems, had advised that there should be periodical preaching on the plantations, which, said Mr. B——­, would have obviated any necessity for the people of different estates congregating at any given point at stated times, which might perhaps be objectionable, and at the same time would meet the reproach which was now beginning to be directed towards the southern planters as a class, of neglecting the eternal interest of their dependents.  But Mr. K——­ had equally objected to this.  He seems to have held religious teaching a mighty dangerous thing—­and how right he was!  I have met with conventional cowardice of various shades and shapes in various societies that I have lived in; but anything like the pervading timidity of tone which I find here on all subjects, but above all on that of the condition of the slaves, I have never dreamed of.  Truly slavery begets slavery, and the perpetual state of suspicion and apprehension of the slaveholders is a very handsome offset, to say the least of it, against the fetters and the lash of the slaves.  Poor people, one and all, but especially poor oppressors of the oppressed!  The attitude of these men is really pitiable; they profess (perhaps some of them strive to do so indeed) to consult the best interests of their slaves, and yet shrink back terrified from the approach of the slightest intellectual or moral improvement which might modify their degraded and miserable existence.  I do pity these deplorable servants of two masters more than any human beings I have ever seen—­more than their own slaves a thousand times!

To-day is Sunday, and I have been to the little church on the island.  It is the second time since I came down to the south that I have been to a place of worship.  A curious little incident prefaced my going thither this morning.  I had desired Israel to get my horse ready and himself to accompany me, as I meant to ride to church; and you cannot imagine anything droller than his horror and dismay when he at length comprehended that my purpose was to attend divine service in my riding habit.  I asked him what was the trouble, for though I saw something was creating a dreadful convulsion in his mind, I had no idea what it was till he told me, adding, that