It appears from the above named States, that in 1845, about one-fortieth of the entire population in the free States were colored persons; and yet about one-fourth of the convicts were free negroes; but notwithstanding that the colored and the white population are very nearly balanced in the slave States, I do not suppose that one in a hundred of the convicts are negroes!  But there is another fact with regard to free negroes North, that is still more remarkable!  Few, comparatively, very few, are members of any branch of the church—­probably not one in twenty of the entire adult population.  But, on the contrary, in the slave States, I think it probable that at least three-fourths of the entire adult slave population are church members; and I presume, that near one-half of the African professors of the Christian religion, in the slave States, are attached to the Methodist Episcopal Church South; and strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that in the very hot-bed of abolitionism, viz., in the extensive territory of New England, Providence, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire Conferences, there was not a solitary free negro in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church!  Is not this a remarkable fact?  Here, we have a territory of vast extent; embracing something more than a half dozen states, and containing within its limits multiplied thousands of free negroes; and not one!  No! not a solitary free negro is found in the bosom of the Methodist Episcopal Church!  Many of them left pious and humane masters in the South, and were withal pious themselves when they left their masters; or, otherwise, they were stolen from good men in the South by pseudo Christians of the North, and taken to that free and happy land! the land of their dear friends, and consigned to poverty, vice, degradation and the devil!!!

What does all this mean?  How does it happen that the free blacks of the North are so little benefitted by the Christian ministry—­particularly in those sections where a large portion of the ministers belong to the abolition faction?  How does it happen that the African population are so little benefitted or influenced by them?  Is it true, that the negroes have discernment enough to see, that their wordy benefactors have done nothing for either their souls or their bodies—­that conscience and religious principle have but little to do with all this slavery agitation?  It must be so!  Hence, we can understand why it is, that the African population have more confidence in a slaveholding ministry in the South, than they have in an abolition ministry in the North.