the Lord. The presence of a white man is indeed required by law at all the religious meetings of the negroes; but it is not for the purpose of taking part in their prayers.[1]
More than this, it is only by putting names for things that the American Master and Slave can be said to be of the same religion. In some States the Master, for the better security of what is now called a divine institution, forbids the slave by law to be taught to read: so that the Bible is legally closed to him.[2] And even in the States where this legal prohibition does not exist, the state of public opinion and the almost total want of schools seem effectually to prevent the education of the great mass of the slaves.[3] And altogether, from their mode of life, and the debasing treatment to which they are subjected, their minds are too degraded to worship God in spirit and truth like those to whom a Christian education has been given. The result is that the worship of the negro in America is little more spiritual or rational than his worship in Africa. He still dances, and shouts to a fetish, though that fetish bears the name of the Christian’s God.
Mr. Olmsted says, “In most of the large rice plantations which I have seen in this vicinity (South Caro-
- ↑ See Olmsted, Journeys and Explorations, vol. i., p. 45.
- ↑ In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or sell or give him any book (Bible not excepted) or pamphlet, is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or imprisonment, if the offender be a free negro; but if a white, then with a fine of 200 dollars. The reason for this law, assigned in its preamble, is, “that teaching slaves to read and write tends to dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion.”—Goodell’s American Slave Code, p. 299.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 301.
