A majority of the slaves in the Southern States are professedly pious; the free negroes more rarely so.  A majority of the slaves appear to be honest; a majority of the free blacks are petty thieves, drunkards, liars and gamblers.  I have frequently known slaves set at liberty on account of their piety and other good qualities, and within a few years most of them would undergo a change for the worse—­frequently, in fact, become vicious in the extreme.  One instance I will here record.  A gentleman in Western Virginia, by name Carter, held a slave, Absalom by name.  Absalom became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  He began praying in public a short time after his admission into the church.  Soon he was licensed to exhort, next to preach.  All this occurred, I believe, within less than eighteen mouths.  He was powerful in prayer, and eloquent in exhortation.  No one doubted his piety.  He was prospectively liberated by a will.  Carter, however, told him verbally, about this time, that he had made provisions in his will for his liberation, and that henceforth he could go where he chose, and do as he pleased.  That he was a free man.  What was the consequence?  It was not long before a young lady belonging to a respectable family, was delivered of a mulatto child.  On being questioned as to the child’s paternity, she stated that it was parson Absalom’s.  Those interested, immediately called on him, and he frankly confessed that he was the father of the child.  Poor Absalom, he was promoted by the church, set at liberty by his master; caressed and eulogized by the white brethren—­it was too much for him—­he could not bear it—­until finally, he was “lifted up with pride,” and “fell into the condemnation of the devil.”  Then might the church mourn, “O Absalom, my son! how art thou fallen.”  This is not an isolated case; many similar ones fell under my observation, but I cannot stop here to record them.  In the city of Knoxville, East Tennessee, where I last resided while in the South; there were several hundred free negroes, and I could readily distinguish a free negro from a slave when I met him in the street.  The slaves, to use Southern parlance, looked fat, saucy, happy and contented, while the free blacks, with a few exceptions, had a miserable and dejected appearance.  When slaves are liberated in the South they immediately become stupid, indolent and improvident, though they were previous to their liberation, industrious and economical.  If previous to their liberation they were pious, they frequently become vicious; if temperate while slaves, they often become drunkards, after they obtain their freedom; if honest, thieves; if truthful, liars.  There are exceptions, I admit, and they are but few exceptions.  These are undeniable facts—­melancholy truths—­would to God that it had fallen to the lot of some one else to record them.