The animals, a pair of handsome bays, were standing near by, and he turned to look at them. "Suppose they were black," said he to himself, "would they be any meaner, less powerful, less valuable, less spirited? I do not see that color makes much difference with animals, why should it make so much difference among men? Who made the white men masters over us?" He thought long and deeply, but there came no answer. "Then, too, they are larger than I am, and there are two of them! What makes the difference that I should be higher priced? Ah, I have a _mind_, and it's my mind that they have sold," he added, with a sudden gleam of thought. "And what have I of my own? Nothing! They buy, and sell, and control soul and mind and body." Lewis had yet to learn that even the poor slave may with all his soul believe on Jesus, and no master on earth could hinder him. Mr. Stamford had never given his slaves any religious teachings, and perhaps it was just as well that _he_ did not attempt anything of that kind, for he is said to have taught his white congregation that it was no more harm to separate a family of slaves than a litter of pigs. His new master, whose name was Johns, lived about thirty miles distant, and nearly as much as that nearer the boundary line between Ohio and Kentucky, an item which the boy noticed with much satisfaction. On their way home Mr. Johns took special pains to impress on the mind of his new property the fact, that the condition of his being well treated in his new home would be his good behavior. "It's of no use," he says, "for my boys to go to showing off airs, and setting themselves up. I can't stand that. But if they are quiet and industrious, I give them as good allowances and as good quarters as anybody." What Mr. Johns called good behavior in servants, was their doing promptly and precisely just as he told them to, without venturing to think for themselves anything about it. If any of them did venture an opinion before him he shut them up with a cut of the whip or a sharp word, so that the utmost extent of their conversation in his presence was a strict answer to his questions, and "Yes, massa," in reply to his commands.