in ten yards of him, while on any
other you cannot approach him within a hundred. At ten o'clock the
household is assembled in the drawing-room, the piano--with, it may
be, a flute accompaniment--is made to do the organ's duty, and the
full service of the Prayer-Book is read and sung and listened to with
reverent attention. There are yet two hours to dinner, and as the
wild, wailing chant from the negro-yard comes to our ears we determine
to visit their chapel. If there was one point in which, more than
in others, the Carolina planter was faithful to his duty, it was in
securing the privileges of religion to his slaves. Every plantation
had its chapel, sometimes rivaling in its appointments the churches
for the whites. One of the largest congregations of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in South Carolina, having lost its silver during the
sack of Columbia, is still using the sterling communion service of a
chapel for negroes which was burned upon a neighboring plantation. The
missionary is to-day upon another portion of his circuit, and we have
a specimen of genuine African Christianity. On one side the rough
benches are filled with men clad, for once in the week, in _clean_
cotton shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young
dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats
and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats,
which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are
ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas,"
with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff
high turbans, and others folded _a la_ Lady Washington over their
bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white woolen "frocks,"
without handkerchiefs on head or breast; while the children who
are not minding babies at home or hunting rabbits in the woods are
gathered about the door.

Old Bob, the preacher, rises and fixes his eyes severely on the small
fry near the door: "We's gwine to wushup de Lawd, an' I desiah dem
chilluns to know dat no noise nor laffin', nor no so't o' onbehavin',
kin be 'lowed; so min' wot you's 'bout dere. You yerry me? (hear me)."

Then, adjusting the great silver-rimmed spectacles and opening a
ragged prayer-book (upside down), he proceeds to read over the hymn,
the whole congregation listening with rapt attention. As he utters the
last word all rise together, the old women with closed eyes, heads on
one side