Slavery _per se_ is not conducive to self-restraint of the enslaved, to high ethical standards, and the best types of human life. When the interest and authority of owners were removed and former religious instruction was crippled or withdrawn, the negroes fell rapidly from what had been attained in slavery to a state of immorality, and, in some cases, to original fetichism. Some remained immovable in their former faith, but many, especially of the younger generation, of both sexes, gave proof of what degeneracy can accomplish in a quarter of a century. It is very common for them to divorce religion and piety. Artificial excitement, passionate emotion, was substituted for a faith which should be the product of a knowledge of and deep reverence for the Word of God. The danger of doing harm, or injustice, restrains my pen from disclosing a mass of disgusting material which could only shock sensibilities and stagger credulity. It is, besides, very easy to magnify our own virtues and others' vices. It is a prevalent mode of religiousness to repent of other people's sins, and to get superfluous merit by showing how others fall short of our attainments. Lowell said, "Everybody has a mission (with a capital M) to attend to everybody else's business," and "to make his own whim the law, and his own range the horizon of the universe." We have all read of the philanthropic Mrs. Jelliby neglecting home and children to sweeten the lot of the unregenerate natives of Borrioboola Gha. Still, testimony, to satisfy the most skeptical, could be adduced _ad nauseam_, from men and women doing educational and missionary work among the colored people, to show the deplorable depths into which multitudes have sunk.