Thus, when the Rev. Charles C. Jones of Savannah used to address the slaves on their condition, he proclaimed the beauty of obedience in a way to bring tears to their eyes.  And this, he frankly assures the masters, is the way to check insurrection and advance their own “pecuniary interests.”  He says of the slave, that under proper religious instruction “his conscience is enlightened and his soul is awed;... to God he commits the ordering of his lot, and in his station renders to all their dues, obedience to whom obedience, and honor to whom honor. He dares not wrest from God his own care and protection. While he sees a preference in the various conditions of men, he remembers the words of the apostle:  ’Art thou called being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be free, use it rather.  For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman:  likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.’"[1]

I must say that the Rev. Mr. Jones’s preaching seems to me precisely as
good as Dr.------’s, and that a sensible woman ought to be as much
influenced by the one as was Frederick Douglass by the other—­that is, not
at all.  Let the preacher try “subordination” himself, and see how he likes
it.  The beauty of service, such as Jesus praised, lay in the willingness of
the service:  a service that is serfdom loses all beauty, whether rendered
by man or by woman.  My objection to separate schools and colleges for women
is that they are too apt to end in such instructions as this.

[Footnote 1:  Religious Instruction of the Negroes. Savannah, 1842, pp. 208-211.]

CELERY AND CHERUBS

There was once a real or imaginary old lady who had got the metaphor of Scylla and Charybdis a little confused.  Wishing to describe a perplexing situation, this lady said,—­

“You see, my dear, she was between Celery on one side and Cherubs on the other!  You know about Celery and Cherubs, don’t you?  They was two rocks somewhere; and if you didn’t hit one, you was pretty sure to run smack on the other.”

This describes, as a clever writer in the New York “Tribune” declares, the present condition of women who “agitate.”  Their Celery and Cherubs are tears and temper.  It is a good hit, and we may well make a note of it.  It is the danger of all reformers, that they will vibrate between discouragement and anger.  When things go wrong, what is it one’s impulse to do?  To be cast down, or to be stirred up; to wring one’s hands, or clench one’s fists,—­in short, tears or temper.

“Mother,” said a resolute little girl of my acquaintance, “if the dinner was all spoiled, I wouldn’t sit down, and cry!  I’d say, ‘Hang it!’” This cherub preferred the alternative of temper, on days when the celery turned out badly.  Probably her mother was addicted to the other practice, and exhibited the tears.