I pitied the poor rich man, and the system of religion and society that had turned such a creature of holy possibilities into a demon; and I prayed all the more earnestly for the abolition of the devil of drink, and that it might speedily follow to eternal destruction its kindred demon already slain.
What wonderful blessings has Abolition brought to all those who were held, like this rich victim, fast in more slavish chains! Our white brethren will rejoice as much over the liberty it has given them and their sons as in that which it has given their darker brothers. It has made such characters as this impossible. Men may drink yet, and curse Christ and his Church, but they can not be developed into such frightful specimens of diseased humanity.
He made me think of a like character I met on the road from Suez to Cairo. He was a genteel, well-dressed Turkish merchant, with his nice silk jacket "all buttoned down before" and behind, and tasteful silk breeches. He was bringing some Nubian boys to the Cairene market. He kept tormenting the poor lads by touching their arms, cheeks, and legs, anywhere, with the burning end of his cigar. He laughed at their silent cringes, and looked at us as if expecting reciprocal smiles. Had we known his language, we would have cursed him to his face. If such were his jokes, what must have been his treatment of them when roused to madness, as he undoubtedly often was! He was very devout withal, and at the sunset station was first from the cars, and on the wilderness gravel, in sight of all, was making his prostrations and muttering his prayers.
It is this frightful exception that proves the rule, an exception not so infrequent as it ought to have been, as the Rev. Mr. Bleby shows in his late most interesting book, entitled "Romance without Fiction; or, Sketches from the Port-folio of an Old Missionary," in which he gives thrilling illustrations of hardnesses of heart and cruelties of conduct in the English West Indies, and by English gentlemen, and clergymen even, that are harrowing after almost a century has passed since their enactment. All our Sunday-schools, North and South, should read this vivid record of modern martyr-
