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He then inquired if there was any system of religious instruction actually pursued.

In reply to this, I gave him some sketch of the operations for the religious instruction of the negroes, which had been carried on by the Presbyterian and other denominations. I remarked that many good people who do not take very extended views, fixing their attention chiefly on the efforts which they are making for the religious instruction of slaves, are blind to the sin and injustice of allowing their legal position to remain what it is.

"But how do they shut their eyes to the various cruelties of the system,—the separation of families—the domestic slave trade?"

I replied, "In part, by not inquiring into them. The best kind of people are, in general, those who know least of the cruelties of the system; they never witness them. As in the city of London or Liverpool there may be an amount of crime and suffering which many residents may live years without seeing or knowing, so it is in the slave states."