A healthy young negress, brought up by hand, Her regular teeth prove her yet in her prime, While her well-knitted arms tell of work in her time. She can cook, wash and iron--pick cotton or sew, And the twins at her side, productiveness show. We will sell them together or singly, as best You may judge, for their owner no choice has expressed. How much shall I have for the mother, alone? ’Tis a positive sale of flesh and of bone-- Six hundred is all that I hear--what a price! You may double it safely, is all my advice. Seven, eight--cheap as dirt! nine, ten, are you done? A bargain for you, sir! an A., number one! And now for a boy; stand up, you young dog! Don’t be blubbering there like a water-soaked log; Give a fair bid at once--right quick, if you please, My friends, for I shall not dwell long upon these!” “O! massa!” for mercy, my darling boys buy! Cried the wo-stricken mother, “without them I die!” A tittering laugh was the sole answer given, But I knew that appeal was recorded in heaven. Again the sharp ring of the hammer was heard, And with it, the oath-enforced threatening word, “Tear the niggers apart, gag the woman’s black mouth! Let the young rascals stay while she goes further south.” I felt my blood boil--my arm rising to deal One blow at the wretch, conscience hardened as steel, When a low, gentle voice I could but obey, Whispered: “Vengeance is mine--I the Lord, will repay!” Looking upwards, sweet faces, like angels’ were seen, Of those who the friends of the bondsman had been. Once, hated and scorned by the proud ones of earth, None could tell in that day the amount of their worth. They toiled to remove all oppression and crime, With faith ever strong in their mission sublime. In the white harvest field, ’till their sands were all run, And the welcome was heard, “Faithful servant! well done!” Once more, to another apartment I turned; My bosom, with more indignation yet burned, When I viewed all the engines of torture employed Under guise of religion, when thousands destroyed, Confessed before man a God answering prayer, And died in the faith they had lived to declare. Here were thumbscrews, racks, pillories, scaffolds and thongs-- Here, the irons oft-heated to bore human tongues, With the chains and the whips to torment, maim and slay Christian sufferers in dungeons remote from the day. In the middle arose the huge black corner stone Of that building of Rome, long centuries known, When the devil’s own priests loved to torture and pain, And autos de-fe soiled the blue skies of Spain. “O! shame!” I exclaimed, that Satan should bind In such hellish arts the souls of mankind-- That man, the object of Infinite Love. The cruelest foe to his brother should prove!” “Too true, my dear sir,” a mild voice replied,