" he said, "what a scandal and disgrace to the
Protestant religion, that Christians of America should openly practise
and countenance this enslaving of the Africans! I have for a long time
holden my peace,--may the Lord forgive me!--but I believe the time is
coming when I must utter my voice. I cannot go down to the wharves or
among the shipping, without these poor dumb creatures look at me so that
I am ashamed,--as if they asked me what I, a Christian minister, was
doing, that I did not come to their help. I must testify."

Mrs. Scudder looked grave at this earnest announcement; she had
heard many like it before, and they always filled her with alarm,
because--Shall we tell you why?

Well, then, it was not because she was not a thoroughly indoctrinated
anti-slavery woman. Her husband, who did all her thinking for her, had
been a man of ideas beyond his day, and never for a moment countenanced
the right of slavery so far as to buy or own a servant or attendant
of any kind; and Mrs. Scudder had always followed decidedly along the
path of his opinions and practice, and never hesitated to declare the
reasons for the faith that was in her. But if any of us could imagine an
angel dropped down out of heaven, with wings, ideas, notions, manners,
and customs all fresh from that very different country, we might easily
suppose that the most pious and orthodox family might find the task of
presenting him in general society and piloting him along the courses of
this world a very delicate and embarrassing one. However much they might
reverence him on their own private account, their hearts would probably
sink within them at the idea of allowing him to expand himself according
to his previous nature and habits in the great world without. In like
manner, men of high, unworldly natures are often reverenced by those who
are somewhat puzzled what to do with them practically.

Mrs. Scudder considered the Doctor as a superior being, possessed by a
holy helplessness in all things material and temporal, which imposed
on her the necessity of thinking and caring for him, and prevising the
earthly and material aspects of his affairs.

There was not in Newport a more thriving and reputable business at that
time than the slave-trade. Large fortunes were constantly being turned
out in it, and what better Providential witness of its justice could
most people require?

Beside this, in their own little church, she reflected with alarm, that
Sime