of
about thirty years of age, with a fine intelligent eye--was very simple
in dress, and unostentatious in manner. His language, too, was
appropriate and correct. He was evidently a man of good common sense.
His text was Psalm li. l2, l3. He referred very properly to the
occasion on which the Psalm was composed, and drew from the text a
large mass of sound practical instruction. The chapel (capable of
containing about 150 people) was only half-full. Before the sermon, I
had observed a very old negro, in a large shabby camlet cloak and a
black cap, ascending the pulpit-stairs. I supposed that, being dull of
hearing, he had taken that position that he might better listen to the
service. However, when the sermon was over, this patriarchal-looking
black man rose to pray; and he prayed "like a bishop," with astonishing
correctness and fluency! He was formerly a slave in Kentucky, and was
at this time about eighty years of age. They call him "Father Watkins."
At the close I introduced myself to him and to the minister. They both
expressed regret that they had not had me up in the pulpit, to tell
them something, as "Father Watkins" said, about their "brothers and
sisters on the other side of the water." The minister gave me his card,
and invited me and my wife to take tea with him on Tuesday afternoon.
This was the first invitation I received within the city of Cincinnati
to take a meal anywhere; and it was the more interesting to me as
coming from a coloured man.

In the evening I went, according to appointment, to the Welsh Chapel.
There I met a Mr. Bushnel, an American missionary from the Gaboon
River, on the western coast of Africa. He first spoke in English, and I
afterwards a little in Welsh; gladly embracing the opportunity to
exhort my countrymen in that "Far West" to feel kindly and tenderly
towards the coloured race among them; asking them how they would
themselves feel if, as Welshmen, they were branded and despised
wherever they went! I was grieved to see the excess to which they
carried the filthy habit of spitting. The coloured people in _their_
chapel were incomparably cleaner in that respect.

In the morning a notice had been put into my hand at the Presbyterian
Church for announcement, to the effect that Mr. Bushnel and myself
would address the "monthly concert at the church in Sixth-street" on
the morrow evening. Of this arrangement not a syllable had been said to
me beforehand. This was American liberty,