laws and great cardinal principles, which regulate his conduct as a husband, father and guardian, should regulate his conduct as a master.  He has a right to control every member of his family; it is a Divine right, conferred on him for the good of the whole; but in the exercise of this delegated authority, meekness, patience and forbearance should characterize every act of his life; and in his intercourse with every member of his family, white or black, his countenance in their presence, should be as the revivifying influence of the sun on the down-trodden vegetation of the earth, infusing hope, life and animation into all around him; and his words, yea, his commands, should descend as the gentle and genial showers on a parched and thirsty soil, and not in torrents of wrath, anger and indignation.  Anger, clamor and strife should be banished from his household.  His commands should be mild but firm; and unconditional submission and prompt obedience should be strictly enjoined on his children, dependants and slaves.  Beloved by all, he would then move in the midst of his family with that dignity and grace which becometh the true Christian gentleman.  Beloved, respected and venerated by every member of his family, he would find it no difficult task to enforce obedience, and thus to govern them according to the requisitions of God’s word.

Masters, I conceive, by pursuing the course indicated in the preceding pages, would discharge their duty to their slaves, and stand guiltless in the sight of God.  The condition of the slaves would be ameliorated; their minds expanded and their manners improved; and thus, at some future period, if in the providence of God it should be their happy lot to attain the rights of freemen, then would they be qualified to appreciate the blessings of freedom, and not sink again into their original barbarism.  Thus would they, as freemen, be competent to exercise the rights and privileges of free citizens; and, while rising in the scale of nations, they would point to our government as their great benefactor, who raised them from the lowest depths of savage barbarism and brutality, and conferred on them light, liberty and science, and inducted them into the doctrines of the Christian religion.  Then would they view our nation as their great donor, from whom they received light, science and religion, and not as their oppressor.

It is incumbent on me to state, in conclusion, that the clergy of the slave States have done all that was practicable, under the circumstances, to confer on the slaves the benefits and advantages of religious instruction.  I doubt whether the poorer class of people, white or black, have had superior religious advantages in any part of Christendom, at least so far as it relates to the preaching of the gospel, and the ordinances of the church.  The clergy of the different denominations have been untiring in their efforts to Christianize the African population.  And it is a little remarkable that, in many instances,