knew very well that the laws of the country would uphold him in it. After considerable discussion, the best bargain he could make was either to pay eight hundred dollars, or have his wife put up at auction. He consented to the first alternative, and his unwelcome visiter departed. When he had gone, Dr. W. told his wife what had happened. The poor woman burst into tears and said, “That as Mr. J. _was her own father_, she had hoped that when he heard she had found an honorable protector, he would have left her in peace.” _Q._ There can be no doubt that slavery is a bad system; but don’t you think it ought to be done away gradually? Ought not the slaves to be fitted for freedom, before they are emancipated? _A._ The difficulty is, it is utterly impossible to fit them for freedom while they remain slaves. The masters know very well that their vassals will be servile just in proportion as they are brutally ignorant; hence all their legislation tends to keep them so. It is a disgraceful fact, that in half of these United States the working men are expressly forbidden to learn to read or write. The law ordains that twenty lashes shall be inflicted upon every slave found in an assembly met together for the purpose of “mental instruction.” Any white person who teaches a slave to read or write, or gives or sells him any book (the Bible not excepted), is fined two hundred dollars; and any colored person who commits the same _crime_, is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or with imprisonment. The Rev. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, said in one of his sermons: “Generally speaking, the slaves appear to us to be without God and without hope in the world—a _nation of heathen in our very midst_. We cannot cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people; for we withhold the Bible from _our_ servants, and keep them in ignorance of it.” A writer in the Observer, of Charleston, S. C. says: “I hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds of our synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never _heard_ of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer.” The reason assigned for these oppressive laws is, that “teaching slaves to read and write tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds,” and to produce insurrection. In Georgia, a white man is fined five hundred dollars for teaching a slave or free negro to read or write; and if a colored man attempts to teach the alphabet even to his own child, he is liable to be fined or whipped, according to the discretion of the court. Such laws are necessary for the preservation of this detestable system; and while such laws exist, how can the slaves ever be better fitted for freedom? When the British government insisted that female slaves should no longer be flogged naked in the Colonies, the Jamaica legislature replied, that the practice could not possibly be laid aside, “_until_ the negro women acquired more of