opinion against slavery was to disfellowship slaveholders. And this course was far less objectionable than that of trying to withdraw from political relations. The latter have given the opportunity of emancipation, while the only way in which the churches could exert any authority was through The religious relations with slavery were, of course, the only ones which ought to have been discussed in Great Britain, where there were no political ones, except those necessary for the world's peace. excommunication. Decidedly too much, however, was said in favor of disunionism by Henry C. Wright, in southern Scotland, early in 1846; and Buffum, who went through the North and West with Douglass, used to repeat so often a story about the hatred which he was able to call out in Scotland against the Declaration of Independence, that I am not altogether sorry to hear it said that his roguish companion once cut him out, by going over all his points before he could repeat them. At all events, Douglass himself kept true to the real issue, as may be judged from a speech made on February 10, at Arbroath, where he was charged with being in the pay of some rival sect. "So far," he says, "as the charge is brought against me, I pronounce it an unblushing falsehood." . . . "I am not here alone, I have with me the learned, wise and reverend heads of the church. But with or without their sanction, I should stand just where I do now, maintaining to the last that man-stealing is incompatible with Christianity; that slave-holding and true religion are at war with each other, and that a Free Church should have no fellowship with a slave church.” . . . "The Free Church in vindicating their fellowship of slave-holders, have acted upon the damning heresy, that a man may be a Christian, whatever may be his practice, so his creed is right. So he pays tithes of mint, anise and cummin, he may be a Christian, though he totally neglect judgment and mercy. It is this heresy that now holds in chains three million of men, women and children in the United States. The slave-holder's conscience is put at ease by those ministers and churches." In this town the indignation was so great that people who came, one Sunday morning to worship in the Free Church, found that its walls had been decorated during the night with these words, painted in black letters, and not to be effaced, "The Slave's Blood," while around were red spots to represent gore. Other churches bore in bloody characters, 66 Send back the Slave Money." Posters were put on all the walls, wherever he spoke, and even on the pavements, repeating the words, "Send back the Money." In fact the war-cry got so familiar to him that he cut it in the turf, when he visited Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh; and he still remembers a song, with a chorus running somewhat thus: 66 'Where gat ye the bawbies, Tammy? I dinna think they're canny," etc. He was soon able to report that "Old Scotland boils like a pot." One of the best meetings was that in Glasgow, on April 21, when he complained that "Not only did the Free Church Deputation not preach the Gospel, or say a word in behalf of the slave, but they took care to preach such doctrines as would be palatable, as would be agreeably received, and as would bring them the slave-holder's money." Mr. George Thompson, a member of Parliament, whose presence in Boston had done much to excite the mob in 1835, and whose eloquence was still terrible, made that night a very effective speech, in which he exclaimed, "Oh, that a thousand pounds should out-weigh the chains of three million slaves!" He also brought up the fact that one of the clergymen who was now foremost in holding fast the price of blood, Dr. Cunningham, had formerly, at his suggestion, reprinted a little book called "A Picture of American Slavery," and put upon the title-page these lines: "Is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, A few days before these speeches were delivered, Douglass wrote a letter to the "Tribune," which was printed not only there, but in the "Liberator," and which contains these words: "I am called by way of reproach, a runaway slave, as if it were a crime, an unpardonable crime, for a man to take his inalienable rights." He also mentions having been denounced by the "New York Express," as "a glib-tongued scoundrel," and says he is used to such epithets; and their force is lost on him; for he was reared where they were in the most common use. 'They form a large and very important portion of the vocabulary of characters known in the South as 'plantation negro drivers.' A slave-holding gentleman would scorn to use them." The friends of slavery had been so unwilling to see any truth in the "Narrative," that its author was glad to have it substantially confirmed by an unfriendly witness. A Southerner, named Thompson, who had known him at St. Michael's, published, early in 1846, a letter which is reprinted in the "Liberator," page 29. He had evidently done his best to collect testimony; but it touched only two points in the statements of Douglass, namely that Thomas Auld had given him "a number of severe whippings," and had kept his slaves on very short allowance. In a letter quoted by Thompson, Auld says, "I can put my hand upon my Bible, and with a clear conscience swear, that I never struck him in my life, nor caused any person else to do it. I never allowanced one of my slaves." His neighbors speak of him as a kind. master, who "has invariably emancipated his slaves, when they arrived at the age of twenty-five." He complains that Douglass does not mention, in the "Narrative," that this promise had been made him. A neighbor, who had boarded with him, says, "I speak from personal knowledge when I say that Fred and all his servants were treated well. Indeed, I never knew him to strike, much less abuse them. I knew Fred well; we were boys together in the same family." It is certainly in Auld's favor, that he had not sold his slave to the Georgia traders, when he first tried to escape, but sent him to learn a trade in Baltimore; that he never pursued him at the North; and that he felt so much aggrieved, on account of having been misrepresented that he forbade his sonin-law to talk with him, in 1859. They did, however, have a long conversation, in which the young man insisted, that Auld was really kind-hearted and a good master. "I replied," says Douglass, "that there must be two sides to the relation of master and slave, and what seemed kind and just to the one was the opposite to the other." On Auld's death-bed, in 1878, he was reconciled to Douglass, who admitted that he had been mistaken in charging him, in a letter written to him in England, and published in "Bondage and Freedom," with turning out his grandmother to perish as an outcast, whereas he had saved her from this fate. Mr. D. added that "I regard both of us as victims of a system." ("Life and Times,” pp. 437 and 491.) Each of the two later autobiographies speaks more favorably than the earliest of Captain Auld; but the statements to which he objected are repeated; and the author declared, in 1846, that he had nothing to take back. It seems to me plain, that he did suffer hunger, though perhaps not from any fault of his master; and that he was punished for stealing food; as his statements on these points are not only too minute, but too much against himself, to be rejected. He also published, at this time a circumstantial statement, that Thomas Auld once beat him with a coach whip until he was weary, and in the presence of a white man whom he names, because a carriage lamp had been lost through no fault of the victim. The "Liberator" was soon able to publish a letter from a man who knew the country where Douglass was a slave. "I am fully prepared," he says, “to bear a decided testimony to the truth of all his assertions with regard to the discipline upon the plantations of Maryland, as well as his descriptions of cruelty and murder." It is to be particularly noticed that Thompson, the American, makes no attempt to |